The future of your business is exciting: lab-based thinking, remote and global employees, and a strategy of adopting smart tech. However, with amazing innovation come new challenges to navigate. 74% of business and HR leaders rate their work environment as “complex” or “highly complex”, according to this Deloitte study.

So how to tackle the future? Sage offers three strategies to build tomorrow’s success.

1. Start Thinking Like a Lab

Consider the way a factory runs: cookie-cutter clock-punching setup where people are reliably churning out the status quo. That’s fine for some businesses, but if you want to surge into the future at the top of your industry, your business might want to operate like a science lab. Make a hypothesis, and come up with a way to test it. Will our newsletter be opened more if we send it on a Saturday afternoon? Do our sales prospects respond better to a product brochure with less text on it? Are our internal processes more efficient if we use IM instead of email? 

See what works, make a new hypothesis, and test it again. Get every employee involved in this kind of creative, critical analysis. Before you know it, they’ll be making incremental improvements regularly in every part of your operations—and you’ll see the difference in your bottom line.

2. Get Out of the Office—For Good

News flash: it’s 2016. We have the technology to conduct business from anywhere—there’s less and less need to have every employee at their desks from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. Your employees know that, so offer them some flexibility. Consider offering work from home options a few days a month, or relocate the whole team to a cool co-working space for an afternoon, just for a change of scenery. These small changes will help everyone feel a little more balanced, and balance means a happy employee.

Another way to “get of the office” in the future is to consider employees from places other than your neighborhood. With cloud-based business apps and video conferencing options galore, there’s no reason you can’t hire the most qualified person for the job—even if they live two time zones away. This kind of thinking will help your business meet the future head-on with the right people on your team, no matter where you’re located.

3. Adopt Smart Tech

The last few decades have been characterized by explosive, unprecedented tech growth and adoption. Keep up with the latest developments, because it can give you an edge on every competitor who’s just doing things the old way.

Build new technology into the core of your workflow. For example, a cutting edge payroll system can save your team tons of manual entry time, and a killer ERP can make your project estimates better. Whatever your industry, the right technology will eliminate frustrating, low value tasks and free you up to run and grow your business the way it deserves.

Want more tips for building a workplace of the future? Check out this eBook by Sage, How to Futureproof Your Business, and download your copy for free.

Jayne Hallock is Editor of Sage Live.