It’s that time of year, the weather is turning cooler, leaves are changing colors and we begin thinking about the holidays. As a small business owner, you also begin to think about goal setting for 2010. Most companies set sales goals, but do you consider how process and efficiency improvements can improve the bottom line?
You make think that your company is already efficient - but do you know if only one person knows how to run one of the machines in the plant? What would happen if that person left the company? Or if two customer service representatives have two different processes to enter an order into the system? Can you combine the two processes to save time?
Some of our clients have very successful businesses and they want to grow. They know that in order to do that they must have a better understanding of what their staff is doing. One of our clients is taking the time to sit down with us for 1-2 hour stretches to “download” information to us on the way they work. They perform many of the same tasks for their various clients and, through these meetings, are finding that they are doing these tasks in various different ways. They have also learned that had they been privy to some of the “best practices” their colleagues were using from the beginning, they would have been more successful in their roles more quickly. Sharing this information with each other and using us to facilitate, they are now mapping out new best practices and we are documenting them in their operations manual. This way new employees have immediate access to the information, and current employees can maximize their work time.
Improving the productivity of your people and processes can add up to big increases your bottom line. Click here to estimate how your business is doing: http://visionbridgeinc.com/html/cost_of_system_inefficiencies.html. As you set your 2010 goals, keep these thoughts in mind and contact us if you need help!