What does eliminate waste mean to you as a business? It could be wasted time, wasted effort, wasted resource, wasted money. The list is endless and each one will have an impact on your overall success as a business. By transforming business to eliminate that waste you can work more efficiently, make more money and generally get more done.
We’ve worked with clients who say:
“We’re saving at least 25% in terms of admin and travel time which means we can see more and impact more of our client base with the same resource. So it’s got a really positive impact”
Where to start?
Look at each area of the business and ask yourself:
- Are we working as well as we could be? Why not? What’s hindering this?
- Do we take too long to complete basic tasks? Why? What’s blocking things getting done?
- Do departments communicate well or work in silos? Why? Do they need to communicate and know what each is doing? What’s the best way to handle that?
Bottom line is – are you losing money as a result of all of the above?
Sometimes it is easy just to keep on going because “that’s just the way we do things”. It’s also hard to step back from the business of day to day work and do the analysis to determine what could be done better. Nothing is ever perfect so doing that analysis and answering those questions can help to guide where improvements could or should be made. It also serves to prioritise what to address first.
Wasted Time
For this blog, let’s focus on one area where waste can be addressed quickly and can have a huge impact. Wasted time on administrative tasks which take skilled staff away from their key activities they were employed to do. Fixing this area frees people up to focus on their real value-added work.
Legacy systems in a lot of businesses mean that there is no integration between departments and information can’t be viewed easily across the business. It leads to double entry of information and as a result wastes time and effort. A single integrated system approach streamlines activities and saves time as a result. Take for example a business with staff who gather information either in a field based role or from phone conversations but during the course of that work, they then need to return to an office base and input the information gathered into a system. The result is they see less people and have less conversations.
By implementing a system where they can gather the information while out of the office and it automatically synchronises across the business they save time, information is accurate and in real time and they can move onto the next client visit.
Result – saved time and staff can focus on what’s important. This is a real-life example from one of our clients.
Often a lot of time and resources can be wasted when developing custom software solutions due to poor requirements gathering at the start of the process. Our product Requiment guides you through prepared questions to determine a full and detailed requirement specification and project scope based on outcomes . This application which will act a virtual business analyst. Guiding the users through the requirements process, whilst providing insight ad recommendations to the user based on the type of application being designed as well as trends from other users. Ultimately, our mission with Requiment is to make the process of software requirements capture more accurate, agile and efficient leading to more successful projects.
Digital Transformation
What we’ve outlined here is a prime example of digital transformation which is effectively looking at what could be improved in a business and applying a digital view to it. What tools could be implemented to save time, save money and improve the way we work?
The term digital transformation in itself can be a bit daunting for anyone who wouldn’t think of themselves as being digitally savvy so the easier approach is not to think of what digital solutions a business needs but to apply the analysis we outlined earlier – what areas of the business could be improved upon and then look to discuss what solutions could be implemented to achieve those outcomes.
Future Proof
The point of any kind of change management or business transformation is to future proof business and digital transformation is no different. Recognise what’s not working now and fix the issue to ensure business success for tomorrow and beyond. It does however, in some cases require a culture shift to ensure buy-in from all areas of the business. For any kind of digital solution to be a success – the whole company needs to be on board and work towards making the new solutions a success.
Trying to do everything all at once would also be a mistake. Do the analysis we outlined earlier, prioritise those tasks which you feel will have a high impact and can be addressed quickly as well as those which will be a bigger project and decide what should be addressed first.
Recognise that digital business transformation is a journey to ensure the stability and future success of your business and to stay ahead of the competition.
Want to learn more? We offer a free consultation with one of our team. No hard sell – simply sit down with a cuppa and let us help with the initial analysis. Start your digital journey today and see where it leads.
