Now adays, “Growth” is the hot topic in all corners of business; it’s almost all you hear about! Facebook, Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb all made growth the hip new way to do business, sometimes even at the expense of profit. In fact, Lyft (among others) held its IPO before turning a profit, but people still invested based on the fact that it was a disruptive company with (you guessed it!) sky-high growth.
Now, this isn’t to say that growth is a wholly new indicator of company health. Just the opposite, we measure both private companies and national economies first and foremost by how much they are able to grow in a fiscal year. But at what point does it become necessary to say goodbye to your bottom line in pursuit of this magic number?
We here at Cornerstone Information Services don’t believe you have to sacrifice anything of the sort in order to grow your own business. Here is why:
The Outdated Traditional Model – Does This Sound Like Your Agency?
Simplistically speaking, a company that sells widgets needs employees to produce those widgets. The company can only produce so many widgets with so many people. What happens when orders for widgets outweigh the company’s ability to produce them?
So far, the obvious answer has been “hire more people to make more widgets”. Even TV comedies know this and use it as a punchline. (See: Big Bang Theory when Penny’s “Penny Blossom” business takes off and she has to enlist the help of other characters to finish her inaugural order, providing for the stressful but comedic ending of the episode).
But the reality of today’s business world is not always so straight forward. What if, instead of “widgets”, your company sells services? Finding other employees who could provide the particular service can be taxing. If you can’t find someone right away, you have to train new employees. What happens when those new employees realize – after 3 months of training – that the job isn’t right for them after all? Now, the company has invested time, money, and resources for no return … and they still need to find a way to provide the requested services.
Current employees in the meantime get burned out handling all of their clients, AND all of the paperwork, logs, and back office data that comes with such a venture. So maybe you hire people to handle that back office side of things. And as your company grows, you find yourself with as many employees handling the data as you have those performing the services that you sell. Does this sound familiar?
Modern Problems Require Modern Solutions
Queue automation. In the travel industry, Cornerstone Information Systems is very aware that there are two aspects to your travel company: The outward client facing interactions, and the inward data facing operations.
Obviously, if you are in the travel industry, the joy of your job comes from helping travelers! You want your employees to have as much time and care and energy to spend booking your clients’ flights, cars, hotels, you name it. Not only is that where you can curate your business’ reputation, but it is also where almost all of your revenue producing activities occur.
So now, you have a conundrum. You can:
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- Ask your highly dedicated employees to take time out of helping their clients in order to manage all of the data that your company is generating.
- Spend huge amounts of money hiring new employees to manage that data, resulting in no increases to your net profits
- Automate your data processes.
The Travel Agency of Tomorrow
We have a good idea how much time is “wasted” by doing the same repetitive tasks in business over and over again. A report by WorkMarket actually found that “53% of all employees state that they can save up to 2 work hours a day (240 hours per year)” if the repetitive pieces of their jobs were automated. That is an amazing number! By that rationale, if just one of your employees (let’s say they’re making $15/hour) dealing with back office data in your company could have 2 hours of their time automated, your company would immediately save $3,600 per employee per year.
And this is just for one employee.
Imagine everyone in your office who pulls reports to send to clients. Imagine everyone in your agency who has to keep track of ticket fares, client budgets, traveler invoicing … even those overseeing policy compliance. All of these efforts can be a real drain on time that could otherwise be spent with the client themselves!
That time adds up. And so does your overhead.
The travel company of tomorrow, however, has all of that in hand with automation processes like the solutions offered by Cornerstone Information Systems.
With Cornerstone’s workflow automation and data services, your employees are freed up to do what really matters – tending to your clients!
No extra hires just to deal with data. No wasted hours with your talented agents toiling over spreadsheets. No late nights and overtime pushing out requested reports. Just think. What would your company look like with all of that taken care of for you? Even your clients will notice the difference!
Let Cornerstone Information Systems help transform your company in to the “Travel Agency of Tomorrow”.
Cornerstone’s technicians have worked in both the travel industry and the automation industry since 1992 and know exactly how precious your agents’ time is. Let us help guide you into this new world of workflow automation, and let your employees get back to doing what they love to do – helping their clients.