5 Best Strategies to Streamline Your Workflow

StrategyDriven Process Management Article | 5 Best Strategies to Streamline Your WorkflowYour workflow is an essential part of making sure your business is at peak performance. However, there will always be areas of improvement that can remove otherwise redundant tasks or repurpose them into something more useful. But how exactly can you streamline your workflow without causing yourself too much of a headache?

What You Should Be Doing to Streamline Your Workflow

There are a number of things you can do to streamline your workflow. From making sure that you have the necessary manpower to automating various functions. However, not all of these strategies will be a winner and increase your productivity. So we’ve put together a list of the best strategies that you can use to streamline your workflow.

Observe Your First Workflow and Figure Out What Works and What Doesn’t

The very first thing you should always do whenever you plan out a workflow change is making sure you observe the workflow you’re trying to change. This lets you figure out what can be changed or removed from your process. The time it takes to observe your initial workflow will vary depending on your business, so make sure you’re ready to invest time in doing this.

Keep Everything Documented

Having documentation might seem to be a trivial matter, however, many businesses simply make changes and just move forward with their business without a paper trail behind them. This paper trail will help you in the future in case the new workflow has flaws that need to be ironed out or to cover yourself if something goes wrong.

Look for Areas You Can Automate

Automation is the way of the future for many businesses. Not only do you eliminate the need for a person to do the job for you, but it also eliminates human error. Manual work is some of the biggest problem areas of most workflows because of how it highly depends on the person doing it. An automated script will simply do it perfectly every single time. This let’s you shift your manpower to areas that truly need a human operator.

Involve Your Staff With The Changes

Your staff are the ones responsible for making sure that your business stays afloat and getting your products and services to customers. If there are people that would be the perfect help for figuring out what you need to change in the workflow, it’s your staff. They’ll be able to tell you exactly what you need to do to streamline your workflow. Interacting with them early on also let’s them prepare for the workflow changes that they’re going to have to do

Have the Right Person For The Job

We’ve previously mentioned that your staff is highly responsible for the success of your business as a whole while also being your best advisors when doing workflow changes. Your choice of staff can also heavily matter when it comes to making sure the work that needs to be done is done effectively. So a good strategy to improve and streamline your workflow is to have the best staff that can fit in with your business. There are some great ways you can do this. One of the best ways is to get a staffing and recruiting company to find the right candidates for you as they find candidates that fit in with your company culture and general needs.

Final Thoughts…

Your workflow is indicative of how effective your business will be. So it only makes sense to ensure that it is as streamlined as much as possible. With these streamlining strategies in mind, you will have no problems ensuring that your workflow is the best it can be.

Understanding the Importance of Business Process Design

StrategyDriven Process Management Article |Business Process Design|UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF BUSINESS PROCESS DESIGNBusiness Process Design is one of the most critical steps of BPM that needs to be designed after the proper analysis and detection. The core purpose is the identification and implementation of the optimized process that ideally meets the expected requirements as per the strategic business needs.

Business Process Design for strategic management carries significant importance due to the availability of specific interpretation. The process is more strongly associated with the development of cost-effective approaches that can ideally be implemented for the perfect execution of various tasks involved in a business. However, every individual has his perception of understanding multiple aspects, but it is quite essential to understand the importance of business process design before pursuing any of the businesses.

If you haven’t identified your business process needs appropriately, then it’s the right time to pull up the socks. Here in the present discussion, we will highlight the importance of business process design.

Importance of Business Process Design

BPD is important for endless reasons including:

Proper Alignment of Operations with Business Strategy

To change or modify the business strategy usually requires improving multiple operations being performed by different people involved in a business. It is also a natural phenomenon that people find it challenging to accept the changes, so they resist it mostly. That’s why the rules, processes, and the individuals that are part of old strategies can create a significant impact on the latest policies.

