Improve business processes for a profitable and sustainable business
Is your organisation a medium sized business, a not-for-profit, or a smaller government agency? Does it need to reduce operating costs or adapt to changing market conditions or technologies?
Is it affected by any of these challenges:
- Excessive customer complaints and support costs?
- Software systems that do not meet current needs?
- Unreliable data recording and inadequate business reports?
- Unhappy staff – low morale and burn-out?
- Excessive time to onboard new staff – unclear responsibilities and processes?
- Staff performing manual tasks that could be automated?
- Inconsistencies in output quality?
- Poor coordination or even conflict between workgroups?
- Important tasks falling through the cracks?
Any of those challenges likely signify that the organisation is not achieving the best value from its current operations. If so, the way the organisation works to produce and deliver its outputs should be reviewed.
The way an organisation works spans leadership, organisational structure, the systems and business processes at the heart of the business (including software tools), and employee training and motivation.
Leadership and employee training will not overcome deficiencies in organisational structure or in systems and processes. Inefficient ways of working are just that. Elkera recommends that organisations start by reviewing their structure, systems and business processes.
All too often, business restructuring takes place without understanding the real sources of excess costs and the actual steps required to sustainably reduce them. Acting in a piecemeal way is likely to be ineffective and wasteful.
The solution to the challenges described earlier is to undertake a top-down, systemic analysis of how the business works to understand it as a whole system that produces and delivers outputs (products or services) to its customers.
The top-down, systemic analysis allows managers and analysts to understand particular parts of the business in context, identify root causes of problems, re-design business processes and introduce new software tools (where appropriate) to create an improved way of working.
If your organisation could benefit from a review of its way of working, Elkera can help you on the path to improved profitability and sustainability.
This page describes why it is necessary to take an expert driven, structured approach to business process improvement and why Elkera is the expert to assist your organisation.
Effective business processes improvement requires expert guidance
Why you need a structured approach to support business process improvement
As a business grows and becomes more complex, there is an increase in business functions and personnel. Over time, senior managers may lose sight of the detail involved in performing many business functions, particularly in areas for which they are not directly responsible. Often, there comes a time when no one person really knows how the business, or important parts of it, work. Managers of one work area may seriously underestimate the issues faced by personnel with whom they must collaborate in other areas.
If an attempt is made to restructure the business or make changes without a thorough analysis and understanding of the issues, the results may not be as expected. Meaningful and sustainable cost reductions may not be achieved. Worse, steps may be taken that actually damage the business and waste scarce capital.
The problems with not using a structured approach to business process improvement
Restructuring a business without undertaking a thorough business process improvement process is likely to lead to many problems, including:
- Reducing personnel through redundancies or other means, only to find that many of the former roles were needed after all and there has been a serious loss of knowledge, expertise and business efficiency, as described in our Blog article: Business productivity and cost cutting: Why slashing staff might not be a quick fix.
- Loading up existing personnel with more and more tasks without proper regard to their sustainable capacities.
- Creating or persisting with sub-optimal organisational structures that do not facilitate effective workflows.
- Acquiring or attempting to acquire software systems without really understanding the business and stakeholder needs, or the actual value that the software will provide.
Problems 1, 2 and 3 may lead to degraded service, loss of customers and other problems. The re-allocation of business functions to remaining personnel in an environment of frustrations and disillusionment, may be a major contributor to staff burnout. Staff burnout is recognised as a serious occupational phenomenon (See: WHO item Burn-out an “occupational phenomenon”: International Classification of Diseases). In the US it is estimated by Gallup that at least 28% of employees feel burned out at work, as at August 2024 (See: How to Prevent Employee Burnout). It is likely that similar figures will apply in Australia.
Problem 4 often leads to financial waste and widespread disillusionment among staff. It is widely accepted that 50% or more of software projects fall significantly short of their expectations and many fail completely (See evidence gathered by the Standish Group and summarised in an article by Jorge Domingues at ProjectSmart UK: The Curious Case of the CHAOS Report 2009).