7 tips for improving your business ROI in 2022

Happy 2022 - and once again we are entering a new year in turmoil.?

Two years of lockdown isn’t coming to an end as many of us hoped and the coronavirus storm continues to rage. However, experience has shown that every time there is a major bump in the road, some organisations and individuals do very well as a result.

Here are seven ways to make sure you’re one of them and have a great year, this – and every – year…

Adopt better decision making processes

Gartner research ?shows that 65% of business leaders believe the decision-making process has become more complicated. Additionally, six in 10 reported since the pandemic began, they need to make faster decisions - and bigger ones.

Research by Bain and Co. ?shows that decision making effectiveness is?95% correlated?with financial performance. Making improvements to your company’s decision making gives a solid boost to your bottom line.

The study also showed that many companies have enormous scope to improve their performance. Top-quintile companies score an average of 71 out of 100 in decision effectiveness, while companies in the other four quintiles score, on average, 30 and below. This means that the typical organisation has the potential to more than double its decision effectiveness.

Harness the power of diversity

A proven way to improve decision making is to embrace diversity.?A Forbes study ?concluded that decisions made and executed by diverse teams delivered 60% better results.

There is substantial research to show that diversity brings many advantages to an organisation: increased profitability and creativity, stronger governance, more resilience and better problem-solving abilities being just a few.

A?Boston consulting group study ?found that companies with more diverse management teams have 19% higher revenues due to innovation. Diverse companies are also 70% more likely to capture new markets.

Encourage a culture of inclusion

But a diverse team is not enough - having a seat at the table doesn’t necessarily mean having a voice…teams must also be inclusive to be effective. That means every voice is included when teams come together to create, innovate and decide

A study that analysed c.600 business decisions ?made by 200 different business teams in a wide variety of companies over two years found:

• ??Inclusive teams make better business decisions up to 87% of the time
• ?Teams that follow an inclusive process make decisions twice as fast with half the meetings

Research in the 2018?Deloitte Review ?revealed that companies that follow an inclusive culture are twice more likely to meet or exceed financial targets, six times more likely to be agile & innovative, and eight times more likely to achieve a better business outcome.

Evidence from recent?multi-award winning work ?done by ?What If! showed that building a culture of diversity and inclusion creates bigger, bolder ideas which in turn fuels innovation and growth.

Collaborate better

When teams with big ambitions work towards a common goal, amazing things happen. Employees are able to complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses and vastly increase the chances of success. This is why collaboration and teamwork play a crucial role in the competitive advantage of any business.?Companies that communicate effectively are also?4.5x ?more likely to retain the best employees.

However, collaboration remains one of the most underrated and underutilised workplace tactics. A whopping?86% ?of employees and executives cite lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures.

Make meetings matter

The average CEO ?spends 72% of their time in meetings.?According to Steven Rogelberg , author of “The Surprising Science of Meetings” and a chancellor’s professor at the University of North Carolina, meetings are “the largest single cost that goes unevaluated and undiscussed on an organisation’s balance sheet”.

Poorly run meetings waste attendees’ time and “result in immediate frustration,” Rogelberg said. “When we have a bad meeting, it sticks with us, we ruminate, and it negatively affects our productivity.” Plus, Rogelberg states, employees constantly subjected to bad meetings have lower engagement overall, and sometimes wind up quitting.

In one study, Rogelberg estimated that 71% of senior management meetings were unproductive and inefficient. Studies by the?Harvard Business School ?show that the coronavirus pandemic has increased the number?of workers’ meetings per?day and many employees?have complained of?“Zoom?fatigue,” or video-call-induced exhaustion.

On the flip side, a good meeting is a conduit for change; it improves productivity, communication, and integration of the team’s work, not to mention job satisfaction and work-life balance. In fact, regularly scheduled well run meetings help align your organisation’s strategy with your people, and even reduce other unnecessary / repetitive meetings. As Paul Axtell, author of?Meetings Matter?argues , a quality meeting experience leaves attendees feeling connected, valued, fulfilled and engaged.?BCG ?research shows that more engaged employees are 75% more productive and stay for longer.?

Adopt design thinking

Design Thinking, as a concept, is rapidly being picked up today as a solution-based technique to major problems – and at this rate, it might just be the next big business approach.

Worldwide leading brands like Google, Apple, IBM, GM, SAP, Uber and Samsung have adopted it into their core business model.?In fact, brands like?PepsiCo ,?Oil of Olay ?and?AirBnB ?all applied design thinking principles to avert potential crises and transform their business.?Salesforce's ?sales team embraced design thinking in its sales discovery process and realised a 100% increase in revenue growth as a result

An empathy-driven approach towards problem-solving through experimentation and innovation has made design thinking a favourite among business leaders since companies are always looking for ways to step into the future. Recent times have thrown an increasing number of unprecedented problems at us, compelling us to consider human behaviour and reactions to change and solutions. Design thinking is a framework to do just that, in a structured manner.?

Becoming more Agile

More than a buzzword, Agile is a powerful business tool that’s here to stay — and it’s quickly becoming table stakes, particularly in highly?competitive industries. Many large, successful organisations like Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, MoonPig, FitBit, Cisco,?LEGO and Ericsson now employ Agile ways of working, and have seen great results.

Barclays ?adopted an Agile approach and reported greater levels of happiness, more speed when launching new products, and greater adaptability than before, allowing them to respond better to internal feedback or external changes.

Agile allows teams to be creative, flexible, innovative and results-driven. It produces higher quality results, in less time, at lower cost and risk.?CEOs most often cite agility ?as the trait they admire most in companies that have navigated the Covid crisis well.

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