It gets facilitated by Business Process modeling by:

  • Properly assisting executives and managers of the organization in sustaining reliability in all the business processes. It all can be done by keeping a proper eye on the entire operations and strategy of the organization.
  • By ensuring that the operational tasks and activities of the individuals are correctly aligned with the strategic goals of the organizations. If there is any misalignment in the strategies and objectives, then it may cause failure in proper executions. Even if the organizational tasks are performing optimally, the overall success of the project cannot be assured.
  • By the proper implementation of “Business Process Re-Engineering (BPR)” by adequately analyzing the current performances and altering them to enhance the performance. The significant aspect of business process analysis is the proper identification of bottlenecks and unproductiveness in the process and ultimately improving them.
  • Properly allowing the process agility, the capability to modify and communicate the processes in no time. It results in taking the better advantages of the latest opportunities of the business or tackling the business challenges.

Enhances Business Process Communication

One area that plays a significant role in creating a successful business is the presence of a clear idea about the tasks an organization has to perform and the goals it has to achieve. How these goals can be made and what the roles and responsibilities of every individual are. Clear communication regarding the operational processes is essential for the proper facilitation of the team members of the organizations.

The proper communication and documentation is done by Business Process Modeling because:

  • Process modeling ensures the provision of common uncomplicated language with simple communication methodology. It provides accurate information with comprehensive decision rules.
  • It is optimal for transferring practical knowledge from one individual to another and better trains the new people in the organization. It all can be done by performing a complete documentation process and following the guidance properly.
  • Reducing the probable danger of losing the staff members of the organization that may result in trailing business process knowledge.
  • Properly start the documentation of business processes.
  • Properly converting the experience of the team members in the documented form.

Improves Consistency and Proper Control

All the successful organizations correctly identify and manage the business processes and maintain consistency throughout the period. The process control and flexibility is the input and a core component that plays a vital role in the success of the business. Process control instruments are of great benefit if they get executed properly.

It is possible by helping with:

  • The proper formalization of the processes that have not been appropriately documented, which have been revolutionized as informal knowledge.
  • Proper execution of the processes in a consistent way because it is quite unrealistic or non-professional to rely on the individuals to remember all the data. Instead, the written documented data provides more authentic information.
  • A proper decision making procedure by excluding the guesswork as the documented business data can provide better information.
  • Fastest solutions to any business concerns in the most elegant way.
  • Gives a proper charge to people involved in the business.
  • Provides proper support to business compliance initiatives, including ISO 9000 and Six Sigma.

Augments Operational Effectiveness

  • Nowadays, in the era of technical advancement, all the business managers try their best to utilize all the resources for the maximum revenue generation optimally. There is no room for ineffectiveness and depletion of resources.
  • The analysis steps of business process modeling, along with complete simulations, helps the managers to make the best use of all the available resources to enhance the effectiveness and efficiencies.
  • It helps in the reduction of process cycle time and identifies the areas that can be improved.
  • It helps in improving the efficiencies of the existing resources and tries the best to provide enough training to do more with limited resources.
  • It helps in providing risk-free experiments and supports providing ideas for further process improvement.
  • It encourages the process of critical thinking ideas so that the latest changes can be implemented for further improvement.
  • Process analysis is useful for optimal utilization of existing resources that can help in enhancing the overall productivity of the organization.

Increases Competitive Advantages

All the advantages mentioned above ultimately result in doubling the competitive edge in the market for all those organizations that have spent enough time in improving the business documentation.

Some of the companies have practiced this business process modeling that not only helped them in generating better ideas but implementing better business models as well. The consistent refinement in the existing business models provides a great room of improvement with a successful process modeling.

A small step towards improvement can have a more significant impact on the overall organization. Those minor refinements are usually of higher value as they can help in giving better competitive advantages over the core opponents available in the market.

Effective strategic planning is the key that makes your ideas unique and better than others. However, the execution can be assured by proper planning and improving overall communication skills. Additionally, the points mentioned earlier explicitly highlight the importance of effective business modeling that cannot be ignored at any cost.

Final Words

With no proper vision, mission, and strategic planning, running the business is more like traveling on the unknown paths that never lead towards the desired destination. Also, this is where most of the businesses suffered and it can become a major cause behind business closures. That is why the implementation of business process modeling is the need for all the latest business concerns.

If you want to run a successful business where everyone works with the proper alignment, then you must think about implementing the practical strategies, tools, and techniques that are essentials for the growth and sustainability of any business.

