Optimize processes. Where to start?
It is the beginning of a new year. No doubt many IT managers have been instructed to watch costs. Working more efficiently and optimizing your processes is crucial to this. Quick to say, but where do you start? In this blog, Patrick Smits, Sales Director and partner at Mendify, helps you get started.
Start on time
Process optimization is far from being high on every organization’s strategic agenda. Too expensive, too time-consuming, too exciting. Then what is the moment you scrutinize your processes? When something in the process starts to falter, when your employees are working in different ways and the outcome is different than you expect or when the world around you forces you to. If it is not a virus, then it is an energy crisis or some other crisis that is rocking the world. If you only then start looking at your business processes and the tools you have to support those processes, you may be too late. If you do want to start today, how do you start?
Step 1: Analysis
Every process optimization begins with a thorough analysis. Form a team with several concerned employees from the business and play detective in your own organization for an afternoon. Look together at how work is done day to day, why it is done that way and where it pinches. Involve the IT team as well. What happens under the hood and how does technology currently support the process? This allows you to take stock of where the bottlenecks are in a very pragmatic way.
Step 2: Do it yourself or collaborate?
Now that you know the bottlenecks, you can think about a solution direction. Make it small and do this with the same group of colleagues you did the analysis with. Do you want to challenge this? Or lean on knowledge and experience from other companies? Or are you limited on time? Then it may be a strategic choice to ask an outside party to advise you in devising the most optimal new way of working.
Step 3: Think big
Next, start thinking about what the ideal picture should look like. Guard against getting stuck in your current mindset, but think outside the current processes. Think big and think from a vision: how can you make the lives of employees, customers and suppliers as easy as possible? And what does that yield?
Step 4: Start small
Where are the biggest gains? Be the first to grab that one piece of the big puzzle and challenge yourself with it. Don’t make the mistake of wanting to take big steps right away. Small steps, but with a clear direction, that’s how you’ll get the farthest.
Step 5: Determine ROI
When you optimize and digitize a process, it always comes with a certain effort and a certain cost. These can be hours of your own people or hours of outside professionals. Then it is a good idea to calculate in advance how much profit or return you will get on that investment. What does the process cost you today, what does it give you if you can reduce or prevent errors, and what does a more efficient way of working mean for your employees, customers or suppliers?
Step 6: Devise a solution
Did you get the right issue? Then it’s time to start working on the solution. The power of low-code technology is that you can put down a proof-of-concept very quickly. Make your issue small, gain a few weeks of experience and create insight: does this solution actually deliver the results you envision? Is that the case? Then it’s time for the next puzzle piece.
Process optimization as part of your corporate culture
Continuous work on process improvement should also be part of the corporate culture. This is easier said than done. To foster that culture, it’s nice to have a partner who can guide you through that and has the tools to do so. A low-code platform like Mendix’s is one such tool. Mendix gives you the agility you need when you want to optimize processes, increasing your ROI and reducing your time-to-value.
Which process will you optimize?
Do you want to discover how to start process optimization within your organization at lightning speed with Mendix low-code? Feel free to contact us without obligation, we would love to let you experience the power of Mendix for yourself.