International Data Corporation reports that inefficiencies cost companies up to 20% to 30% in revenue annually. It’s an alarming yet unsurprising statistic when you consider that poorly designed or inefficient business processes easily lead to mistakes and missed opportunities.
Yet you can only implement a solution when you understand the problem. From order fulfilment to customer service, project management to data analysis, understanding how business processes work and how they impact your return on investment (ROI) is key to enabling the success of your organisation.
Let solverASSIST assist you in understanding your business processes and identifying where inefficiencies lie.
What Are Business Processes?
Business processes represent the set of activities or tasks that bring your vision to life and create a product, service, or result that your customers desire. These processes are specifically designed to achieve outcomes that align with your organisation’s strategy and goals, making them an essential part of your overall success.
When a business process is well-designed, it ensures that the desired goal or outcome is achieved. This is because a business process typically comprises multiple interconnected steps, allowing for seamless communication and collaboration. It's not uncommon for a business process to span across multiple areas of your organisation and involve several people.
From customer service to product design, data entry, and financial analysis, a well-designed process can help streamline every aspect of your organisation.
Common Examples of Business Processes
Chaos will envelop your business unless you have processes in place. Whether you’re transporting goods, interacting with customers, or consulting with internal and external teams, you need business processes that provide a reliable foundation for any activities you perform.
The following are several examples of common business processes you may be familiar with:
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Order Fulfillment. This business process involves managing the entire order fulfilment process, including inventory management, order processing, tracking and delivery.
This process helps businesses streamline their order fulfilment process, ensuring customer satisfaction, boosting efficiency, and improving the customer experience by making interactions with their business easy and convenient.
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Customer Service. This process aims to guarantee customer satisfaction by resolving customer inquiries and complaints.
If this business process is effective, you can build relationships with your customers and gain insight into their needs, pain points, and motivations.
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Accounting and Financial Management. This involves tracking financial transactions, preparing financial statements, and managing accounts payable and receivable.
This process helps you monitor and manage your business’s finances so you have a clear picture of money going in and out and whether or not your business is financially healthy.
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Marketing and Sales. This process involves creating and executing marketing plans, managing sales teams, and tracking customer behaviour and feedback.
Marketing and sales are crucial for increasing customer awareness of your business, engaging with your customers, and ultimately generating leads and increasing revenue.
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Supply Chain Management. This process involves managing the flow of goods and services from suppliers to customers, including inventory management, transportation and delivery.
Effective supply chain management optimises your business’s supply chain, improving efficiency and cost savings.
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Product Development and Manufacturing. This process involves the design, development and manufacturing of products, as well as quality assurance processes.
Don’t underestimate this business process. It’s critical if you want to ensure high-quality products and keep your customers happy.
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Project Management. This involves managing projects from start to finish, including planning, executing, monitoring, controlling and closing.
With effective project management, processes and tasks become manageable, team members become overwhelmed and confused, and your business may operate over budget and deliver better results.
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Risk Management. This process involves identifying and assessing potential risks and developing and implementing mitigation strategies.
You should rely on a holistic risk management process to identify, assess and manage potential risks, thus improving the security of your business operations and ensuring you comply with regulatory standards.
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Data Analysis and Reporting. This process involves collecting, analysing and organising data to understand trends, problems, and potential opportunities while producing reports on the findings.
This process will help you make data-driven decisions for your business. Without data to back up your choices, you risk making costly and misguided assumptions that threaten your business’s survival.
Top 4 Reasons Why You Should Standardise Your Processes
The Importance of Efficient Business Processes
A well-defined and efficient business process will ensure that tasks are completed in an orderly and timely manner. It will also minimise anxiety and stress among the people involved and offer a better experience for your teams and customers.
An efficient business process can do the following:
- Reduce errors.
- Eliminate redundancies.
- Ensure that the right people do the right tasks at the right time.
- Improve customer service.
- Boost employee morale.
- Lower costs.
