Small-business owners often say they want to use cloud computing solutions or mobile technology to make their businesses more efficient, but they're not walking the talk, according to a Sage survey on how entrepreneurs with 0 to 9 employees manage their companies. In fact, Sage found many small-business owners still use paper to manage calendars (13 percent), projects (32 percent), to-do lists (38 percent) and time tracking (23 percent).
Two-thirds of business owners say they use three or more different software applications (desktop, Web, mobile), along with manual systems, to manage day-to-day operations. No wonder 32 percent say they and their staffs spend up to 25 percent of their time on basic administrative tasks, while another 24 percent spend up to half their time on these tasks. Why it matters to your business: Switching between multiple applications and systems is not only time-consuming, it also increases the probability of error, because you end up entering the same information multiple times in different places. If you think you don't have time to look for applications that work link together, or to understand how to link your existing applications together, try adding up all the time you're wasting now. You'll probably streamline your operations in less time than you think.