Although the economy is back on its feet and going strong, it’s still not plain sailing for many businesses. One of the main reasons for this is that during the recession, many companies were forced to focus all of their energies simply on staying afloat. This meant that assessing the intricacies of the internals of the business was a process that went overlooked.
However, now that the economy has recovered, it’s the perfect time to streamline your business’s workflow to ensure it’s efficient and effective to the highest level. If you’re unsure of how you might begin, we’ve created this user-friendly guide.
1. Be process driven and people driven
There are two types of business: those that really put their attention and focus on business processes, and those that focus mainly their employee talent. While focusing on one of these two strategies is likely to deliver great benefits, the best way to assemble an efficient business is to do both simultaneously.
The reason is that if you focus solely on business processes, your employees are likely to feel undervalued. Meanwhile, if you give your employees unlimited freedom, their behaviours will be difficult to track and measure.
In the ideal situation, however, you’ll be able to give your employees plenty of freedom to do their jobs, while keeping tabs on how they’re performing. This way, if something goes wrong with one aspect of your business, you’ll be able to isolate the issue quickly, and give the person/people responsible the help they need to perform more efficiently.
2. Outsourcing isn’t always bad
In some business circles, the word ‘outsourcing’ has negative connotations. While reckless outsourcing can be dangerous and irresponsible, outsourcing can be an effective method of streamlining aspects of your business’s workflow. For example, a large supply-chain operator like Tenens can help to deliver you a more effective service through industry expertise, knowledge and experience.
3. Embrace new technology
As a third and final piece of advice, you should always allocate time each month to assess the new technologies that could be of service to your company. This might simply mean allocating some time in each team specifically for browsing the web for new applications or smartphone apps, or it might mean actually bringing somebody new into your organisation that can research new technology on a full-time basis.
Obviously, the route that you go down will depend on a number of factors, not limited to the size of your company, and your turn-over but regardless, finding new ways to incorporate new and innovative ideas into your business workflow will help to maximise your efficiency and could even put you ahead of your competition.
Ultimately, improving your business’s workflow will be challenging, but if you follow our advice, you’ll be well on your way to a more efficient, more effective business.
