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Peer to peer: Digitized workday allows for focus on priorities

How can we digitize our business and optimize day-to-day tasks for success in a digitized workplace?
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Robert Tercek - Author, Vaporized: Solid Strategies for Success in a Dematerialized World

Work backwards. Begin with customer testing. Start at the first point of contact with customers, the moment when they first learn about your product. Typically this will happen in search or social media.

Begin by testing various concepts, offers, keywords and pricing via paid search placements long before you have an actual product. Study the results on different landing pages. Find out which designs convert the most. Collect the visitor data and register as many as you can into an opt-in marketing program.

During this process you are learning what your customer is willing to pay for, which may be very different from what you had in mind. While you are testing the consumer proposition, you should also be building the website to deliver your product. You’ll also need to source the e-commerce platform and fulfilment so that you are fully ready to go live as soon as you have a product.

By the time you’ve done this work, you should have an excellent understanding of your target customer, which specific offers they respond to, what price they are willing to pay and all of your operational costs for customer acquisition, order processing and fulfilment. And only then can you begin designing your product for real and writing your business plan.

Most people pursuing startups do this process backwards, and that’s one reason why so many start-ups fail. If you are serious about digitizing your business, begin with data. The web is a two-way medium, and you can test the whole system before you invest in building a physical product.

Gary Folker - Senior vice-president, Orion Health Canada

Nowhere is the tremendous impact of digitizing daily tasks more crucial than in the delivery of health care where, ultimately, digital records help to save lives.

The need for health-care organizations to share patient information in real time is a priority for Canadian health care. It improves workflow and positively affects staff and the patient experience. Electronic health records and e-referrals, for example, give health-care providers a 360-degree view of their patients’ medical histories and treatment plans. This helps attending physicians provide care in a timelier manner, alerts them when their patient has been admitted to another hospital, helps avoid duplication of tests and mitigates patient risks for negative drug interactions.

Without these digital health records, patient information is kept on paper records within the care provider’s office and cannot be accessed remotely. This means that if a patient requires treatment at a different hospital, those vital health records are unavailable.

Alberta is a prime example of a province embracing digital health care. The province implemented an electronic medical record program, which resulted in 97% of physicians reporting faster test results, and more thorough access to patient data. Alberta is now implementing an e-referral system which has thus far reduced wait times up to an impressive 90% in referrals for screening and treatment of breast cancer and lung cancer, and for hip and knee replacements.

The digitized medical information also gives a bird’s-eye view of population health trends and patient habits, which can lead to more efficient care plans for those most dependent on our health-care system – chronic disease patients.

Derek Wile - Founder, Volo Concierge

I’ve found that being able to continuously manage and prioritize my tasks based on the additional value they provide has become critical to my success. I use Evernote on my smartphone to manage my task list and priorities because of its simplicity. I try to keep myself as mobile as possible, so even if I’m on the move I can continue to make adjustments on the fly. And if it’s a task needing delegation or outsourcing, it can be easily shared with others.

As an entrepreneur you’re constantly trying to stay above water just to see another day, so low-level tasks should never make high-level demands on your time. This doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t important or don’t need to get done; you just need to find other alternatives such as delegating or outsourcing. Tasks such as fulfilling orders or planning a team event may be necessary, but your time would be much better spent closing your next big deal.

I haven’t always had the luxury of delegating to staff, so outsourcing has become an extremely valuable tool to me. However, outsourcing can become tough when it comes to last-minute tasks that need to be completed within the day or on short notice because of the work that typically goes into finding a freelancer. Because of these slow turnaround times, low-level tasks end up taking precedence over more valuable ones, creating a vicious cycle that can be tough to stop.

Entrepreneurs can use digital “concierge” apps such as our Volo Concierge service to get lower-level tasks done simply and quickly. The idea is to give you more time to lead and expand your business rather than waste time managing a stale one.