This can be a basic information to post-pandemic enterprise administration.
After a programs evaluation, programs overview, and potential overhaul, which could result in migrating to the cloud, and after integration of a few of the programs utilizing APIs, the enterprise supervisor has to take up the duty of revisiting enterprise processes with a view to eliminating redundancies.
Even after integration, some processes will stay parallel to the built-in course of when they’re now not wanted. These processes and actions have to be eradicated.
Redundant processes are a difficulty that flies underneath the radar in most organizations. It is insidious. In most cases, the enterprise supervisor won’t ever know the rot. The corrosiveness is rarely actually assessed. And so, it goes on and on, unabated, resulting in a monstrous group with all kinds of complexities. The complexity stays even after enterprise analysts and programs analysts have been employed to streamline the processes, combine programs, and many others.
Duplicate processes should be eradicated, similar to how duplicate recordsdata should be deleted lest they trigger confusion to the customers and drag the efficiency of the pc downwards.
Eliminating redundancies will end in a glossy and easy group that’s environment friendly at no matter it does. The corporate loses weight and will get fitter. This ought to be a activity on the playing cards for the post-pandemic enterprise supervisor.
The next are key actions concerned in eliminating redundancies.
- course of mapping
- enterprise course of automation (BPA)
- eliminating steps that do not ship worth.
Course of mapping ensures that you just doc all of the processes that result in outcomes that add worth. Processes which might be disregarded of the mapping sometimes do not add actual worth. The mapped course of ought to be automated, if potential. that is the place Enterprise Course of Automation is available in. The ultimate step can be to get rid of these processes that weren’t included in “course of mapping” and eliminating the handbook processes that had been automated.
- parallel record-keeping — a number of sources of the reality.
- parallel record-keeping — retaining a bodily paper submitting system in place, parallel to the digital one.
- retaining handbook processes alongside automated processes.
- retaining wasteful and ineffective steps inside the new course of (relics of the previous system and processes).
- printing “issues” after the corporate has launched into a “Go Digital” mission.
- printing a doc that doesn’t must be signed, scanning it, after which emailing the scanned copy (NB* you would have pdf’d the doc and emailed it).
Parallel document retaining is a curse as a result of it establishes a number of sources of the reality. The necessity to have one single supply of the reality is extra pronounced within the post-pandemic enterprise setting. Each firm will at all times have that man, that division, that different workplace, that likes to maintain their very own data in their very own parallel system (sometimes a spreadsheet). There may be at all times a justification for why they accomplish that. Among the causes embody not trusting the official system to be at all times accessible, not trusting the veracity of the official system, not with the ability to pull a report within the desired format with desired fields from the official system, and lack of a selected characteristic on the official system.
The time consumed by retaining parallel data is wasted time. It provides as much as “busyness” with out including worth to the corporate. On the finish of the day, workers are at all times busy, however the outcomes do not correspond to the busyness.
Those that preserve parallel data swear that they do not dislike the official system, and so they promise to maintain the official system up to date on a regular basis in order that it matches their parallel system. Nevertheless, in lots of instances, the corporate finally ends up with entries, data, and transactions within the parallel system that aren’t reflecting within the official system and vice versa. Thus, you find yourself with a number of sources of the reality, which causes confusion.
The above explains the perpetual battle relating to gross sales stats between the Gross sales and Advertising and marketing division and the MD’s stats as derived from both the Accounts Workforce or the Information Analytics group. On any given day, in most firms, gross sales (income) declared by the Gross sales Workforce doesn’t tie to the income reported by the Finance Workforce.
The distinction is as a result of gross sales group overstating gross sales by including gross sales that haven’t but been captured within the system onto their reported figures. Typically the distinction is as a result of accounting group elevating sure invoices within the accounting system, however the transactions haven’t been captured from the supply (the gross sales group), that’s, they haven’t gone by the funnel. The opposite cause might be the gross sales group retains a tab of their gross sales outdoors the official system.
One other instance of parallel record-keeping is that man who retains submitting issues on his desktop parallel to the official submitting place and submitting system. As an alternative of retaining recordsdata on the server, Dropbox, or Google Drive, the man retains them on his desktop, and when he’s accomplished engaged on that file, he drags it onto the official submitting place.
That is seemingly not counterproductive. Nevertheless, the difficulty comes when he forgets to pull and drop the desktop file onto the official submitting place after making some adjustments. The purpose to hammer house is that retaining two copies of the identical file in two completely different locations is redundant. Aggregated throughout many recordsdata, processes, and people, the price of this redundancy provides vital weight, inefficiencies, and complexities to the group.
The second sort of parallel record-keeping entails retaining the previous bodily paper submitting system. Digital representations of most paperwork are actually accepted by everybody (together with the taxman), so there’s little or no want for sustaining a bodily paper submitting system. The pursuit of effectivity results in the adoption of a digital submitting system with higher search functionalities and naming conventions. As soon as that is applied, 90% of the bodily submitting system ought to fall away. It’s redundant. Holding on to it’s not correct danger administration. It’s denialism.
Retaining handbook processes alongside the digital ones is one other instance of redundancies. Most firms that migrate to on-line cloud accounting options rapidly notice that allocation of incoming receipts from shoppers is quicker due to auto-matching functionalities whereby receipts are auto-matched to invoices. With most legacy accounting programs, this allocation entails the accounts group sending an extract of the financial institution assertion to the gross sales group, in order that they receive the title of the shopper, and put up the receipt to the proper Debtors GL account.
When a brand new course of that improves the auto-matching functionalities is launched, the previous system of sending financial institution statements throughout the gross sales group for allocations ought to fall away. The brand new course of could be so simple as simply together with notes to shoppers that they need to use the bill quantity because the reference. It could be as difficult as introducing a web-based cost answer (for instance PayFast) that’s built-in with the accounting system such that when a shopper pays for an bill on-line, the cost platform data the receipt within the accounting system (performing 90% of the financial institution reconciliation course of).
Whichever enchancment launched ought to consequence within the older course of falling away. That’s what ought to occur. Nevertheless, that isn’t what occurs. Oftentimes, the previous course of is carried alongside, even when it’s now not related, and nobody actually makes use of info from the previous course of. Workers keep it up doing issues the previous manner as a result of they have not been informed to cease doing it.
Essentially the most annoying sort of redundancy comes from the previous woman who retains printing a great deal of paperwork, finally destined for the shredder when a brand new course of has apparently been put in place to keep away from such. That is the previous woman who prints a replica of the financial institution assertion, locations it on her proper facet, and prints the whole Provider GL, locations it on her left facet, and embarks on the “allocation” or “reconciliation” course of. That is accomplished after the corporate has purchased a second monitor for her in order that she will make use of two screens, export objects to excel, and work from there. The previous course of ought to be made redundant.
There are lots of examples of redundancies that must be resolved by following due course of always, irrespective of how officious and boring it’s. That’s the key to lowering complexity and waste.
Redundancies can by no means be eradicated completely (PS* you may by no means cease me from creating recordsdata on my desktop, you’ll have to hearth me). The objective is to sometimes revisit processes and take away no matter has been made redundant. Steady enchancment is the objective.
The post-pandemic enterprise supervisor ought to be educated relating to varied enterprise processes happening inside his/her group. She or he ought to be ready to query the validity and relevance of a few of the processes. She or he ought to be ready to sanction the retirement of previous processes. She or he ought to be capable to get rid of a lot of the redundancies that drag efficiency downwards.
Ciao!
