There is no panacea for all industries and all situations. Still, a sufficient number of business optimisation methods have already been developed and tested, among which you can choose the one that suits your company. The main thing is first carefully to analyse everything and identify current problems.
Standardisation
In large organisations, each representative office often maintains documentation in its way, without a single system. This inevitably leads to logistical problems and reporting confusion, and employees waste time doing tedious routine tasks.
An exception
In some processes, it is possible to enlarge the execution phases – to combine individual stages. This will simplify and speed up the entire business process.
For example, if in a company, when hiring a new employee, it is customary first to consider a resume, and then conduct an interview in three stages (with a personnel officer, head of a department, director of the company), then this process can be optimised by eliminating the interview stage with the HR manager. Instead, it is better to give the candidate a detailed questionnaire to fill out, containing all the questions of interest to the personnel officer, and send the candidate directly to an interview with the head of the department who should evaluate the professionalism of the future employee and his suitability for the position. An interview with the director or owner of the business is unnecessary (except when the organisation is small or the top manager is used to hiring issues himself).
Analyse the business process structure and find those steps that can be removed without compromising the result.
The change
Analysing a complex business process will show you the points where it can be optimised. For example, the replacement of raw materials or materials and the choice of more advanced processing methods reduce the cost of goods. But any such changes must be reasoned and planned. No matter how it is carried out, business optimisation should adversely affect the quality of the product.
Some innovations need testing before full implementation. This, in particular, is a seasonal menu in restaurants: if customers like new positions, they can be transferred to the category of permanent ones. When management approves changes, they should be implemented in all departments and services, including branches (this already applies to the business standardisation method).
Establishing interaction
Business processes that involve several different departments are slowed down if they have little contact with each other. The lack of interaction between departments often becomes a “pain” for large firms: tasks are duplicated, people do the same work, the result is moving away. It is irrational and unprofitable for the company.
Therefore, it is important to debug communication between work units and departments or employees. There are enough classic planning meetings for small organisations where plans are made, and everyone reports on what has been done. Only department heads participate in such sprints for more branched structures, and tasks are duplicated in online services where all employees can see them. General corporate chats are another convenient and modern channel for communication on current issues.
