At eManaged, everything we do comes back to one core belief:

When local businesses succeed, our entire community succeeds.

That’s why we run Lunch & Learn sessions across the regions we support. Not to sell. Not to pitch. But to give business owners practical, real-world insights they can actually use.

At our recent Riverland session, we invited Kent to speak on a topic that many businesses are chasing… but few are truly prepared for.

Growth.

And what he shared was a reality check every business owner needs to hear.

If you run a factory around the Geelong region, your day lives and dies by uptime: machines running, orders shipping, suppliers paid, and quality locked in. When technology falls behind—old PCs on the shop floor, clunky Wi-Fi in the warehouse, an email “payment change” that slips past a busy accounts team—the costs show up as missed schedules, rework, and reputational damage.

This article gives you a practical way to spot when your technology needs a refresh, why phishing is hitting manufacturers harder than ever, and how to build a simple, staged plan that protects output, people, and profits.

Running a business may never be totally smooth sailing, but it doesn’t have to be a complete grind all the time either. Managing complexities with your business’ technology is a good way to ensure that things move ahead with some efficiency. Today, we look at four ways to effectively handle complexities in the realm of business technology.

Operational problems can not only stymie growth, they can trigger a lot of other issues that can be detrimental to the long term success and sustainability of a business. Unfortunately, it’s often a little difficult to see while you are in the heat of battle. Let’s take a look at some of the solutions that can solve some of the common operational problems that small businesses run into.

When it comes to your business’ continuity, you should know that even small issues pose a great threat—especially when they involve your business’ data. Let’s examine two situations where even small mistakes could lead to a cascade of problems that could leave your organization strapped for cash and struggling to stay alive.

Productivity is the lifeblood of any business, and understanding what it entails is paramount for every decision-maker in the corporate world. The concept of productivity is highly contextual, as no two businesses operate in the same way or are managed identically. Today, we present a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that you need to consider. These twelve metrics will assist you in gauging whether your business is meeting productivity expectations or falling short.

Your business only has so many resources, from its budget to its time to its employees’ capabilities. This is what makes it so crucial to properly manage all of them.

Let’s run through some basic practices that can help you make the most of what your business has at its disposal.

Ask anyone that runs a business and they’ll tell you that it’s not one thing, it’s dozens of interconnected tasks that make up an efficiently functioning business. The smaller a business is, the more that the people that work in it need to do. This month, we wanted to discuss how even small investments in technology can make a massive difference in the way a business operates. 

Technology is an incredibly powerful factor when it comes to your business operations, so we wanted to share how a solid IT strategy can make a significant impact on your company. We’ll explore how poor IT implementation and strategy can affect performance, as well as what you need to do to prioritize your IT.

Businesses today deal in contracts. Every agreement has a proverbial paper trail. Traditional paper-based contracts are not only time-consuming, but they also involve manual efforts and can be prone to errors. This is where eSignature tools come into play, offering numerous benefits that revolutionize the way we handle and sign documents. This week, we explore the key advantages of eSignature tools and how they can positively impact businesses of all sizes.

Every business is trying to do what they do with fewer interruptions and reduced costs. The more you can do with less, the more profitable your business can become. Building efficient processes is essential for the growing business, so this week will explore various strategies and practical tips to help you build more efficient processes.

We tend to focus a lot of our time on this blog talking about the technologies that businesses can (and usually should) use as a part of their operations. However, without clients or customers coming in, there’s only so much good that these technologies can do. That’s why we wanted to briefly touch on a few technologies that can help you attract more people to your business so that all the other IT solutions we recommend can live up to their potential.

The reliance on remote workers has grown exponentially over the past couple of years, and presents businesses some stark challenges as well as some amazing opportunities. As a result, a lot of businesses have tried to find middle ground and started implementing a hybrid approach to their workforce. Let’s take a look at what hybrid work entails and how it can benefit your organization.

While extremely useful, there are plenty of potential frustrations when using technology for your business. From extended downtime from broken technology to hackers trying to steal your data to tools that don’t really fit the specific needs of your business: managing a lot of technology can be difficult. In this blog, we are set to discuss three things you should focus on to get out in front of potential technology problems.

For business managers, it can sometimes be difficult to create policies and procedures that allow for the efficiency that they’d like to see from their business. Business growth leads to more complex situations which in turn demand more complex procedures. This enhanced complexity can not only get constant in that you need to alter the way things are done, you also could fall into the trap of mistakenly putting productivity roadblocks up that can alter the way your business operates.

Keeping a business running is no easy feat, with dozens of moving parts and considerations to maintain at any given time. Arguably, this has never been more true than it is now, when you combine current inflation and labor shortages with the technological options businesses now have. In short, it can be exceptionally confusing…and challenging in terms of budgeting it out.

Small manufacturers and distributors operate under a whole separate set of conditions than their larger competitors. This is because they don’t have the available capital to have any noticeable inefficiencies, and if they do have some, they are going to definitely affect their ability to compete. One solution that these organizations can lean on is a logistics platform. 

Have you ever felt like there was simply too much to do and unless you light a fire under your butt, you have no chance to get it all done? What if this state is standard operating procedure? For many small business owners and employees, this is the reality of going to work every day. In this week’s blog we thought we would discuss three strategies that work to lighten the load when it seems like the to-do list is just too big.

All successful businesses want to grow and better themselves, as growth is a direct indicator that you are doing something right, from providing better services to your customers or servicing more customers. If you’re not ready to adapt to this growth, you’re in for a difficult time. Here are three ways you can keep your business operating even when you’re experiencing unprecedented growth.

Technology is only effective in the hands of the right—or, at least, well-trained—employees. To work toward this goal, you’ll have to ramp up your hiring processes to ensure you garner the interest of the right candidates for the jobs. Nowhere is this more true than for your IT department. Let’s go over how you can make your business an attractive employment option for skilled and innovative technicians.