In a perfect world, your business processes should align perfectly with your people and systems, so that you’re operating at peak efficiency, eliminating waste, and driving revenue. But hey, it’s not a perfect world. Maybe your business has changed, but your processes were never updated to reflect those changes. Maybe your processes have never been fully defined or documented, or are just too complex, leaving your employees to improvise. Whatever the reason, here are some signs that your current business processes might be doing more harm than good.
If this is the answer you get when you question why things are done a certain way, Houston, you have a problem. Doing things the way they’ve always been done suggests an unwillingness to change or adapt to new technologies, new customer insights, or more efficient workflows. Every step in your various business processes should be there for a solid reason – if not, that step should be eliminated.“We’ve Always Done it This Way”
Whether due to a lack of documentation, training, or communication, sometimes the ball gets dropped. Maybe your marketing team is responsible for a step in a process, and they mistakenly think the sales team is responsible for that step (or visa versa). The result is that no one is performing the necessary step, the process stalls, and there can be a lot of finger-pointing and blame between staff. The other side of this is if both teams think they are responsible for the step, and are both spending time and effort doing duplicate work.There are Gaps or Redundancies in Your Processes
If a business process is missing a step, too complicated, or unclear, employees may default to sending an email to all the people involved to ask for questions, clarification or essentially take the process discussion offline. It is much more efficient to have the communication about a step in the process connected with the system that manages that process, so everything is in one centralized place.Email Has Become the Default
Clunky business processes can cause your business to produce more product than you need (which costs you money), cause production to be more complicated than necessary (overprocessing), and can result in bottlenecks, making work take longer than it should and making customers have to wait longer to receive their product. Bottom line: inefficient processes are bad for your bottom line.Your Business is Losing Time, Money and Effort
Finally, if your employees aren’t consistently and properly following your processes, that could be a sign that they don’t really understand them. That may mean your processes are too complex, but it may also mean that they aren’t documented well or that simply your employees have not received adequate training. At RevTide, we can help align your people, processes, and systems to streamline, simplify and succeed. We can conduct a business process and systems audit, recommend and implement improvements, and provide you with the proper documentation and training to get everyone onboard. To learn more about how we can help your business, visit our website or contact us today!Employees Don’t Follow or Understand Your Processes
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