One of the most important building blocks that help create a successful business is
business process management. As companies grow, a lot of changes happen and things become more complicated. There are more things to keep track of, more things to do and if leaders and owners are not careful, quality, productivity, and efficiency may suffer, as will employee morale and motivation. Business processes help in keeping things more organized, giving order to an otherwise chaotic workplace so every day, operations are smooth, employees are guided accordingly and customers are happy.
What is a business process?
A business process is a series of steps or actions that a business organization takes to achieve its goals. Business processes can be classified into two types: formal and informal. Formal processes, otherwise known as procedures, are recognized as standard processes with customary steps that need to be followed to completion. Informal processes are those that an employee creates for their own use. These may resemble workflows, only they’re DIY and followed only by the person who made them or a select few.
What is business process management?
Business process management is the habit of periodically reviewing processes to improve and make sure they remain abreast with the times and the needs of everyone involved. This may include decisions made among the company leadership or sometimes; reviews may even include members of rank-and-file. Reviews may be done quarterly, bi-annually, or annually. Although they may be arduous, these reviews are necessary for making sure that the business processes remain relevant and highly successful in helping the business achieve its goals. Where does one start? Here are some useful tips to help you improve your business project management:
1. Review what’s working and what’s not
This is important in weeding out redundant and not recently used processes to make room for improvements or new ones to be made. How do you do this properly? Be sure to talk to those who use the processes. Ask them if the processes are beneficial and helpful to them. What are their challenges? What do they wish were included? What do they wish to add? Of course, not everything is permissible or doable all the time but getting feedback from employees will do well in giving leaders and business owners an idea of how processes can be streamlined and further improved.
2. Set benchmarks and goals
The best way to set your company up to prosper, continually grow, and exceed customers’ expectations is to set benchmarks, targets for teams to achieve until the ultimate goal is met. Part of the business planning process is breaking down big, major goals into smaller projects and tasks so they can be completed in a timely manner. Remember, responsible business process management is always mindful of all the key players. So, when setting goals and yardsticks for your team, be sure to involve them. Be sure that everything you’re setting for them is doable and realistic.
3. Plan for success
To maximize your opportunities for business process optimization, create a review team assembled of people from various departments in the company. For example, if you’re reviewing processes in marketing, get a member of the review team from sales, finance, IT, customer service, and so on. Their invaluable input will help shape your new processes into plans that will map out the road to success for your company. The main question the team should be asking is: “How can we change things to make us work faster, better, and more effective? Be sure to get input and views from all sides so no team or department is left out. Whatever new processes you come up with should work for everyone in the company. That’s the only way to guarantee long-term success.
4. Automate at every opportunity
If you want your company to move up in the digital age, maximize every opportunity to automate. Whether it’s lead generation from live chat data gathering to employee onboarding, automation is the key to increasing efficiency and making processes more fulfilling for the teams. Getting processes and tasks automated like reports, data collection, and sales initiatives can afford your team more time to commit to other, possibly more important tasks. Automation can also lessen the likelihood of human errors so you can expect minimal interruption to everyone’s workflows and frustrations among employees.
5. Acquire resources
Is it time to get new business process management software? Is it time to update that hardware? Do you need more people? Do you need new people? Are your current suppliers still meeting your company’s needs? How do you go about finding new suppliers? These and other similar questions should be asked around the room if you’re looking at making your business planning process better. If needed, you can create a case or business study to illustrate the resources that you need for the business and the ROI.
6. Target quality
The customer may not always be right but a happy customer means they will always choose to spend their money on your company. If you want to create loyal customers and broaden your reach through word of mouth and buyer influence, make the quality of your team’s output one of your focuses. Make sure that everyone in the company understands that quality is not the responsibility of a select few such as the customer-facing teams. Quality is a team effort and this involves everyone in the company. If one link in the chain is weak or breaks, for example, a customer follow-up to a supplier is not closed in time, you can potentially lose repeat business, which means the company, will be at a loss too.
7. Listen to feedback
So, you’ve just rolled out your new business planning process. Hurrah and congratulations! What now? The right and responsible thing to do is to not stop. Keep the review processes going. Even if you don’t want to do a whole review, go around the bullpen with your pen and paper in hand. Ask around. What do people think of your company’s brand new business process management? Use these to tweak what you can at the moment or take them into consideration when your next review comes along. This feedback from your teams is invaluable in making sure the business not only stays afloat but thrives, as well.
The optimum business process management for you
Bitrix24 is the all-in-one business process management solution you’ve been searching for all this time. Whether you need help with your HR processes, how your tasks and projects are managed, CRM, or something else altogether, you can be sure you’ll find the resolutions with Bitrix24.
Take a test drive and start for free today. Want to explore some more? Schedule a demo and let our team show you where everything is so you won’t have to go through the whole dance of trial and error.