It’s really a rhetorical question. All businesses can be more efficient. The trick is finding the best areas to improve – those that will bring the greatest benefits for the least effort.

If you could spend an hour modifying a process that saved you two hours every week, that is a raw return on investment (ROI) of 200% just in the next week. That would be incredible. However, it is probably more likely that you will spend more time on something that will save less time each week. Nevertheless, the ROI over the coming months will certainly add up.

So where do you start?

Review

First, you need to know where you are now. What is it that takes up the time in your day? What is it that you spend money on? What is it that sometimes requires fixing or redoing because it is not done right?

Select

Once you know where you are, choose one or two areas to work on. Look at potential inefficiencies. Consider any and all possible solutions. Look for the low hanging fruit — things that look like an easy fix for an immediate return. The key when you start is not to pick a six month project. There must be something that can be improved next week. It just needs to be done.

Quantify

Try to quantify the inefficiencies in terms of time, money and effort so that you can then set goals for improvement. These will be the factors that you measure as you implement changes.

Execute

Set up a clear plan for executing the improvements. As you execute, measure your processes and compare them with where you were. Don’t be surprised if efficiency goes down before improving – that often happens when new processes are introduced.

Repeat

When you have successfully implemented a change to a process and quantified the gains, look for other areas in your business where similar changes can be applied. In this way, you are leveraging off your success.

Do you want help?

uLearnIT can help you with your business processes. Contact us now to have a chat about where you would like to start improving your business processes.