Processes, Processes, Processes...

So now that the Red Sox are hot again and back in first I am ready to start posting again....sorry it took them so long!

At the office this week ( I just got back from a whole week vacation) we are working on documenting our processes and it got me to thinking. Why do we do things the way we do? The process of writing the process has identified a number of steps that if we were to simplify a couple of things internally or when we setup a new client that could save us consider amount of times every month. For us we work with about a 100 clients on a monthly basis. If we could just save 5 minutes per client per month that is 500 minutes....Damn! that is a full day of capacity we could find every month. It could be used for a new client, learning opportunities, training, whatever....even another day off. It made we think about all of our clients. I wonder if our clients are thinking about their processes and how they do things and how they could do things just a little more streamlined. One of the ideas I was thinking of is something we already do...we try to help our clients go paperless. Our whole office is paperless....in the accounting industry that is a truly difficult thing to say...we have tons of paper in our office, but it is short-lived there. We scan and send it back to our clients. Our clients have access to whatever info we have for them 24/7 online today. We can now help them with the process of taking even more of their office processes paperless. How much time could that save them? What would they do with all that new found time....

Comments

[Tyler Thompson]

Nice post, Matt. I have been looking at my business processes also. My particular challenge seems to be that (as an anal accountant), I tend to let 'perfection' be the enemy of 'good enough'. I need to remember that processes are living documents that we evolve over time. They're never perfect when they're first drafted.

Here's a link to a recent blog post I wrote on a similar topic: http://insidesmallbusiness.blogspot.com/2011/02/would-peyton-manning-be-good-business.html

[Ready Ratios]

I think a specialist approach should be considered while taking decisions about business processes. i think process which have low strategic impact and are complex should outsourced and those who have high strategic impact and easy to do should be kept and improved continuously.