The 5 Money-Murdering Expenses Your Small Business Pays By Not Using Workflow Management Software

MAKE 2023 THE YEAR FOR TRUE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

If you lead a business and wonder why you are not getting the traction you thought you would be one year ago, the time to move your business process management program to the cloud is now.

There is no doubt that many small B2B businesses profited from the Covid-19 pandemic, especially those providing remote services. Companies big and small were turned head over heals when forced to invest in remote work-from-home infrastructure and opened their doors to many small companies who were nimble and flexible enough to add quick value from a distance. In the heat of the moment, this often took precedent to some of the business fundamentals that most of us have spent our careers building.

The recessionary trends however are showing that the muddy waters have now become clearer. The doors for high ticket deals with large businesses are getting tighter for small companies and security and privacy are back on centre stage as they had been before the pandemic.

The ever-old mantra to stop working IN your business and start working ON it is chanted high and far and found all over the internet. Influencers, consultants, coaches, mentors and of course technology companies are looking to teach business leaders how to tune out the noise, focus on one issue at a time and delegate with authority and confidence while managing daily operational tasks.

With the speed at which technology hits the market, the modern day CEO no longer can count on many of the techniques and principles great CEOs before us used. What is important to keep in mind at all times however is that the human brain does not evolve at the same speed as technology and certain principles will always hold true.

All of this considered, without the right tools supporting your business, the tough times ahead will be even tougher and growth will be impossible. Competition is now global and many companies have mastered the art of using economies of scale to lower the cost of high processing volumes.

As a leader it is your responsibility to ensure that the people you govern always know that technology is just a tool to support skill and experience. It is also your responsibility to give them the platform and training they need to do there job autonomously without having to engage your support. It is here where you stop working IN your business and have the opportunity to start working ON it.

In closing we offer you the following five areas of financial losses where we have seen businesses struggle over the years and where putting a workflow management system in place to standardise recurring activities allows leaders to delegate and get out of the way of their people who keep the ship afloat.

For all the details of this article and more information on how migrating to a workflow management platform can help your small business, we are delighted to offer this freshly published white paper to ring in the new year. Please reach out if you would like to brainstorm with us how this topic impacts your business and what opportunities will bring you immediate growth.

To your continued success!

Andrew Lenti, CEO / Co founder TOPP Tactical Intelligence Ltd

The 5 Money-Murdering Costs You Pay By Not Using Workflow Management Software

The excessive use of spreadsheets and offline reporting to govern recurring process activities is killing your ability to make quick decisions and delegate to your team.

Unexpected staffing costs, unplanned delays and the cost of 'forgetting' (aka not being able to locate key information when you need it) is what you will be up against and an ever-increasing rate.

Fortunately for you, you can take back control of your business by putting a structured framework into your business value chain that allows process owners to follow a guide as they carry out their responsibilities and spend more of their time in problem-solving/innovation discussions and less time in the weeds of administration.

By not investing in automation of such you will continue to pay dearly in the following 5 key areas fighting for survival.

Download our 2023 white paper for complete details

MEETING COSTS

BPM software enhances sense-of-accountability and sense-of-urgency among task owners to ensure that ad-hoc meetings are kept to a minimum. This is done by creating rules for tasks, sending the right information to the right people at the right time and streamlining processes so that your staff doesn't get held up validating information among themselves. Key benefits include:

• Less meetings are required with less attendees
• Meetings are less status-oriented and more action-focused
• Enhanced meeting agenda, timely agreed & communicated
• Real-time alerts delivered to stakeholders indicating potential slow-down before meeting commencement

REPORTING COSTS

Using an enterprise platform to manage your BPM program eliminates the need for a 'middle-person' to collect offline information and to repackage and distribute it through status update reporting (e.g. slide deck/presentations). With real-time visibility from its dashboard, reporting is standardised and streamlined eliminating excessive and redundant report creation. Key benefits include:

• Less e-mail usage
• Less spreadsheet usage
• Less data collection & collation
• Less data validation (reconciliation)
• Less data loss & input errors
• Less file management & storage
• Less printing

Download our 2023 white paper for complete details

OVERTIME COSTS & FATIGUE

BPM enterprise software allows for a drastic reduction in the day-to-day handoffs and interactions among process task owners. As process owners update their daily task activities directly in their BPM platform while adding notes, statuses and attachments, stakeholders can observe and interact in real time and management can proactively govern and intervene when appropriate. Key benefits include:

• Less staff required
• Less overtime paid to process participants & stakeholders
• Highly skilled work force with greater focus & concentration on BPM activities

ACCELERATED DECISION MAKING

A good BPM enterprise platform offers 360° transparency into all process activities allowing middle & senior managers to quickly identify where areas of risk exist and drill down into the granular details with just a few clicks. In doing so, investments in process improvement activities are made swiftly with higher levels of confidence making continuous improvement and process waste removal at the staff level a daily routine activity. Key benefits include:

• Zoom in to the team & process task level for granular details
• Teach staff members the importance of identifying process waste & how to report it to their managers
• Roll-up for 30,000 ft view
• Increased tactical day-to-day focus

RETAINED KNOWLEDGE

A BPM enterprise application allows any staff member a portal to quickly locate and utilise the key know-how required during each process step. For growth-oriented organisations, this is specifically useful when sharing and accessing support documents & intellectual property to identify complementary skill sets and transferring knowledge from one staff member to the next.

• Minimal loss of data when transferred from one staff member to the next
• All process know-how captured and easily transferable for repitition
• Lessons learnt & best practices are easily captured, communicated & available to all for future initiatives

Download our 2023 white paper for complete details

About the Author

Andrew Lenti ?has been working with multinational organisations involved in business transformation initiatives since 1999. In that time he has been based in 6 different European countries as well as the United States. He has rich experiences working with business leaders at all levels of the organisational hierarchy and has spent vast amounts of time working with shared services and outsourcing centres of excellences on lean management and business restructuring implementation projects. He is one of the co-founders of?TOPP Tactical Intelligence Ltd , a European operational excellence software provider and is one of the original architects of?PRESTO P-D-C-A , the all-in-one continuous improvement business management system for growth-oriented companies and consulting firms looking to put work, strategy deployment and process improvement on autopilot.

To learn more about PRESTO P-D-C-A, read case studies and client testimonials, visit?www.toppti.com ?or contact Andrew directly on?LinkedIn .