StrategyDriven Enterprises

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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

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Smoothing Out Some Processes

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Think about how your business is run as a whole. We know that there are going to be some areas that just don’t flow. Some areas that might be holding you back somewhat. We’re sure that you want your business to be a perfectly well oiled machine, but the truth is, it just isn’t going to happen. Sometimes, your business is just going to stay a little rough around the edges. But, as long as you have the main internal processes smoothed out, then your business should be able to go from strength to strength. Plus, we think we know a few different areas that your business might be struggling with a little. And, what’s even better, we think we know a few ways that we can iron out the processes so they’re crease free. If your business needs a little bit of help, have a read of the pointers we’ve got below, and see if we can smooth out those processes for you!

StrategyDriven Business Performance Assessment Program Article
 
Smoother Sales

You should always be looking for some smoother sales when it comes to your business. There’s nothing worse than delay after delay happening to your company, but, it’s something that a lot of business owners actually have to deal with. So, if you want smoother sales, one thing you could try is a new point of sale for your small business. This is going to be perfect for those of you who have a shop floor where you make your sales. It works by giving you a system on a tablet that you can use in your store. It connects to card machines, and is easy to use. But, it doesn’t stop there. It will then allow you to analyse your finances for the day, and then allow you to see your profits and losses. It will also allow you to manage your inventory. So, as an all rounder, this really will smooth out your sales processes in store, as everything will be on one app.

Smoother Management

Management of your company is one of the biggest areas that you’ll have to manage, and you’re already going to be fully aware that it’s not as easy as you would think it would be! If you want to do this right, you’re going to have to find out where your flaws are at the minute. For a lot of companies, we believe that a lack of communication is to blame here. If you’re not communicating down the chain of command, you’re going to have a shambles at your feet. The more you talk about problems that people are having, the better you’re going to understand the company, and the better you’re going to be able to manage.

Smoother Marketing

Smoother marketing is essential if you want your company to grow. If you aren’t really putting much effort into a campaign at the minute, then this is what needs to change. You need to have a clear marketing plan, and the best way to do this is to get in touch with a marketing company who is going to run a good campaign for you. If you want your marketing campaign to work, you’re going to have to have a good company to carry you!

Ways to Identify Issues in your Business Process

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StrategyDriven Business Performance Assessment ArticleEffective processes are how businesses develop and grow. Without these, it makes it difficult for you to make improvements and in turn make your business more successful. Managing processes and identifying what is and isn’t working quite right can be a time-consuming process depending on the methods used, but a necessary one. We have listed some ways in which you can identify bottlenecks within your business process effectively and how to use this information to make improvements.

Create Solid Business Goals

In order to overcome any issues in terms of business process or business in general – you should make sure that you have clear identified goals. In order to do this, it’s a good idea to have a meeting with the management team in your company and discuss what these should be. Your business goals should be able to be summarized on a one-page document. Normally businesses use SMART objectives. This stands for:

  • Specific – clear idea of what you want to achieve
  • Measurable – the goal should be measured, to help you identify whether or not you have achieved it
  • Achievable – make sure you have the cash and the level of resources needed to complete it
  • Relevant – it needs to be related to the goals you want to achieve. For example, increasing your profit margins, increasing your workforce, or pushing your brand out there
  • Timely – there should be a realistic timescale as to when you want to achieve your goal by

Once these clear objectives are set, it will allow you to evaluate your processes properly.

Use Kanban Boards

Have you ever heard of Kanban before? You may want to read this definition of Kanban by Kanbanize, for more in-depth information, but essentially you can outline your process on Kanban board cards which gives you a visual workflow process. Here you can see all the different stages of the specific process you are tracking. Within that, you can add limits to specific users too. This means that you can keep your key members of staff being torn away from their work and being distracted with other tasks by setting limits to the number of cards they have. This means that they can really focus on the elements of the business you need them to. By making sure you have every stage of your process outlined on your Kanban boards at a granular level, you will be able to spot any bottlenecks easily. It’s simple, if there is more going into one section than going out, that needs to be resolved. By pinpointing the exact area, this allows you to implement new improvements to this very specific area of the process.

Staff Appraisals

Staff appraisals are a great way to identify issues with your business process. In a busy working day – it can be difficult to find the time to speak to individual employees about their role and responsibilities in the company. By undertaking regular staff appraisals – this gives you time dedicated to that employee, to find out about their individual experience in the workplace and where they fit. Here you will be able to uncover areas that they may feel that they need further development – so you can make sure that they are trained effectively in order to undertake their tasks either internally or externally. You will also find out if there are any specific interests or skills that aren’t being used within the business currently that could be of use to you. It can also be difficult from a management level to be fully aware of everything that goes on in the day to day running of the company depending on its size or scale. Appraisals allows for feedback from the employees, where they can let you know if there’s anything they think that would improve processes moving forward that you may not have thought of.

Don’t just Resolve Problems – Look for Opportunities

Resolving issues within processes is all well and good, but it’s important that you also look for opportunities along the way. Identifying these key points could actually trigger a much bigger change within your business for better outcomes. Areas where you could be looking and creating new opportunities for include: better customer service, improved collaboration and communication between team members and improving the relationship between management and other team members. Developing upon these opportunities will improve the overall success of your business.

Keep Measuring and Refining

There is always room for improvement. Just because you have resolved a specific issue which has your process working better in that instance, it doesn’t mean that will always be the case. It’s important that you keep on top of processes on a regular basis. As your business grows things will change, so it’s essential that you keep monitoring and reviewing your processes to ensure they are still effective as they once were and fix as you go. That’s why something like Kanban boards can be incredibly useful. They are easy to modify when changes are made and allow for continuous evaluation. They are great tools to use to be in-keeping with business growth.

