Internal business processes are one of the four perspectives used in the Balanced Scorecard. Whenever a business uses the balanced scorecard, they are looking at four perspectives inside of a business: The Financial Perspective, The Customer Perspective, The Internal Business Process Perspective, and The Learning and Growth Perspective.
All of these perspectives give businesses a great way to look at the big picture and see how they are doing in these areas. The Finacial focuses on money, such as where it is being spent and saved, and the customer focuses on the people in your business, such as how satisfied they are.
However, the internal process perspective focuses on the business itself. With the other processes, you know what you need to do for the external aspects of your business, but internal business focuses on how your business works day to day without external influences.
Basically, it’s a checkup. What is your business doing well, and what is it not doing well? Now that we know what it is, let’s see how to improve your internal business processes.
-
Gather the Data
Some of the things you might look at whenever you get your internal process perspective are ways to improve your business to drive performance. If you know that you need to get more customers and make more money faster, then what does the business need to do in order to complete those objectives?
Doing an audit of your business and seeing what processes are going well and what processes need some improvement is going to be one of the best ways to get some data for your needs. For example, during the audit you might discover that a process could be approved, something could be optimized, or you could boost efficiency in other ways if a process is lacking.
But you need to perform the audit and gather the data first before you can do anything with it. Take your time and be honest with what is working in your business and what really isn’t, and then focus on figuring out how to improve both aspects of those processes.
2. Look For Automation Opportunities
Chances are some of the reasons why your efficiency is slowing down is because of human error. Your employees might be tired, might be making mistakes, or might be dealing with the fact that a process just isn’t as efficient as it could be. We’ve all had the problem where we’ve attended a meeting that could have been a five minute email, and it can really gum up the works and slow everything down.
Having a lack of automation in your business can be the same thing. You might find that instead of having your employees send an email every single time a new customer joins your network, you might install a software to do that for you. Or instead of using four clicks to move a customer around your process, with automation it takes just one button press to save you a lot of time and money… plus it leads to happier customers overall in the process.
3. Focus On Your IT Issues
Having some good IT services can help out your business, both with automation and making things go faster for your business, but also by helping you out whenever things start to go wrong. If your business relies heavily on computers and you’ve found that your computers are starting to go on the fritz, then you need to call on some It services in Kent for assistance.
IT issues can cripple a business, so having a good team to deal with them before they become a problem is a massive benefit for you and your company. Plus, if some of the slowdowns in your company are IT based, then you might decide to work with the company and speed everything back up.
Work On This Regularly
Just like how you wouldn’t go to the doctor for just one check up and then never go again, you want to be examining your internal business processes regularly. The more you continuously improve and fine tune your business and the processes that make it work really well, the better you will be at managing your customers and improving your financial goals.
It all starts with having a business that runs like clockwork and runs smoothly with no hiccups, so ensuring that your business can do that with no trouble is one of the best ways to keep your business healthy.
Readers
178
