No matter how big or small a company’s team or financial income is, having a system of procedures in place is essential for its success. In today’s highly competitive environment, it will not be possible to continue with our business if we solely rely on reducing our service fees to have an advantage over rival businesses.
We have compiled everything that any CEO of a startup, small business owner, or freelance service provider may need to keep his business ahead of the competition without compromising his profits.
If you are a person who wants to see your business flourishing then this blog will gonna be a goldmine.
We have tried to cover all the aspects of a business process in this blog but if you still have some queries or want to talk about your business, feel free to book our free process audit today.
What you will learn?
- Practical definition for understanding the business process as a business function.
- Real-time examples of different types of processes and their role in your business.
- Difference between process, project, and function with practical examples.
- Why business processes are crucial for small businesses?
- What goes into making a robust business process?
- The importance of updating the process periodically
- Steps of developing the business process using the PDCA approach.
Table of Contents
What is Business Process?
Business processes are tasks or sets of actions performed by people or systems in a structured manner to achieve an organizational goal or add value to the end customer.
It has been proven that businesses with solid business processes survive the worst storms. Statistics show that businesses with well-defined processes have reduced operational costs by 50%.
Having a business process also allows you to make your business eternal. It also serves as a foundation for more advanced optimization practices like business process automation that save your team from a cycle of repetitive tasks and let you can and your team focus on what really matters.
Types of Business Process
Business Processes are categorized based on various factors like their purpose, stakeholders involved, and functionality of the process within the organization.
Business processes are usually categorized into 3 types:
- Core Processes
- Support Processes
- Management Processes
Core Process
Core processes are set of tasks that manage the operations of your business and enable your team to add value to the end customer, such as;
- Material procurement in a manufacturing business
- Back-end development in a web-development agency
According to a study by Smartsheet, an average business has 10 to 15 core business processes that drive its operations.
You should keep the core processes of your business updated and optimized as they are directly responsible for the value generation of your business.
Support Process
Support processes are the set of tasks and systems that are executed to smoothen the execution of the core processes of your business.
According to Gartner, supporting processes account for 20% to 30% of a company’s overall business processes.
Some examples of Support processes are;
- HR department
- Finance department
- Quality assurance
These processes enable you and your team to create a collaborative environment in the organization where the core processes can be optimized to work efficiently.
Management Process
Management processes monitor the internal and external functionalities of your business, analyze opportunities and challenges, and ensure continuous improvement of all processes.
Here are some examples of these processes;
- Budgeting
- Risk management
- Sales forecasting
These processes ensure that all the functionalities of your business work seamlessly. As per ServiceNow, automating support processes can result in a 25% increase in team productivity.
Importance of Business Process
Research shows that over half of small businesses fail within five years of their launch, while 20% fail within one year. If you are a business owner or going to start one, you must be intrigued to know – Why this happens? OR How you can immune your business to keep going?
While there could be multiple reasons that factor in to ruin your business but the iceberg for your unsinkable titanic is; the lack of an efficient business process.
We have observed that most small teams and startups often overlook the importance of optimizing their business processes. Customer acquisition, sales growth, and profitability remain their primary concerns. – But the question is; Is it worth the risk?, Can they scale?
No, it’s not. Because having a well-defined business process gives you a clear picture of your entire business, its inefficiencies, and its loopholes.
Optimized Business Process helps you to;
- Identify where your business is bleeding.
- Hire only those who are required for growth.
- Figure out where you can put automation.
- Integrate management tools to achieve productivity.
- Execute more with less.
Essential attributes of a business process
We have seen how much a business process contributes to the business success there is no need to say what harms an inefficient process can cause.
In a study by McKinsey, 60% of executives said that bad processes were the biggest barrier to achieving their business objectives.
There are some must-haves of a good business process that you should focus on while developing the business process for your business.
A robust and sustainable business process must have the following attributes:
- Finite: The business process must have a defined starting and ending point with a fixed number of steps.
- Repeatable: Processes must be able to be repeated indefinitely with an accurate and consistent output after every cycle.
- Well-defined: The process should have clear inputs, clarity of the tools and techniques involved, and a precise explanation of the output with the quality requirements.
