Efficiency – Step 2: Business Review

You’re here I assume because you already read the first step to becoming faster, slicker, and efficient and have done mapping your current processes. Ready for business review?

Here is the second step:

Business Review 

Every business tells me “But this is our industry Adrian”, and “Our industry is different Adrian.” Every business is different but the race is the same; you need to get your car around that track as fast, as slick and as efficiently as possible without crashing.   

How complex is your customers’ journey? How long does it take from a customer’s point of view? How long does it take from a business point of view? How much physical time is spent processing the order?   

Time = Cost; if you reduce time, you can reduce cost or increase the ability to process more orders in less time. It’s that simple.  When you stand back and start to review your customers’ journey, think of it as a lap. I want you to take the F1 approach. How do we take time out of the lap?  

Things to look for business review:  

1. How many times do you collect and rewrite the customer’s details?  
2. What other information is duplicated along the route?  
3. Where are the bottlenecks, the places the process gets snarled up, and why?  
4. Are there places where it’s most likely that there will be customer or quality issues?  
5. What steps in the process are customer critical points? For example, communication points.   

I want you to look at every process step or piece of paperwork or screen with the clear objective of removing it. The only reason it will stay is that it is either: 

1. Business Critical – without it we couldn’t process a sales order or we have to collect for tax or compliance reasons. 
2. Customer Value – Our customer requires it and it adds value.   

To help you decide which can stay I’ll share with you our simple “Critical Value Window”. The template can be found on www.betterneverstops.global/tools.  

Below is a sample of what it looks like. 

I want you to be really harsh with your processes and each one needs to fall into a segment within the window below. Each process step is either:  

Business Critical – you need to carry out this step or record this information because it’s critical to enable the business to process the order or for compliance  

Customer Value – you need to carry out this step or record this information because of its value to your process  

Not Critical – this is something you do because…? If it’s something you do for the business but it’s not critical it goes in here.  

No Value – it’s something you do for the customer but it doesn’t add value and the customer wouldn’t notice or care if you didn’t do it.  

Anything in the top sections needs to stay, but does it? Be ruthless with your processes and paperwork, if it doesn’t add value or isn’t critical, do you need it?  

Anything in the bottom sections can go.   

There you go, two steps out of four to becoming faster, slicker, and efficient. In the next blog post, I’ll be talking about the third step, Mapping New and Adding Technology.