Last Updated on Mar 13, 2020 by James W
If you’ve got a business that’s running nicely, with a variety of documented processes and procedures, but you want things to be better still, then you’ll want to look at how you can improve those processes. You’ll want them to be faster, more efficient, and even more accurate than they ever were before. How do you do this? Here are three ideas to get you started.
Employee Input
You and your managers may well have come up with the processes in the first place, but it is your employees who have to actually carry them out day-to-day. They probably know a lot more about what works and what doesn’t than you might give them credit for. If there’s a particular process that you think could be doing better, then simply have a chat with the people directly involved. What do they think might make things better? Often it’s simply a case of asking what makes their life easier – that’s a very good place to start, as whatever is difficult is probably something that slows things down.
External Input
There are companies out there who are dedicated to helping businesses figure out better ways of doing things, and this might be a good option if you think the job is a big one. They’ll come in, observe what you’re doing, and then use their expertise and experience to help you make more of what you’ve already got in place. This can be a good idea if you’re concerned that a process might need scrapping altogether and a new one needs starting from scratch. And you can spend as much or as little as you think you need. You can find out more about how this kind of thing works on the Evolve website.
Modernize
If you’ve had the same process going for the last decade, then one of the simplest ways of making it better is to look at how new technology could make it much easier. Still using paper documents? Make them digital. Manually inputting stock information? Use scanners and QR codes. There are lots of different things that you can do, and they don’t necessarily have to be expensive either. In many cases, there’s probably a modern way of doing things that costs less – in both equipment and wages.
Get with the latest technology and you’ll be ahead of the game.
