Efficiency can sometimes be just about everything in business. When you have a great product or service, a great team to deliver it, and a target market clamoring for your business, what lets you down? Your inability to deliver good results as quick as you could. Systemization is the process by which you eliminate those efficiencies, setting data-driven standards and rules to how you conduct your business. Here are three areas where it could make the most impact.
People
We’re not talking about turning people into robots. Trying to push your workers harder isn’t the way to go about it. Instead, making them more productive is about pushing them smarter. The way you measure that productivity begins by using key performance indicators and realistic, quantifiable goals to set a benchmark you can then push. The way you fight for the improvement you want to see might include helping them better prioritize their workload and manage their time so they focus on the work that matters and cut lost time. It might also include ensuring that they’re working in an environment conducive to the tasks they’re doing. For instance, someone who has to make a lot of phone calls might suffer from an open plan arrangement where it can be hard to hone your focus and cut down the outside world. Or someone who works better alone might even do better with a remote working setup.
Inventory
If you deal in physical products then the sooner you set up a smart inventory system, the better. Good inventory systems cut out human error entirely. They rely on data to tell you what something is, where it should be, and when you might need to restock on them. Besides inventory software, this means using digital compatible labels with services like Dial A Label. The sooner you reduce the human error within your inventory system, the better. It also gives you a much deeper understanding of which stock works best within the business, which goes on to inform you of the needs of your customers.
Knowledge
Knowledge is about the work that people do, but focusing more on the work side of things than on the people side of things. When people talk about systemising the business, this is what they’re talking about most of the time. It means looking at the methods used to do work and seeing if a new way of thinking can’t help you find better methods. For instance, using a piece of software that allows you tackle specific accounting jobs in much less time or a new way of handling customer service that one particular employee has nailed. It takes the individual’s approach to the task that works the best and codifies the knowledge within the business. This is called sticky knowledge, and it’s used to find the ‘right way’ to do things so that you’re able to teach it across the business and get new employees caught up on the best practices without having to relearn it all themselves. Your employees bring a great deal of knowledge and their own perspectives on work to the business. If you don’t capitalize on it, you could lose that valuable insight when they’re gone.
The sooner you stop playing things by ear and take an organized approach to the business, the better. You’ll be more productive, you’ll suffer less loss, and you’ll even be able to help employees develop faster. Standardize and systemise the business or you could be missing on the profits of a much more efficient setup.
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