Six ways your business could be wasting time and how digital tech provides a solution

If you want to work fewer hours, running your own small business probably isn’t for you. Reportedly, UK small-business owners typically work 45-hour weeks – significantly more than the 37-hour UK average. 

Many small-business owners often work more than 45 hours a week, of course, often spread over six or even seven days (thought to be the case for more than half). Having to take care of a wide variety of tasks is a primary reason, while long hours also go with the territory when times are tough and you need to spend less, do and sell more. 

Long-hours work culture 

Whether you recognise it or not, wasted time could be another reason why you and other small-business owners, managers and employees work longer hours. Research carried out by Slack/Salesforce in 2024 estimated that, on average, small businesses wasted 96 minutes a day, which is about three weeks a year.  

As reported by the International Business Times, UK small businesses were “losing nearly a full week [33 hours] each month to routine administrative tasks”. Much of your time can also be stolen by “busy work”, which refers to tasks that consume your time but contribute little to your business. UK workers are believed to waste 13 hours each week on tasks with low or no value (source: The HR Director). 

Wasted time means wasted money, of course – possibly amounting to many thousands of pounds or more each year, but, thankfully, digital technology provides a time-saving solution. So, where might your business be wasting time and how can digital tech help?    

1 Time-stealing manual processes 

Many small businesses still rely on spreadsheets, paper forms and manual data entry. That may not feel like a big deal, which is why the true cost can go unnoticed. But manual processes can consume many hours each week. They also make errors more likely, with more time and money lost to correct them. For example, simple manual bookkeeping mistakes can inflate your tax bills unnecessarily. 

Digital technology can make your processes much more efficient. It can automate repetitive tasks (eg invoicing, stock ordering, payroll, etc), while streamlining your processes, systems and operations. Digital forms can eliminate offline paperwork, while integrations between software systems (eg accounting and CRM) saves lots of time by removing duplicate data entry. 

2 Inefficient stock management 

This can take up your time and tie up your money. Many small businesses still track inventory manually or rely on guesswork, which inevitably leads to waste. Excess stock can sit on shelves for months or even years, and you may need to lower your price to shift it, while running out of stock means you lose sales. 

Inventory management software tells you your precise stock levels in real time. It can be linked to other software (eg point of sale) so that ordering can be automated, ensuring that you never again order too much or not enough.  

3 Pointless meetings 

More than a third (35%) of business meetings are thought to be unproductive, costing UK firms £50bn a year, according to London School of Economics and Political Science research.  

Having to spend valuable time and money travelling to and from pointless meetings makes things much worse. Digital tech removes the need to travel, while enabling you to get more from meetings and arrange and confirm them easily and quickly. Digital calendar tools can tell you when a meeting has no agenda, owner or too many invitees, so you may be able to opt out.  

Meetings often only happen because people don’t use technology to its full time-saving potential, for example, by sharing documents for review. Moreover, AI-driven digital tools can save time by generating new structured meeting agendas from previous notes or project data, which prevents vague, drifting conversations, while automatic prompts can keep meetings short and better focused. And video-conferencing tools (eg Teams, Zoom, Meet, etc) can automatically capture decisions, assign actions and conveniently produce summarised minutes. 

4 Hit-and-hope marketing 

Small businesses often waste time and money on marketing activity that just doesn’t deliver, often because they don’t know enough about target customers.  

Analytics tools removes the guesswork by telling you which channels deliver the best return on investment. Being data-driven can save you time and money, while boosting your revenue by ensuring that you’re targeting the right leads/customers with the right messages in the right way at the right time.  

CRM software allows you to better understand your customers’ needs and behaviours, while digital tools can make content creation far quicker, easier and cheaper. And rather than manual posting on social media, automation tools can schedule posts, nurture leads and personalise your communication. Here and elsewhere, digital technology can enable you to do more, quicker, for less, but with greater success. 

5 Inefficient financial management 

Many small businesses just aren’t using digital technology to save time and better manage their finances and cash flow. And because they lack financial visibility and insight, they operate reactively, with the risk that they run into trouble. 

Cloud accounting tools provide real-time financial data that enables far better management. Cashflow forecasting tools predict the future, so that businesses can better budget and manage their spending. Automated reminders can prevent businesses having to fork out more when they miss payments, while expense-tracking apps make cost management far quicker and easier. 

Not only does technology help small businesses to save lots of time when managing their finances, but it also can prevent nasty cash flow surprises. 

6 Wasted wages and freelance costs  

Wages are by far the biggest overhead for many businesses, with many employees and freelancers having to waste valuable time on low-value tasks because digital technology isn’t used to its full potential. Many such tasks can be automated, while technology can prevent duplicated effort and save time through better communication, which can also prevent errors. Technology can boost quality significantly and speed up numerous tasks, ensuring that businesses gain greater value from their people. When you and your people can focus on high-value work, your business immediately becomes much more profitable.  

Counting the cost of inefficiency 

Taken in isolation, each of the above might seem unimportant, especially if you don’t know how much they’re costing you. But, together, they could be quietly draining large amounts from your profits, money you could be using to grow your business (or pay yourself more). Successful businesses now harness the power of digital technology to become more efficient, productive and profitable. 

Why not take the time to assess your workflows, processes and systems to see where effort, time and money are being wasted. Where are you spending time and money but getting poor returns? Is your business suffering from delays or production bottlenecks that technology could prevent?    

Digital technology solutions need not be expensive or difficult to bring into your business, and you could soon be reaping the rewards. You never know, it might save you lots of time, which could mean you no longer have to work so many hours every week. Imagine being able to knock off at the same time as everyone else.

Tech Adoption for Growth is a new, government-funded pilot programme offering free, practical digital support to help SMEs and sole traders in the South West get more value from digital tools. Eligible businesses are assessed and then randomly allocated to receive either one-to-one expert support or the opportunity to take part in expert-led workshops. To apply click here.