Rethinking tech in the cost-of-doing-business crisis
16 September 2025
Reading time: 4 minutes
When the cost of doing business rises, it's a common reaction for leaders to cut budgets and pause anything new. That can offer a quick fix for the short-term squeeze, but it often quietly eats away at how well things run and how people feel about their work. What helps long term is removing the friction that slows teams down. That's where the right tech makes a real difference.
Real-world friction slows teams down
When frontline teams spend their days handling support tickets or chasing approvals, these kinds of inefficiencies might seem minor, but over time they quietly drive up the cost of doing business. Take Benevity, for example – a software company that helps businesses run workplace giving, volunteering, and grantmaking programmes. This company started using Zendesk's AI-powered intelligent triage to sort tickets by urgency. Zendesk's AI reads the language, tone and intent of each ticket to figure out how urgent it is, then automatically gives it a priority level so it goes to the right place faster. This has ended up saving their agents nearly a minute on each ticket, cutting the time to solve issues by more than half. It means staff can finally shift their focus from repetitive admin to supporting customers in a more meaningful way (Zendesk, 2024).
Whilst some might assume it's a staffing issue, the real blocker is the everyday friction that slows people down and stops things getting done. When routine tasks take less time, teams can focus on solving bigger problems or making services better.
Infrastructure that pulls its weight
At the same time, the systems that underpin everything are getting much smarter. Private 5G networks are appearing in places where constant operation really matters, like factories, warehouses, and ports. Sceptics might dismiss this as a passing trend, but industry experts at STL Partners estimate that just using predictive maintenance could save global manufacturing nearly £109 billion (STL Partners, 2025).
Imagine a production line where a machine breaks down overnight. Without smart infrastructure, discovery wouldn't happen until someone arrived the next morning. Then there would be scrambling, trying to figure out what went wrong. But with early warnings from predictive alerts, it might be fixed before it even becomes a problem: the line stays running, and teams aren’t rushing around at the start of the day.
Pairing private 5G with edge computing makes that idea even stronger. This means that instead of sending every bit of sensor data to a far-off cloud, it’s analysed right where it's created, in milliseconds. That's exactly what companies doing quality checks with computer vision on the factory floor, or drone inspections out in the field, count on. They need insights to be fast and local. According to Fortsol, this cuts down on cloud charges and gets rid of any delay in making decisions. More importantly, it frees teams up to do things machines simply can't (Fortsol, 2025).
More organisations are starting to treat tech as something that removes daily friction, rather than treating it as another cost to manage. And seeing tech as a way to cut through operational friction is often what unlocks meaningful change.
So, what might a leader do next? Start small. Pick one process that’s full of friction – maybe it’s how support tickets are handled, or how equipment is monitored – and try a tool that lightens the load. Use something that sorts tickets automatically based on what employees write. Or explore how private 5G with edge computing could be trialled in a single warehouse setting. Let the data do the talking. It’ll show you what those hidden hold-ups are really costing, and how much more smoothly things could run.
The real aim is giving people back their time, as well as trimming budgets. It's those small wins that start to bring the cost of doing business back under control. Getting rid of the little things that slow everyone down. When things just work, teams notice. So do leaders. And that kind of shift sticks.
That's what true structural efficiency really means. Tech used this way both saves money and changes how an organisation deals with pressure, so next time budgets tighten up, it keeps running full speed ahead.
Where to focus next
- Look at where everyday processes are wasting time. Tech can't help if the bottlenecks are cultural.
- Don't wait for perfect. Start small with tools that remove friction, then scale what works.
- Use infrastructure that does more than just connect. Prioritise tools that make decisions faster, or lighten the load on a team.
- Focus on real gains: fewer delays and stronger continuity. That's where cost control becomes lasting improvement.
Footnotes