Frustrated By Lack Of Process?

In today’s issue…

Key processes that could help you immediately
450 words, total reading time about 2-1/2 minutes

CI business owners love what they do. But it’s a challenging business, with a lot of moving parts. We’re not talking about the technology parts, we’re talking the business parts.

How best to manage all the pieces? There’s sales, production, collection, administration, purchasing. There are employees inside, employees outside. There’s inventory on the trucks and in the back room. And it’s all moving around, every day.

In last week’s survey of what frustrates CI business owners, you told us that lack of process and inefficiencies were your two most vexing challenges to being frustration-free. They are related.

PROCESS

Process answers 3 key questions:

what happens next
who is responsible
how the work gets done

Documented process goes a long way to reducing inefficiencies, by revealing both redundancies and oversights. These can then be designed out of the process.

All the business pieces mentioned above would benefit from a documented process. But it could take a long time to document your entire business process, so… Where do you start?

Here’s our short list of key processes we’ve seen make a HUGE difference…

Creating a “Profit Model” for your business – how much Equipment, Parts, & Labor you will sell, at what margins
Reviewing the pricing of ALL proposals to ensure they meet Profit Model pricing guidelines, before they are presented to clients
Managing project progress & productivity
Recognizing revenue as work is done, NOT as money is requested or received
Keeping close track of all money requested or received
Managing the movement of inventory into, and out of, the warehouse

As with any list, some items may be more important to your company than others. Pick the one that seems most important – that’s where you start. When that one gets done, you start on the next one. Then the next.

This is how improvement starts in a company, but it requires one other key ingredient…

THE SCOREBOARD

It has been said many times, always proving itself to be true…

You must measure to improve.
You must measure where you are today. That is your baseline.
You can then determine where you should be. That is your goal.
You must measure your progress, and adjust how you’re doing things to ensure continued improvement.

Keeping score is a process. VITAL offers a great foundation with its strategic chart of accounts, which you can download for free by clicking here. It’s a simple place to start.

This Thursday at 11a CST, we’ll spend 30 minutes describing in more detail what you can do to further improve process and efficiency in your company. Click here to register (it takes about 60 seconds).

Until then…