Alan Jackson, The Better Business Bureau Ltd.
All the routine, day-to-day operations of your business are quite simply the outcome of a process. These include manufacturing, ordering, payment, invoicing, timesheets, new account setup, status reports, in fact everything that makes the business tick. The processes that touch your customers directly, often called “value streams”, are supported by internal processes.
Inefficient processes mean your business is under-performing. This leads to higher costs and poor customer service, which dents your “bottom line”.
As companies grow they tend to end up with a mish-mash of paper forms, email templates, desktop spreadsheets and databases, shared document directories, and rely on ad hoc knowledge to handle day-to-day business. Disorganization results in problems such as lost paperwork, missed deadlines, missing information, errors, wastage and long completion times. Does this sound familiar?
Deming, an eminent quality guru, showed that over 90% of performance problems can be attributed to how an organization is designed and managed – its business system. Organizations without values, a strategy and well-documented processes typically suffer from employee problems, quality issues, customer dissatisfaction issues, and an inability to unlock their real profit potential.
Ironically, by the time most managers realize they need to get better organized, they are so over-worked and overwhelmed with “fire-fighting” that they do not have the time to work on their business. They are too busy working in it, as Michael Gerber recognised in his book “The E-Myth”.
World-class companies banish disorganisation by focusing on processes and managing them effectively – by systematizing. This is about taking tacit knowledge (what people know how to do but can’t explain) and turning it into systems and explicit knowledge that others can use. You get big benefits by systematizing and you carry big risks that key knowledge will be lost, if you don’t.
When a company operates according to a properly documented business system:
- Everything is very organized so it operates like a finely tuned machine,
- Employees have a positive attitude,
- Customers are happy,
- Innovation and creativity abound,
- It is a “gold mine”.
To improve things you first have to understand your organization as a system. Then you need to create an operational blueprint, the company owner’s manual. This lays down “how we do it here”. How we do what? How we do everything, from answering the telephone to hiring and firing.
In addition to company values, objectives and strategy, a business blueprint contains, for each business function/department identified in the organisational structure, every policy, procedure, form, document, training video, and other resource needed to run the business.
The blueprint should be so complete that day-to-day operations no longer depend on any particular employee. All ongoing operations and activities run according well-documented, efficient processes that are managed by well-trained, easily promoted and interchangeable employees. All processes are aligned to the strategic objectives and operate according to defined company values.
A well-prepared blueprint is essential for efficient and effective operation of your business, especially in today’s business environment. It:
- enables productivity improvement and growth without sacrificing product or service quality,
- makes the business process-centric rather than people-dependent,
- helps transition a business from a start-up to a going-concern,
- helps to create a positive team-culture based upon best-practices,
- promotes cross-training and multi-skilling,
- frees your best employees for promotion,
- increases the company’s intrinsic value and saleability,
- frees your time to build your business and to enjoy life.
Preparation of a business blueprint involves your entire team in capturing the know-how related to the roles they perform, systematically. Your employees should be eager to help once they realize they cannot advance in your organization if their roles are too dependent on them. Like you, if they want to maximize their opportunity they will want to free themselves from their “job traps” so they can assume new responsibilities and grow with your organization as it grows.
Ultimately the objective is to document your organization’s roles and processes so thoroughly that your employees can easily learn new jobs and advance with your organization when opportunities arise.
Alan Jackson is a business development coach operating in the UK Midlands region (www.bureau4betterbusiness.co.uk). Follow me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/B4BBler).
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