7 Steps to Fixing your Business Processes
Everything we do, when done effectively is process-oriented. You need to run through the steps before starting a task.
According to market research firm IDC, companies lose 20 to 30 percent in revenue every year due to inefficiencies. Effective companies have standard processes for things like dealing with customers, and internal team workflows and activities. As a company evolves, its processes change. The problem, however, is that there are often errors and inefficiencies. This is a common challenge as a business grows – manual processes that worked fine when the company was smaller take longer and cost more once the business has grown.
But does it have to be that way? Isn’t there a way to anticipate, avoid, and mitigate the problems that arise when our processes and activities mature as more stakeholders get involved?Here are 6 steps to fixing a failing process in your company.
- Define the Process
Without a clearly defined process, it’s hard to identify where the problem is. When mapping out the steps in your current process, start by documenting the time it takes to complete each task. When you have a set schedule for each task, you enable yourself to spot areas that may be inefficient and need fixing.
- Optimize everyday operations
By evaluating procedures that are not broken, we can produce more of them. No need to reinvent the wheel. When something works, stick to it. When we evaluate the procedures that are working, we gain the opportunity to optimize operations.
- Enhance process training
Employee onboarding is a critical part of improving your processes. By outlining the scope of your existing processes, and teaching employees how to spot inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement, future problems can be avoided.
- Learning
An effective training program works to exemplify process improvement by engaging employees and exhibiting consistency in approach. e-Learning is an effective way to achieve this. With a standardized online approach to training, you can measure the effectiveness of your efforts in order to realize employee success. By having online exams following the completion of training, you can maximize the ability of your employees understanding, and identifying where problems occur and how to prevent them.
- Process and workflow automation technology
Getting rid of the tedious, repetitive manual tasks, and automating your processes, can work to reduce errors and speed up workflow.
Automation technology has the ability to completely transform operational efficiency. And once you start to automate manual processes, you will find that all areas of the organization will benefit from it.
- Tie process to objectives
There has to be a clear connection between the efforts of your internal teams and the company mission. By linking process improvement strategies to organizational goals, it becomes possible to enable employees to follow optimal processes to achieve those goals.
- Focus on long-term success
When we focus on long-term solutions instead of short-term fixes, we can improve our processes. In order to be successful, your departments need to be committed to documenting strategies and outcomes from start to finish. This will allow you to review executions in detail to determine when and where a process was ineffective.
How effective are your workflows and business processes? Do you have a capable workforce that knows how to spot problems and inefficiencies? It may be time automate your workflow to avoid manual, tedious processes that result in costly mistakes.
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