How to Recognise Inefficient Business Processes
It can be challenging to identify whether your business processes are inefficient initially. Unless you’re on the ground, doing the work, it’s hard to see how efficiently things run.
Here are some tips to help you identify an inefficient business process:
- Analyse the business process itself. Are there a lot of steps that could be simplified or eliminated? Are there any outdated tools or technologies being used? Are there any redundancies in the process? By closely examining the process, you can identify any areas that could be improved.
- Track the performance of the business process over time. Are there any delays or bottlenecks in the process? Are the results consistent, or do they vary from time to time? Analysing performance metrics can help identify any inefficiencies in the process.
- Ask those involved in the business process for their feedback. Are they satisfied with the process? Are there any areas they feel could be improved? Listen to your employees’ opinions to identify any issues with your business processes.
- Consider the cost of the business process. Are there any areas of the process that are costing more than they should? Are there any opportunities to reduce costs?
The Impact of Inefficient Business Processes on Your ROI
When your business’s profitability is at stake, you can’t underestimate the impact of a business process. You need to know if it’s costing you money, so you can take action to remediate that issue immediately.
Living in blissful ignorance of your processes only delays the inevitable. And it’ll only get worse over time if you ignore it.
Here are several ways that business processes impact your ROI.
Inefficient Business Processes Increase Costs
Inefficient business processes are often the result of legacy systems and outdated technology that you haven’t considered replacing or updating. However, legacy systems are typically more expensive to maintain and repair than newer technologies, so you’re sabotaging yourself.
Do you use outdated software and technology for certain business processes? Have you considered utilising artificial intelligence (AI) or the Internet of Things (IoT)?
Legacy systems are costing you. As a result, business processes that rely on legacy systems are costing you. Consider updating or upgrading your technologies if you want to save costs.
Inefficient Business Processes Decrease Productivity
Legacy systems and manual processes are slower and less efficient than newer technologies, resulting in longer processing times, delays, and other inefficiencies throughout your business operations.
The following are three real-life examples of manual business processes that could be done more efficiently:
- Filling out customs clearance paperwork.
- Tracking and tracing of cargo shipments.
- Scheduling of port and vessel arrivals and departures.
Inefficient Business Processes Increase Risk
An inefficient business process will lack the ability to respond in case of a threat. You expose your business to unnecessary risks, whether that threat is cybercrime, a customer complaint, or delayed delivery.
For example, consider that you’re using an outdated legacy system to schedule shipping vessel arrivals and departures. This system is more likely to be compromised by hackers because it’s inefficient and outdated.
Inefficient Business Processes Limit Growth
As a leader in your business, you want to drive innovation and embrace new opportunities if you recognise that they can help your company succeed. But inefficient business processes can be a major roadblock to growth.
Inefficient processes are time-consuming and often require manual intervention, decreasing productivity and increasing costs. As a result, your business may find it impossible to keep up with customer demand, innovate quickly enough, or scale your operations to keep up with the industry and your competitors.
Ultimately, by limiting your growth, inefficient business processes damage your ROI.
How Legacy Systems Impact Your Business Processes and ROI
One of the most significant factors contributing to inefficient business processes is the use of legacy systems and old technology. The following are two ways legacy systems impact your business processes and ROI:
- Legacy systems are outdated, cumbersome, and difficult to use. They often require extensive training and maintenance, which can be expensive and time-consuming.
- Legacy systems tend to limit the scalability of business processes, as they may be unable to accommodate newer technologies or changing customer needs.
Improve Your Business Processes Today With Technology
In today's fast-paced and rapidly evolving business landscape, companies that fail to keep up with the latest technology and best practices risk falling behind their competitors and losing market share. Therefore, your business must modernise its processes and stay ahead of the curve.
Doing so can enhance your business’s ability to innovate and grow. Additionally, you have the opportunity to improve your business’s ROI.
Discover how business process modelling can help you conquer inefficiencies and increase profitability.
