The New Year's Process - Word on the Street
By Merle Laird

On every street corner and around the office water cooler, people are talking about the economy.

What do we really know about how this is going to affect you and your business? Well, we probably won't know until it has hit us in an area we hadn't prepared for and then it's going to hurt.

So what can we do to get ahead of the pain? Anticipate only what you can change within your organization.

What we do know is that we can't control any outside financial areas - only what we are doing in our respective businesses. Now is the time to take a look at how you are conducting business and engage your staff to be involved in finding the solutions. By mapping your core processes and ensuring the information is coming from the front line staff you can not only identify areas for cost improvement but also pull the team together and build renewed enthusiasm within your organization.

When was the last time you mapped out your main business processes and identified what is being done from the time the order is placed right through to the point where the product is shipped to the client?

It's a good idea to annually map out your core business processes and then use the results to simplify, streamline and reduce costly duplication of effort. So much can happen in a year, such as losing a long term key employee, hiring new employees, a major economic shift, new marketing strategies and increased expenses to just name a few. A process map will help you understand what is currently being done and will give you a strong visual as to areas that could be improved.

A process map identifies what is being done, who is doing it, how it is done, when a process occurs and where it is being done. That information alone is a great start to understanding how information travels around your organization. Taking that information and add in the software that is being used, what reports and routing of information occurs, and it's now a document you can use to not only save your organization money, but also can be used for enterprise review and system requirements.

Start off the new year with a good look at what you are currently doing and then set improvement goals for the coming business year.

For more assistance with BPI consulting issues, please contact Merle Laird at mlaird@bizxcel.com.

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Merle Laird is a Business Process Analyst with over 20 years experience working with manufacturing industries, service organizations, health care, social services, government and non-profit organizations. She has extensive knowledge of business process improvement and forms design in the management industry.