How to Increase Efficiency in Your Business

Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Process Automation & Digitalization Assessment (41-slide PowerPoint presentation). The Process Automation & Digitalization Assessment is a comprehensive framework designed to help organizations identify opportunities for streamlining operations, reducing manual efforts, and leveraging technology to drive efficiency and scalability. The assessment provides a structured approach to [read more]

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No matter the size, level of operations or market focus, every business that is operating today will want to increase efficiency. Increasing the efficiency of your operations will allow you to boost output, improve quality and focus on tasks that stimulate business growth. The list below outlines some of the most effective measures that you can take to increase efficiency in your business today.

Conduct an Internal Review

Conducting an internal review is a necessary first step for any business that is looking to increase efficiencies in its operations. You should conduct an internal review with the aim of identifying processes and areas that are draining efficiency rates.

Remember when you are conducting your review to consult with staff. You should ask staff how they spend their time, what tasks take up the most amount of their time and any suggestions they might have for improving efficiency rates. The more details you are able to find out the better, as this will help you to build the bigger picture needed to identify inefficiency in your operations.

Automate Wherever Possible

Automation is one of the best steps that you can take to increase efficiency rates in your business. There are many processes that you can choose to automate, from your accounts payable to your customer services.

Using AP automation has been found to reduce invoice processing costs by up to 80% by streamlining time-consuming AP workflows. The solution can be used in many different accounts payable processes such as POs, invoicing approvals, payments and more. Using this type of automation service allows you to save both time and money by increasing efficiencies.

Build Trust with Staff

Building a culture of trust, respect and open communication is critical when it comes to improving efficiencies in your business. This type of culture can help people to form stronger bonds and feel more able to communicate honestly and transparently. When staff are not concerned about speaking out, they are much more likely to alert you to issues before they have had time to completely derail your operations and cause real inefficiencies.

Not only can building trust and a culture of open communication in the workplace encourage staff to be open about issues, but it is also the key to innovation. Having a working culture that stimulates innovation can increase the possibilities of you further increasing efficiencies in the future.

Learn How to Delegate

As a boss you cannot be expected to do everything, nor should you try to. As a business leader, the last thing that you will want to do is to cause inefficiencies in your company. Learning how to delegate is a key step that you can take to directly increase efficiencies in your company. Remember that you hired staff for a reason, that is to work for you, and that your staff might well know more than you do.

Learning how to delegate and creating a culture of open communication will not only increase efficiency but it can help you to improve your working environment, improving staff morale and worker wellbeing.

Want to Achieve Excellence in Process Improvement?

Gain the knowledge and develop the expertise to become an expert in Process Improvement. Our frameworks are based on the thought leadership of leading consulting firms, academics, and recognized subject matter experts. Click here for full details.

Process Improvement involves analyzing and improving existing business processes in the pursuit of optimized performance. The goals are typically to continuously reduce costs, minimize errors, eliminate waste, improve productivity, and streamline activities.

As we continue to deal with COVID-19 and its economic aftermath, most organizations will prioritize Business Process Improvement initiatives. This is true for a few reasons. First, Process Improvement is one of the most common and effective ways of reducing costs. As the global economy slows down, Cost Management will jump to the forefront of most corporate agendas.

Secondly, a downturn typically unveils ineffective and broken business processes. Organizations that once seemed agile and focused during periods of growth may become sluggish and inefficient when demand drops off.

Lastly, COVID-19 has expedited Digital Transformation for most organizations. One of the quickest and most impactful forms of Digital Transformation is Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Thus, we have included numerous RPA frameworks within this Stream.

Learn about our Process Improvement Best Practice Frameworks here.