Having an effective business strategy is more than just finding new and improved ways of getting new customers, it's also about implementing the type of business improvement techniques that stop waste and ensure higher levels of efficiency.
Waste is the real killer in business. It has been estimated that as much as 95% of our business processes are wasteful - that's a great mark for an exam, but pretty appalling if you don't want to pump money straight down a funnel.
The video below uses 10 business improvement techniques to display how you can identify waste, deal with it and save your organisation time and money.
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1. Understand how your business works -inefficiency is a byproduct of not understanding how your organisation functions
2. Focus on the outputs -What is your work actually producing?
3. Get the input of employees - they are the ones who know the process and will carry it out
4. Look at the handover points - When one department hands over to the other is this seamless? Is one giving the other what they need in the form they need it?
5. Look for bottlenecks - Find the least efficient processes in the organisation and clean them up
6. Involve the person who owns the process - this is the person who will need to carry out the task so they will need to have a say in any process improvement initiatives
7. Establish a best practice - this ensures the continuation of efficiency gains
8. Capture key data - To know your processes is to understand how to improve them
9. Model potential improvements - modelling change before implementation is crucial for ensuring change doesn't impact negatively on your organisation
10. Analyse your organisation for ways to be more efficient - this is critical for continual improvement
Take a look at this 2-page infographic to discover how Triaster customer New Charter has used process improvement to become more efficient.
For more information on saving money and cutting out business waste, please read our article:
What are the 7 Wastes That are Killing Business Efficiency?
and if you want to learn more about the process approach to cutting out waste and saving money in an organisation, please download our
Capturing waste in a process: Value Stream and the 7 Wastes
How can I display waste within a process?
Process Mapping: Who does it and why?
What are the 7 Wastes That Are Killing Business?