Have a Contingency Plan

When evaluating and resolving processes you also need to think about what happens if things aren’t running as they normally would. For example – will things still run as smoothly if someone is on holiday for 2 weeks, or if they have maternity/paternity leave scheduled in? These are common things that companies can forget when creating and evaluating processes. As well as identifying problems and resolving them, you also need to be on the lookout for potential problems that may not have arisen yet but could do. That way you are taking preventative measures and have everything covered no matter who is on holiday. We firmly believe in the phrase “failing to prepare, is preparing to fail”.

Review your Goals and Objectives

As your business grows and evolves, your goals will change. If not already in place, it’s always recommended that you have regular review meetings to not only evaluate whether t hey have been met or not – but whether these should be changed to either be more realistic – or to coincide with business growth. It could be that you have decided to introduce a brand-new product or service, or that you have new departments to think of, or it could be that you want to eliminate a part of your business all-together. Whatever the change may be, it’s important that you review your goals and objectives as these come along and implement the appropriate processes.

Hopefully now you have some more information as to how you can identify problems in processes within your business, and some useful tools that will allow you to do this. Make sure you have clear goals, have your processes outlined clearly on Kanban boards or similar software, speak to your staff – and of course look out for problems that could arise, not only ones that are currently occurring. Just like with anything, there is always room for improvement when it comes to running your business.

Are You Looking for Advice to Improve the Performance of Your Business?

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It does not matter what type of business you have, sometimes it starts to feel a bit stale and as though it needs an uplift of some sort. This can often be achieved by better performances from your employees, who may be feeling a bit lackluster from doing the same job every day. They may need motivation to help them improve their techniques, and you may need help to assist you with improving your management skills.

Align Them to a Common Goal

Aligning your staff towards a common goal is vital if your business is to grow and succeed. This process often starts at management level, as if you involve your managers in the strategy, it will soon be passed on to the rest of the staff. The manager’s role includes the task of supervising the employees in their group to ensure that work is finished on time and on budget. This will happen if team members are working together, which has been proved by using this strategy at Rolls Royce.  They have seen improved collaboration, enhancing its reputation for luxury and quality, and a report by the Harvard Business Review showed that 70% of employees were in favor of working this way.

Communicating your vision for the future of your business can have very positive results.

Deal with the Problems

If a member of staff informs you or their manager about a problem, no matter how minor it might seem, it should be dealt with as soon as possible. Do not shrug your shoulders when someone tells you they have lost the My Favorites Toolbar on their computer, go to Myfavoritestoolbar.net and find out how to correct it. This might seem a trivial matter to you but dealing with their minor issues as well as any major ones will make them feel that you value them as a member of your team.

When a member of staff does not feel they are taken for granted, they will work more efficiently and help towards that common goal.

Keep Them Informed of Progress

Once the goals have been set, you should keep your employees informed of the results. Knowing if they are performing well can help them to aim even higher, and if they surpass the level of business that was being aimed for, they will all feel much happier in their work. Also, in letting them know what has been achieved, you are still involving them and that matters where employees are concerned. Keeping staff regularly informed of the progress of the plans, and when changes happen, helps to maintain engagement and make them more productive.

You should listen to their opinions as well. When they are working with your customers, they may well have ideas that you, sitting in your boss’s office, would never have even thought of. Do not fall for the mistake of not realizing just how clever some of your employees are, and what a help they can be to your business if you just listen to what they have to say.

It could be that your product or service needs improving to help your business grow, but first of all, look at how you can improve the performance of your staff, as that could be all that is needed.

Steps For Optimizing Your Company’s Processes

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Whether your business or company venture is new or just in need of being redesigned, then keeping on top of rules for optimization is crucial to effective business management and room for growth. In business, time is money, so, in order to maximize sales, longwinded and time consuming processes and procedures must be avoided.

Processing documents digitally can save you a significant amount of time, providing the software you’re using is running as efficiently as it can and you’re utilizing your business’s capabilities for success. Optimizing how your business runs concerns more than simply improving software; however, having said that, it does a long way in helping your business succeed. Over the course of this article you will learn how best to optimize your company’s business processes.

Healthcare Processes

Make tired processes an act of the past and ensure that your staff can do their job to the best of the abilities and giving them the adequate tools to do so. If you work in healthcare or any medical practice, then you’ll know the importance of having efficient coding and billing processes. As complex as the procedure of billing can be, once you know the best medical billing features to look for in software, then you can save yourself time and resources. Open Practice Solutions offer fully integrated revenue cycle management to help your company succeed, which can be found at www.openpracticesolutions.com. You want your software to be doing the very best it can to take some of the pressure of you and any other the billing and administrative staff.

Optimizing business management wherever possible will give rise to easier processes, and ones that once fully understood by those using them, will speed up time it takes for a claim to be paid.

Identification

Once you’re aware of which business processes need attention, then you can get the overhaul underway. Figure out what the desired goal from changing processes needs to be, and make firm steps to getting these changes made. Identify which of the processes is most important and change that first, even if getting this altered is the most challenging business process to oversee the change of, do it with speed and accuracy. Throughout the time it takes you to implement change, always have the desired outcome at the forefront of your mind, address potential areas of improvement by brainstorming with those on your team and if a general consensus is that a qualified candidate needs to be hired, then prioritize this and begin the process of finding the candidate by conducting application reviews and interviews.

Process Mapping

Map your processes as you go. You can list the procedures you’re going to undertake by categorizing them into a list of importance, relevance to finished and completed outcome, and how they stand by way of priority. Start with the processes that needs the most immediate attention and work through the process map. By effectively mapping, you can visually keep track of what is being taken care of and which processes still need to be finished. Understand who is a part of the process and what their specific role and feature is in the redesign process.