When you optimize your business processes, you reduce time and costs. Process optimization standardizes how your staff performs business functions that are repeated. Employees are then free to follow up on more important or less structured work. Here are ten simple ways to improve your business’s processes.
Workflow applications
Workflow applications take repeated processes that have been turned into documented procedures and provide monitoring and management. Each step is allocated to the responsible person or department so that it is clear where the delays are and what is still outstanding. It will also measure the efficiency of the process. Once you know where bottlenecks occur you can look at increasing staffing or amending the process to eliminate the problem. Workflow applications will also tell you who on the team is not performing.
Business process optimization
If you are still not satisfied after implementing a workflow application, it is time to go back to the drawing board. Or perhaps you feel it works but could be improved further. This involves an examination of each step to see if it is too costly or taking too long. Check if a step causes many deadlines to be missed or delays the following steps. The steps linked to the output of your product should be as streamlined as possible.
Document management
Document management software can automate how documents are handled. It can send reminders on emails that need a response instead of having to follow up with a phone call. This ensures transparency.
Outsourcing
If a function takes up too much time and has a high staff budget but is not directly linked to production and customer retention, you can outsource it. A good example is a payroll.
Digital transformation
A survey revealed that sixty percent of all jobs can be automated by thirty percent. The answer is automation. Find the commonalities across positions and you may get some ideas. For example, filing may take up a lot of time, whereas you can go paperless.
Artificial intelligence
Look to the future with solutions such as chatbots to reduce the time spent answering customer inquiries.
Staff satisfaction surveys
A staff satisfaction survey will provide executives with input for a strategy to ensure happy employees. This will reduce turnover and save time in the hiring process. Additionally, check that the staff has meaningful work to do. By automating repetitive tasks, employees can focus on interesting work that will improve retention.
The assembly line
Ford reduced the price of the Model T Ford to less than half and processing time to ninety minutes from 12 hours with the assembly line method instead of making parts and then joining them together afterward. Check your manufacturing processes for such opportunities.
Application development
As all companies differ in their needs, a partner who provides you with a customized solution rather than attempting to fit all companies into one-size-fits-all software is best. A Quickbase Elite Partner will assist your business with app development.
Quality improvement team
A quality improvement team can be tasked with assessing all your business processes and looking for ways to improve them. They should identify all processes that can be automated and perform a cost-benefit analysis. The team must also look for gaps between processes that are causing things to fall through the cracks.
Every business has some ways it can improve to become more competitive.
