Value of Process In Business

Real Life Scenario: On a Monday afternoon, I stepped out to quickly check for a product in a shopping mall somewhere around my client's office. I got what I wanted and I started feeling hungry on my way out of the mall, I needed to eat some real food but not fast food. So, I figured out a non-fast food canteen close to the mall, I really did not care about how tedious it is in such canteen to get food served. In such canteen, you can expect drawbacks on the process of getting served, long and disorganized queue, the problem of getting your change on time and non-customer oriented staff, however, the list could go on and on. I went into this canteen with such negative expectations.

In contrary, this local canteen already adopted a method of improving its process, which is making the process of delivering smooth and timely service effective.

Adopted Process: Each customer goes to a designated point, where you buy a tag with whatever amount you planned to spend, the tag is in different currency denominations; for instance, I bought a tag with =N=1,000:00 and the tag has =N=1,000:00 engraved on it. Then, I proceed to the queue leading to food selling point.

Customer buys food and pays at the selling point with the tag. for instance, I bought food worth of =N=700:00, I paid with the tag of =N=1,000:00 and got a tag of =N=300:00 as my change. Then, I proceeded to a table to enjoy my food and quench the hunger.

The process ended when I went back to the first point of contact to exchange the tag for the real currency note as my change.

It was an effortless process for me, considering the time one would have wasted in the course of getting food.

Let us talk about Process.

Overview of what Process is; Process is a vehicle that conveys a result or an output. A series of steps taken to achieve a specific result. Every business looks forward to an excellent delivery of service or product but sometimes drawback on the process that will produce such excellent delivery. For instance, a hospitality business projects to increase its bottom line by 100% in the next six months, such business needs to improve on the existing process that will yield such 100% in the next six months.

Every business needs to improve on the following in order to increase its bottom line;

1. Customer Engagement: a model of interaction to support and keep communication alive with your customers. Communication between an organization and its customers could be via different channels (social media, print, SMS, newsletter, et al). This enables customers to keep up with happenings in your organization and ensures both positive and negative feedback, which would help you improve your services or products. This model is effective for generating more sales.
2. Visibility: organizations must ensure they are visible to their community or world at large to increase brand awareness by participating in CSR (corporate social responsibility). Your organization can choose to increase awareness by engaging in activities like a job fair, entrepreneurship development programs, empowerment programs, et al. The more visible you are, the better your chances of increasing sales.
3. Automation: I define automation as a digital transformation that streamlines the complex or time-consuming business process for simplicity, in order to increase productivity. Every organization aims higher productivity in its operations or process to save time. Higher Productivity could mean completing a higher number of tasks/projects within a short period of time. Automation helps you reduce both human errors and cost. An Organization can check for those processes that consume time, prone to human errors and expensive to maintain, those processes need to be automated if you want to increase your bottom line.
4. Empowerment of Employees for Productivity: empowering your employees is essential, it reflects on how they deliver on the job. No organization wants a disengaged employee. Empowering your employees could mean giving them adequate training or coaching they needed to carry out their tasks, manage customers, the prospect for new leads/sales, retain customers, et al.