While most of the population will view the New Year as a fresh start, for many businesses the pressure is on to save as much money as possible before the end of the 2014/15 financial year.
In general, the future’s looking bright for SMEs. There is a growing confidence in the economy as the demand for independent businesses increases. Government initiatives such as Small Business Saturday are backed to encourage consumers to shop locally, and have achieved lucrative results with hundreds of customers supporting SMEs all over the country.
Despite the positive outlook, SMEs still need to work hard to protect themselves. It wasn’t too long ago that the financial crisis drove many SMEs to the brink of closure. It has taken years of hard work, patience and frugality on the part of small business owners everywhere to finally get themselves back up and running.
With this in mind, SMEs should be even more vigilant with their spending. This means being careful to spend within their means, hunting for savings wherever they can. While it may not be the first thing on your mind when you think about where you can increase profits, being proactive in regards to your energy consumption could be the way to dramatically boost your annual profits.
Nobody likes to be landed with a huge energy bill, even if you have lived the rest of the year as an energy sinner, implementing simple changes around your business is enough to make a big difference. Let’s face it, even a small saving would be welcome.
While a lot of businesses are concerned about maximising their profits through sales, it is interesting to bear this statistic from the Carbon Trust in mind – a 20% reduction in energy consumption offers the same bottom line benefits as a 5% increase in sales.
Is time running out?
The clock is counting down to the end of the financial year on March 31st, but don’t panic, there is still plenty of time to make a saving.
Love Energy Savings has produced this useful infographic packed full of green tips to transform the way that your business consumes energy. Many businesses don’t even realise how much money they could save from making simple changes to the way they operate, with most of these alterations being so minor that you will barely notice any difference around the workplace. The infographic calculates some of the savings that you could make, and it just goes to show the impact that energy use can have on your bottom line.
Your business will be glowing green just in time for the deadline, there is even a ticking countdown clock so you have no excuse not to implement the advice in time.
Cover photo image by kuobo / Flickr
