Reduce Administrative Tasks to Increase Profitability

Reduce Administrative Tasks to Increase Profitability

Yasmina Kharma - May 24, 2018 9:19:41 AM

Time Management

"The bureaucracy is growing to meet the growing needs of the growing bureaucracy”.

Here's how to avoid the overwhelming, cumbersome and time-consuming effects of administrative tasks.

In a previous article, you were told that one of the keys to profitability was to reduce time spent on non-billable hours. This includes reducing administrative tasks. Whatever the sector of your company, these tasks are unavoidable and it is by looking at them from a different angle that you will be able to optimise them.

What do we call “administrative tasks”?

Administrative tasks are nevertheless the scaffolding of any organisation. Even though they’re not billable activities themselves, they represent everything that allows for the company to be able to create value and increase revenue. They allow the smooth running of all services, and often reflect the health of the management of the company. 

These tasks differ according to the nature of the company: for an architecture firm, billing and accounting are considered administrative tasks. However, in an accounting firm, billing and bookkeeping tasks represent the core business. Generally, they refer to the processing of invoices, the composition of customer lists and the archiving of old files. They are often last-minute tasks that are indeed necessary.

Administrative tasks also include meetings, a growing phenomenon throughout the century: according to a study conducted by Perfony, a manager devotes sixteen years of their professional life to meetings. However, 3/4th of the managers interviewed during this study consider these meetings as useless.

Optimising this meeting time can generate a significant increase in profitability (to give you a more precise idea, you can try this calculator proposed by the Harvard Business Review).