With 2019 wrapping up, many executives are looking for ways to stay relevant and innovative and stand out against their competition in 2020. Many companies are pursuing goals of increasing revenue and profitability, reducing costs, and expanding their cause. How are they going to do this? After looking at trends for next year, below are our top suggestions on how to take your business to the next level.

• Improve productivity by automating

Automating processes for a growing company is a great way to get the most out of each workday. If your team is spending time on manual data entry every month, they probably don’t enjoy their work, you likely are not getting accurate data and their direction is not as focused on the purpose of your business as it could be. You may also lose the ability to make strategic decisions quickly because the data is useless by the time it becomes available. Cutting out manual processes, integrating systems and relying more on the cloud can speed delivery, eliminate the lengthy month-end close cycle and provide accurate results quickly, while data is still relevant.

Take a look at every team members’ daily, weekly, and monthly tasks. How many of them can be automated by upgrading your technology? While not everything can be upgraded at once, you can pin-point which manual tasks are taking too much time and which ones are costing the business by not being completed faster. This can be true for customer experience practices, month-end accounting processes, and sales activities.

• Expand Your Reach

In 2020, the cloud will be even more prominent for businesses than it already has in the past two decades. By leveraging the cloud, you can influence more existing and potential customers in different markets and reach top potential employees for open positions.  The cloud improves access and collaboration like never before.

If you aren’t already using the cloud to grow your customer base, expand into new markets and reach the right employees for your firm, analyze which systems you are currently using for these processes and find out if they can be converted to the cloud.  If you don’t have a Customer Relationship Management system, human resource management tools and effective accounting solutions in place already, now may be the time to consider implementing one or all of these.  Most applications now have cloud-based options with open APIs allowing for seamless connections between each other. Rely on a trusted advisor who can educate you on the leading systems and processes being utilized in your industry. Consider how upgrading, integrating or implementing a best-in-class solution can give your company an advantage over your competition.

• Elevate Your Customer Experience

The customer experience is what makes top companies different from their competitors. Companies who offer similar products and services must differentiate themselves from competitors and create loyal customers. How do they do that? They go above and beyond to make the customer feel special, have a memorable experience and exceed their customer’s expectations. Why is that important? Because there is so much competition that if your company isn’t memorable and competent you won’t create a loyal customer, they may not purchase from your company a second time and they will likely share their negative experience online.

What can you do? Evaluate your ideal customer experience and focus your efforts on delivering just that. Where do you go beyond? Where do you fall short? Are there companies that you have had a positive experience with in the past? Can you use innovation in your approach to interacting with customers more effectively?  Use the power of customer experience analytics to measure behavior, demographic and other metrics in real-time.  Find ways to reward your engaging customers, engage with them on social media and strive to make customer experience advocates out of all your employees.  Taking these initiatives can improve your current customer experience and make it a competitive advantage.