Business bloomed when Kelly Jamieson found the right technology that helped her company cut costs, improve processes and increase productivity.
Case Study
Who: Kelly Jamieson
What: Edible Blooms
Where: Australia & NZ
Web: eciebooms.com.au
Small-business owners can feel a lot of pressure to gain a competitive advantage from being on the cutting edge of marketing, finance management and technology.
These demands can often detract from your core purpose and even make you wonder why you started your business in the first place. However, by enlisting support from relevant experts you can find breathing space to focus on the big picture and get on with the things you do well.
Kelly says that choosing the right technology, with supporting advice, has been integral to helping her company cut costs, improve processes and increase productivity.
“We started out ahead of our time as an online store when ecommerce was not all that common,” says Jamieson. “We built on early success when we moved to the cloud, and recently strengthened our e-commerce platform to allow for greater synergy with our team around Australia.
“Nowadays, we use a suite of innovative digital technologies including the cloud-based e-commerce solution Neto, workforce-management tool Deputy, and expense-management app Shoeboxed — all available online via the Telstra Apps Marketplace.
“By keeping up to date with innovation we have made real productivity gains, which has freed up capital to reinvest in the business.”
Capital freed up
“By keeping up to date with innovation we have made real productivity gains, which has freed up capital to reinvest in the business.”
Jamieson says there have been times that implementing new technology has had a direct impact on sales and growth. “When we moved to the Neto platform, we halved the time spent on all admin tasks in each of our locations as the system automated so much we were managing manually.
“Because the technology has improved the user experience of the website, we’ve seen a real increase in the results of the online checkout, with the value of the average shopping cart increasing about 10%, plus the actual conversion rate of website visitors to customers increased about 20%. This one piece of technology has double delivered to the bottom line.”
Flexibility & lifestyle
Jamieson says flexibility is a business owner’s biggest asset. “The right tech advice and tools have allowed me to have the kind of lifestyle I want while running a national business. If I didn’t have great systems behind me I just couldn’t do it: I’d be on the plane a lot more, away from my family…”
Seamless integration of technology allows her to run the business mostly from a farm in Port Elliot, South Australia, where she lives with her husband and two children.
“For example, using my Deputy app, I can see where I’ve rostered staff in each location and match this with our orders online to ensure we can effectively meet demands – all from my home office. Before our technology enhancements was constantly on the phone to each of our locations to manage this, which was time-consuming and ineffective.
“We’re at a stage where we have experienced such success, having expanded around Australia and entered New Zealand, that we can consider expanding even further. We believe there is a strong opportunity for us to provide our offering to international markets.
Tim Ladhams, Editor, Inside Small Business
This article first appeared in issue 13 of the Inside Small Business quarterly magazine
