A successful business is partially rooted in an efficient system of business processes. How you solve a customer complaint, schedule your meetings, direct your R&D team, or interest your consumers, matters significantly because it determines the efficiency of your business.
With the growth of your company and the addition of more employees, it becomes imperative to find business processes that take less time and still deliver value to the customer.
Otherwise, processes will be inefficient, leading to major losses of time, human power, and company resources.
Here are a few ways to improve your business process management if you find them complicated and chaotic.
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1. Mapping the process
The first thing to do is map your process. Figure out what happens when a particular request is raised and who takes care of it. Identify which departments are interacting with any issue or process at hand and how they solve the problem.
If you map the process step-by-step, it shows how long it will require to resolve things, how many people are involved, if the task needs more manpower, and how much time it takes to do it. It gives you the blueprint to analyze the process in detail.
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2. Review the pros and cons
Ask your employees – who are a part of the process – meaningful questions like the process’s necessity or the outcome it achieves.
Be critical at each step to weed out any redundancy and make room for new improvements and suggestions.
Additionally, you must talk to people using the process every day and see if they get any value from it. If you don’t review things in detail from now on, it will hurt your business in the long run.
3. Set your goals and expectations
Consider your ultimate goal and break it down into smaller parts for all of your teams to achieve, maybe weekly or monthly.
This breakdown pushes teams to understand what they are working towards and then function accordingly. It gives direction to the process and brings up the right activities that should be carried out in the process.
Moreover, if everyone has a similar end goal, this further increases the sync between departments and makes them more willing to help each other out.
4. Start planning
When you know your organization’s goals, you can plan out the route for it. Consider what services are important to the consumers and how your team can deliver them most efficiently.
You might want to get people from different teams on a process that goes from Point A to B and cut down on people who are doing the same thing. Chalk a rough sketch of what you deem efficient, and you can avoid wasting your resources.
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5. Fix the gaps
Once you know what needs to be done, review your existing process again. Mark the differences between what you have planned and what currently exists.
Change the present one to the improvised one and fix the identified gaps. You can also break it down completely to reconstruct one from scratch.
Consult your stakeholders to find the best possible ways to improvise according to your plan and roll out a new process. Remember not to hurry in this process, as it will be a delicate change for the entire business.
6. Communication is the key
Once the redesigned process is out, make sure to communicate it to the stakeholders – employees and consumers being key. Communicate it to the different departments clearly and in writing via mail.
Don’t leave space for doubts or assumptions because that leads to unaccountability and carelessness.
You may also document the changes in visuals and hand them out or hold a meeting to demonstrate how things will change practically.
7. Look for automation opportunities
To improvise work processes means reducing the time you put into it without compromising the quality. And what better way to do it than employ technology?
After all, statistics say that automating saves businesses an average of $51k every year. So, this will only help your business in the long run.
So, evaluate your process and identify repetitive tasks. Look for technology that helps you automate these without having employees spend time on these activities.
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8. Reduce the risks
Another great step is to reduce risks from all angles possible. Half of it is done when you are automating because it is free from human error. And secondly, it is a repeated process, so the chances of error are less.
However, automation comes with various other detrimental risks like data leakage, software attacks, the collapse of servers, etc.
So, install good security management system software for the network and keep backups. Of all risks, data loss and leaking are ones you cannot afford to take.
9. Aim for quality
One of the greatest purposes of improving your business is to serve your customers better. That is always the end goal.
So, inculcate in your team that a single person is not responsible for the upliftment of the entire company. But the chain breaks even if one person slugs off. Once they understand this, they will work together as a team to improve their tasks.
10. Pretest and review all processes
When you plan to implement a new process, don’t immediately incorporate it into the business. It might have hidden flaws, no matter how well it is planned.
So, discuss the process with the relevant team and ensure everyone tests it first. Allow them to share their honest review about it. If you feel that your employees, for any reason, can’t share their thoughts well, let them share the thoughts anonymously.
This will further ensure whether there’s any major issue with the final process or not.
Next, when you finally implement new processes, take customer surveys to gauge the opinion on the new process. Ask them how they feel about it, what is working, and what needs to be changed.
If consumers still feel gaps, bring it up with your team and improvise again. Keep reviewing and changing until you find what fits you best.
Source: bizjournals.com
Final Thoughts
There is no one-fit-all formula for business processes because the companies and their products are different. However, these are the most basic yet effective steps which will eventually help you find the perfect process for your team!