- Create Value: Every process must have a significant part in the execution of the task and should add value or remove it from the business process.
- Flexible: Sustainable processes are those that are change-ready and can cater to every improvement and optimization effort without affecting the outputs.
- Transferable: The process must reduce dependency on specific individuals and should be designed so that any person can be trained to execute it effectively.
If your business process has the above-mentioned attributes, it will help you and your team execute more with less.
Why should you improve your business process?
Business Process Management cannot be taken for granted, no matter how successful your business idea is.
If you are weak on the process management front TODAY, your business will fall apart TOMORROW.
That’s why it is critical for your business that your process remains optimized and up to date so your business can thrive.
Here’s how well-optimized business processes help businesses thrive:
What is Business Process Lifecycle?
The success of a business relies heavily on the efficiency of its business process.
Have you ever wondered how your business processes evolve to increase their immunity?
Out of all the available approaches, the Deming Cycle (PDCA) is the most widely used method to make the process stronger, more efficient, and better than ever before.
The Deming cycle contains four stages;
- Plan
- Do
- Check
- Act
. . . repeat!
Discovery - Business Process Setting (Plan):
This is the most critical stage of the process. This is where we identify the gaps, gather requirements, identify goals, create solutions, and create workflow diagrams. The output here is a detailed plan, with requirements mapped out, and a complete plan of action is created.
Implementation (Do):
This is the execution part of the process lifecycle, the most viable solution is implemented to achieve the goals identified in the planning stage.
Process Audit (Check):
After the process has run for some time, it is moved to this stage to test the results, monitor the KPIs, and audit the efficiency to determine whether it is meeting the goals or not.
Improvement & Updates (Act):
The decision-making process takes place at this stage based on the findings of the previous stage, to determine which improvements are required and what needs more time to show results.
PM tools for Process Management:
In this digital era, it is impossible to manage your business process efficiently without using digital tools.
Project Management (PM) software are digital tools that can be customized to fit individual business needs and streamline the workflow of our business processes as well as allow us to automate every aspect of our business process.
If done effectively, you will be able to:
- Have a holistic view of your entire business process to identify bottlenecks and redundancies.
- Remove duplications so resources can focus on work that really matters.
- Automate repetitive tasks using in-built automation and third-party integrations to reduce cost-to-serve and increase profit margins.
- Improve productivity using team roles and time tracking features and real-time traceability.
- Make detailed and data-driven decisions using dashboards.
Some of the best project management tools are;
- ClickUp
- Asana
- monday.com
- Atlassian Jira
- Wrike
ClickUp
Asana
Asana is a cloud-based project management software designed to help teams organize and manage tasks, projects, and workflows.
The platform offers a range of features including task lists, calendars, timelines, and integrations with other tools. Asana is highly customizable, allowing users to create custom workflows, templates, and reports.
It can be used by teams of any size and industry, and is particularly suited for creative, marketing, and engineering teams. The software is known for its user-friendly interface and robust collaboration capabilities, making it a popular choice for project management and team communication.
Asana is also known for its mobile app, which allows users to access their tasks and projects on the go.
Monday.com
Jira
Jira is a software application developed by Atlassian that is used for project management, issue tracking, and bug tracking.
It allows teams to plan, track, and manage tasks and projects using agile methodologies. Jira provides a centralized platform for collaboration and communication between team members, stakeholders, and customers.
It supports custom workflows, integrations with other tools, and reporting and analytics to help teams track progress and identify areas for improvement.
Jira is widely used in software development, but it can also be used for other types of projects, such as marketing campaigns, HR initiatives, and legal cases.
Wrike
Wrike is a cloud-based project management software designed to help teams collaborate and manage workflows.
The platform offers a range of features including task management, time tracking, Gantt charts, and integrations with other tools. Wrike is highly customizable, allowing users to create custom workflows, templates, and reports.
It can be used by teams of any size and industry, and is particularly suited for marketing, creative, and product teams.
The software is known for its user-friendly interface and robust collaboration capabilities, making it a popular choice for project management and team communication.
Key Takeaways
Book your FREE Proces Audit Today!
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