How you can improve internal processes in your business

Processes inside organizations change and develop in tandem with the development and expansion of the business. When the business is just one person placing ads and dealing with responses, there are processes used, but they are much simpler than when the business grows.

Even in the early stages when there are only two or three people hired, there is a need for clarity in the processes used for each aspect of the business. Otherwise, miscommunication and misunderstanding will arise. And as a result, customer orders will be mishandled and customers will eventually decide working with the company is just not worth the trouble.

As the company continues to grow, there may be dozens or even hundreds of business processes that stakeholders within and
outside of an organization take part in daily, and this number grows proportionally with the size of the company.

There is a predetermined order in which the activities that make up a business process must be completed to obtain the intended results. New client onboarding, marketing, sales, support tickets, orders, HR, and accounting are just a few activities that might have their own associated processes.

Given the dynamic nature of these processes, business owners must assess them regularly. Outdated procedures may lead to

• Dissatisfied customers and employees,
• inefficient operations, and
• A decline in your company’s market share.

 Today, we will discuss how your small business can improve internal processes.

What are Internal Processes?

A company’s internal processes are anything that happens inside the company in pursuit of the company’s business. To put it simply, every activity that occurs inside your small business is an internal business process. That said, there are both formal and informal modes of operation inside every business.

• Formal Internal Business Processes are defined, documented, and consistently applied norms. Organizational activities such as new hire orientation, safety training, and team-specific protocols are often some of the first processes to be formalized.
• Informal Internal Business Processes are not codified or standardized; there are many approaches used for achieving the same goal. For instance, there probably is no hard and fast rule that all team communications must take place over a single channel or adhere to a single set of rules. Telephone, emails, text messages, and other communication channels may all have their place in your company, and it is the individual’s choice which to use.

However, your ultimate goal, of course, is to achieve a state in which everyone is performing at their absolute best. That implies standardizing as many of your operations as possible over time, so that your business operates like a well-oiled machine

Not only that, but it also involves automating workflow to help you be more efficient. In this way, if you’re a business owner, work will go more smoothly and you’ll have more time for long-term planning.

 What can you do to achieve this efficiency for your business?

1. You Must Clearly Identify All Your Internal Processes

A process typically starts with the receipt of some communication:

• A customer order
• A complaint
• A new product announcement
• An Invoice
• A creative idea for improvement
• Etc.

For each incoming communication or other event that triggers a process, document what steps are taken when the event occurs. The very act of documentation will clarify your thinking.  You may find that some processes aren’t running smoothly. At a minimum, the documents you create can become a training manual for a new employee.

If you can map out all of your business processes, it will increase not just individual ownership of responsibilities and efficiency in performing them, it can also but it can also increase team efficiency.

It is necessary to document each step of each process so management may create standard operating procedures for all the processes. That benefits all the team members who are participating in executing the process. Each one will know what they can count on other team members to do and what the other team members count on them to do.

With this documentation in place, for example, if you are onboarding a new SEO expert to help with marketing, you can use the documentation of their activities and the relationship to the activities of others to streamline the process.

As the documented processes are executed, with a heightened awareness of the details of the process, you will be able to see bottlenecks, employee unhappiness, or a spike in disappointed customers. With that knowledge, you can amend the process to eliminate the problem

2. Define Process Improvements

When you create your process descriptions, place boundary objectives on the activity. Each step could have a time limit for execution, a cost limit for execution, etc. Objectives for improvement are also useful. Today it may take two days to ship a customer order, but by the end of the year, the goal is to consistently ship in one day, for example.

Establish objectives for improvement that are both attainable and relevant to the larger company picture. An excellent place to begin is with the overarching aim of increasing customer happiness (based on customer survey results) while simultaneously decreasing expenses. The ability to quickly and easily adjust to new circumstances and take on heavier workloads through improved processes (rather
than working longer hours) will improve your employee morale, as well as the effectiveness of the business as a while. However, be methodical. If you try to make every adjustment at once, you’ll likely cause pandemonium.

3. Discover What Your Obstacles Are

No company will ever be able to operate flawlessly, 100% of the time. But be careful about what level of inefficiency you are willing to settle for. When everything seems to be functioning “well enough”, it may be tempting to let well enough alone. You may have found the “low-hanging fruit”. Finding more fruit may not be easy.  After all, the signs that some processes aren’t working as smoothly as they should be may be subtle and hard to spot. Engaging the whole team is usually helpful in continuous process improvement. They see things you never will. They can alert you when things occasionally go poorly. When they alert you to process glitches, they are contributing “above their pay grade,” and should be rewarded.

If you haven’t been pulling your team into the process improvement activity, they may grow complacent and never stop to consider whether there is a better approach.

This is particularly true in informal procedures. Undocumented, informal processes are notoriously difficult to evaluate because of their ad hoc nature. The process is done one way today, another way tomorrow.

As a result, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to determine whether or not they are performing well (or if they are performing at all).

If you’re having issues with your processes, systematic business process improvement (through analysis and documentation) will likely assist you in figuring out why. Fixing the original cause of the problem usually solves the consequent problems as well.

4. Pick the Right Team Members

As your firm expands, more and more teams will start working in performing a process. To define the process, assign a coordinator to oversee the team that defines the best way to execute the process from start to finish. The definition team should include a representative from each of the groups that have to be involved in the process once it is defined and is being executed. With all groups represented in the definition of the process, you are less likely to overlook problem areas.

Therefore, if you want to improve internal processes in your company, pick a project manager and team members who are well-suited to the tasks at hand. Make sure everyone on the team has a voice in shaping the direction, and they won’t fight the change when it comes. Additionally, ensure you’re gathering customer feedback so you can fine-tune internal procedures to meet their expectations.

5. The End Goal: Reduce the Possibility of Mistakes

A systematic approach to enhancing your business processes will help you move toward an error-free business. People will still make mistakes, but with clearly defined processes, there will be a lot fewer mistakes. And, when a mistake does occur, It will be smaller and more localized so any fallout will be reduced.

Once your staff begins following well-defined and documented processes, this behavior will eventually become second nature to them. The next time your team faces a problem, it will be only a ripple, not a tidal wave. And you can resolve it quickly.

Mistakes are unavoidable, but that just means you should be prepared for them.

6. An Extra Benefit: Improved Resource Efficiency

Slow, cumbersome, poorly understood processes damage more than personnel efficiency. They also prevent your staff from making the most of the company’s resources. Effective processes result in less time, less material, and less friction (both interpersonal and company-wide.)

As a result, you’ll be able to allocate resources more wisely, enabling your team to get more value out of them than before. 

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