Optimizing the processes within a business refers to coming up with and implementing new strategies that make the business cost-effective and efficient. Business optimization can occur in different formats such as predicting changes, improving workflows, scraping off redundant positions, and improving communication.
Benefits of process optimization
Organizations usually face many competitive challenges such as constant technological improvement, other companies and behavioral changes. As these changes occur, constantly improving the processes within a business can prove to be detrimental to ensure the business continues operating.
Some of the benefits include:
Transparency within the organization
Quality assurance
Consistent successes
Proper use of resources
Reduced risks
Efficient operations
Market compliance
How to implement optimization processes within a business
Initiating plans for the efforts towards improving processes within the organization is very important because it ensures that little or no resources are wasted.
Here are some of the steps that an organization can follow:
Identification – Refers to knowing the faulty process within an organization or any other process that a business can improve on.
Analysis – After identifying the processes that require optimization, it is good to check whether the change can meet the goals required or if it leads to resources being wasted.
Implementation – Once the new changes have been inspected and there are little to no side effects, the new processes are then put into play.
Monitoring – The processes should then be looked at keenly in its new environment as it is fine-tuned to increase its efficiency.
Examples of business process optimizations
Travel reimbursement – Companies used paper as a medium through which the reimbursement process took place; the paper had many deficiencies, such as misread numbers, leading to employees receiving wrong reimbursements. Paper was then substituted with a digital system. This shift enabled employees to key in their amounts in the digital system leading to fewer errors.
Purchase orders – When clients place many orders, the queues at the purchasing department are usually jammed up. The department notices that the problem is due to the slow rate of email approvals. This leads them to introduce a workflow management system that enables employees to pick items to be approved.
Employee onboarding – The process of hiring a new employee involves several steps from the employee signing an agreement and the agreement being sent via mail to the IT department by the HR executives. When the HR department sends the mail manually to grant access and provide laptops, this process usually takes longer. To ease this process, the organization makes it possible for the agreement to be automatically sent once the new employee signs it.
