Optimal efficiency has surely been the holy grail of human enterprise for as long as people have been trying to stretch a bushel of corn to feed their clan. Now, nearly three centuries after Benjamin Franklin popularized the phrase “time is money,” businesses have an arsenal of tools America’s founding aphorist could not have possibly imagined.
All of the companies recognized in the business services category of this year’s Most Innovative Companies program aim to amplify the success of their clients, and a number of them are focused specifically on enhancing efficiency. “These companies are helping with cost containment,” says Columbia Business School professor and author Rita McGrath. “Bottom line, there are two ways to increase profitability. One, you can increase revenue while holding costs constant, or two, you can lower costs while maintaining or growing revenue.”
SevenRooms and BrewLogix target the food and beverage sector. The former offers a platform that aggregates dining reservation data, letting managers filter by various parameters to glean details on the evening’s guests, from dietary restrictions to wine preferences; the platform also enables restaurants to notify the most valued patrons of table availability in real time. BrewLogix gives barkeeps a dashboard that provides real-time data on the levels and quality of remaining product, eliminating the need for employees to strain their backs by hoisting kegs. For an industry that depends on staff expertise but is also known for high turnover, the platform also arms workers with details about various libations—information that can help lubricate sales.
Gozio Health and Gunner both aim to help businesses eliminate obstacles for their customers. Working with hospitals and healthcare facilities to map more than 100 million square feet of their space, Gozio Health’s platform syncs with mobile devices to help patients quite literally navigate their health journey (e.g., find their care provider’s office). Gunner uses patent-pending technology to create a nifty app on its website that leverages GPS and virtual reality, allowing homeowners to experiment with customizable options from leading manufacturers of roofing, siding, gutters, and windows.
Cloudflare and Fulcrum GT are democratizing efficiency by making cutting-edge technologies more broadly available. Last September, Cloudflare launched Workers AI, a platform that gives developers around the world new opportunities to run machine learning models with their own code on Cloudflare’s global GPU network. The pricing structure limits charges to the compute power developers actually use and has been rolled out to more than 100 cities around the world. In August, Fulcrum GT released RAPIDx, which offers in-house legal teams the kinds of tools formerly reserved for top-tier legal firms. The platform includes tools to assess risk and compliance, hire outside counsel, analyze pricing, manage invoicing, and execute electronic billing.
The trend toward greater efficiency will continue to accelerate. “With the advent of AI, what we’re going to be seeing is a tremendous amount of energy around efficiency as firms figure out how to put these new tools to work at scale,” McGrath says.
Explore the full 2024 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, 606 organizations that are reshaping industries and culture. We’ve selected the firms making the biggest impact across 58 categories, including advertising, artificial intelligence, design, sustainability, and more.