As work style reform progresses, it is becoming an urgent task to improve business processes in companies. In many research reports on the impact of the corona crisis, one of the things that have changed is business. To improve business processes, there are still many people who are at a loss when asked what to do specifically. Therefore, I will explain how to improve business process efficiently, mainly for those in charge of business improvement.
What is business process improvement?
Improving the business processes means reviewing and redesigning existing business procedures and strategies in order to achieve business efficiency and cost reduction. Specifically, it involves improving the allocation and quota of employees involved in the work, the flow of work between departments, and the way work information is handled.
Purpose of business process improvement
The three main objectives are “reduction of working hours”, “reduction of expenses” and “promotion of IT adoption”. Working hours by promoting the use of IT, which in turn reduces labor costs. And beyond these three goals, there is a big goal of “improving the company’s profit”. In recent years, the addition of “governance” to this is increasing.
The key to improving business is continuous efforts. Business and work environments are constantly changing, not only due to the current corona crisis, and new problems may arise when improved methods are put into practice. On the contrary, it may take more time. It is important to build an optimal framework from a company-wide perspective while rotating the PDCA cycle.
5 steps for improving business processes
Let’s proceed efficiently by dividing the improvement process into the following five steps. I will explain the work and points to be done in each step.
1: Understand and analyze the current situation
The procedure of improvement begins with understanding and analyzing existing business activities. If you are unable to understand the current situation, you will not be able to see the issues and points for improvement. Listen to the workers who are in charge of the actual work.
It is also effective to diagram the process using a “BPM (business process management) tool”. Essential problems of the current process can be visualized by diagramming and can be shared among members. In addition, by visualizing each procedure and process in detail, it becomes easier to come up with improvement plans such as redesign and recombination.
2: Prioritize
By starting with high-priority issues, you can increase the results of business process improvement. Once we have extracted the issues and improvement points, we will calculate the man-hours required for improvement versus the effect and determine the order of priority.
It is important to consider not only effectiveness but also reality, such as how long it will take to improve when setting priorities. To that end, let’s set KPIs (key performance indicators), which are specific evaluation indicators for achieving goals. KPIs are also useful for progress management and post-implementation evaluation.
3: Create an improvement plan
After determining the order of priority from the viewpoint of effectiveness and reality, we will create concrete improvement proposals from the top issues. The point is to work out improvement measures that can achieve the goals of “reduction of working hours”, “reduction of expenses” and “promotion of IT.” Even if the lack of personnel is the cause, simply adding more personnel will not cut costs. Approaches such as considering improvements centered on IT so that we can handle the current number of people.
4: Implement improvement proposals
The trick is to develop small-scale business process improvement actions and measures that are easy to produce results. It takes a certain period of time for the improvement effect to appear. Since there are few cases where the expected results can be achieved immediately, it is not a good idea to try bold improvements from the beginning aiming for big results. By steadily accumulating improvement results even on a small scale, it becomes easier to gain an understanding of management and increase motivation in the workplace.
5: Evaluation and consideration for the next improvement
Finally, verify that the measures you have taken are effective. Evaluate the target achievement rate with KPI, analyze the cause if it is not achieved, and reconsider the details of improvement measures. Repeat trial and error in the PDCA cycle to improve the completeness of the process. Once the improvement of the first measure is achieved, let’s move on to the next measure and repeat the PDCA cycle in the same way.
How to increase the efficiency of business process improvement?
In order to achieve results, it is important to take the attitude of reviewing existing processes from the ground up from an unprecedented perspective. Specifically, let’s approach it from the following three perspectives.
1: Visualize Your Work
First of all, it is important to visualize operations. Working with a common understanding among all parties concerned will increase the efficiency of the process. Let’s use the tools mentioned above to visualize in real time the problems and progress of the current work and the situation after improvement.
By thoroughly sharing information on the vertical and horizontal axes, from members to management, including other departments and sites, it becomes easier to rotate the PDCA cycle and reduce the man-hours required for improvement.
2: Ask For Consulting
If you don’t have the know-how in-house, you can also ask an external consulting company to propose solutions for your business setup. Depending on the company, there are many processes that have become routine, and although the employees inside do not feel the need to improve, they may be very inefficient from the outside perspective.
When hiring a consultant, it is important to choose a company that is familiar with your industry. It would be good if you could also present examples of past improvements to the extent possible. It is also effective to refer to the examples of other companies, as the business processes are diverse.
3: Utilize Cloud Storage
The power of IT is indispensable for the business process improvement. Let’s also consider the use of cloud storage which can be expected to be effective in such a situation. This is because there are very few businesses and processes that do not deal with information such as content and files. The handling of information, especially unstructured data, has long been a major theme for improving operational efficiency.
We recommend “trendbuk”, which is specialized for corporate use and has a good reputation for its ease of use and high security. By using trendbuk, business content is centralized, leading to improvements in business efficiency, governance, and security. In addition, since the function “trendbuk Relay” that automates the approval flow can be used along with the storage service, even departments without IT expertise such as sales departments, accounting departments, and public relations do not rely on information systems. , you can automate qualitative approval tasks on the spot with self-service.
One example is the ability to easily create workflows such as document circulation and approval without coding. When moving internal operations online, there are many cases where normal operations become stagnant because the burden is concentrated on the IT department. storage, the speed and accuracy of improving operational efficiency in each department will increase.
Summary
In order to succeed in business, it is important for the entire company to work together and approach from an unprecedented perspective. In particular, business information, especially unstructured data such as files and content, is often left behind. Utilizing cloud storage for that purpose is an effective solution. By introducing trendbuk.com, a content cloud that boasts an overwhelming global share in business use and has a cloud storage function, how about improving your business processes smartly and speedily?