Your success has a lot to do with the appropriate planning; otherwise, all your efforts and resources can be wasted.

StrategyDriven Enterprises

StrategyDriven Enterprises, LLC

StrategyDriven is dedicated to providing executives and managers with the planning and execution advice, tools, and practices needed to create greater organizational alignment and accountability for the achievement of superior results.

We help our clients create and execute a clear, forward-looking strategy – translatable to the day-to-day activities of all organization members – that’s critical to their realizing success in today’s fast paced market environment. Not only does a compelling, well executed strategy align individuals to a common purpose, it ensures that purpose best serves the company’s mission.

The StrategyDriven website provides access to a wide array of best practice business planning and execution tools, streamlined process flows, how-to articles, example-rich podcasts, and customizable ready-to-use program management templates. Premium Members receive access to over 200 members-only articles, whitepapers, models, and tools and templates; providing an in-depth look into critical business performance areas; placing specific focus on the alignment of organizational standards, programs, and behaviors to the optimal achievement of mission goals. Sevian Business Program purchasers receive fully implementable business performance improvement processes out-of-the-box, enabling the acceleration of business growth and heightening of operational efficiency needed to significantly improve bottom line results.

Collectively, our products offer business leaders the opportunity to access the knowledge of a highly educated and experienced staff without the associated overhead expense.

At StrategyDriven, our seasoned business leaders deliver real-world strategic business planning and tactical execution best practice advice – a blending of workplace experience with sound research and academic principles – to business leaders who may not otherwise have access to these resources.

Contact StrategyDriven Enterprises, LLC

Phone: (770) 765-3692

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://www.strategydriven.com

StrategyDriven Service Provider Network Provider Network Disclaimer

Fueling Business Process Management with the Automation Engine that Can!

Organizations deploy automation technologies as the primary resource in their Business Process Management. Gone are the days were BPO meant Business Process Outsourcing, with Robotic Process Automation technology fueling new millennium enterprises, BPO has taken on a new meaning, Business Process Optimization.
 
In the recent past, businesses had only external, third party vendors to rely on for major projects, operational emergencies, and other labor-intensive initiatives that required resources they did not have. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) meant businesses had to succumb to the high-cost, untimely, and unskilled labor in order to remain in operations.

Today’s C-level executives understand peripheral management of their critical applications, data systems, and shared services is not an effective, efficient, secure, or financially-feasible effort and require more robust, permanent solutions for assimilation into their BPM.


Hi there! This article is available for free. Login or register as a StrategyDriven Personal Business Advisor Self-Guided Client by:

Subscribing to the Self Guided Program - It's Free!


 


About the Author

Richard MilamRichard Milam is the president and CEO of EnableSoft. Prior to founding EnableSoft, in 1995, Richard was a partner and Senior Vice President of FiTech PLUSmark, and held other positions in Information Technology, Operations, and Sales.

3 Reasons to Automate Your Business in 2015

If you’ve added ‘being more efficient’ to your list of New Year’s resolutions recently, you may be struggling to find ways to generate more productivity with little effort. Chances are, the solution (and the problem) is literally right in front of you. Your mouse and keyboard are major sources of inefficiency. Communicating with colleagues, manipulating spreadsheets, entering customer information into a CRM… these are all examples of time-consuming manual processes that can be done better and faster by someone (or something) other than you.

If your idea of fun is copying and pasting text all day then by all means, continue doing what you’re doing. But we’ve got some thoughts on why you should at least consider ways to automate business processes in your organization and be more efficient in 2015.


Hi there! This article is available for free. Login or register as a StrategyDriven Personal Business Advisor Self-Guided Client by:

Subscribing to the Self Guided Program - It's Free!


 


About the Author

Richard MilamRichard Milam, Founder and CEO of EnableSoft Incorporated (www.enablesoft.com). EnableSoft, is engaged in offering game changing software products and services to the business and financial services industry, healthcare and a dozen other markets. EnableSoft serves over 500 corporate clients worldwide. Prior to founding EnableSoft in 1995, Richard was a partner and served as Senior Vice President of FiTech PLUSmark, Inc. Richard designed and implemented a business plan to offer bank merger data conversion services which resulted in the successful merger of over 50 financial institutions.