A business involves many processes that contribute to the company’s growth happening at once. Disorganization of these processes leads to inconsistent results and low productivity, slowing down the growth of your business. On the other hand, having a well-designed business process ensures smooth operations, leading to better outcomes.
Whether a professional or a beginner, this article will help you understand how a business process design works to improve the coordination of processes within your business.
What Is a Business Process Design?
A business process is an elementary unit of any business. It is a series of repeatable steps within a company that leads to a specific goal. For example, if you have a bakery shop, one business process could be a cake-making process. It would include a series of steps to achieving the goal. Business process design is creating this business process or workflow from scratch.
When Should You Create a Business Process Design?
Businesses sometimes come up with a business process implicitly and long after their establishment. However, it is advisable to create it when starting your business. Graph it out, have it structured, and analyze it before implementing it. By having a business process design in place first, you can smoothly transition to day-to-day workflow.
What Are the Processes Involved in Process Design?
For your business process design to work successfully, you should focus on the set outcomes instead of specific procedures and tasks. It helps to organize these processes in a neat and easy-to-understand way, such as through a flowchart. It will help you identify the critical processes that are involved in your business. Your design ought to contain the following core processes:
Operational Processes
Operations processes also referred to as profit-making processes, are the workflows that directly affect the production of essential outputs from inputs within your business. They are the main processes that are needed for a smooth business function and achieving goals. Operational processes fall into the following categories:
- Production of a product or service.
- Marketing and distribution of products or services.
- Customer support.
Supporting Processes
These are business processes that contribute to the operational aspects of your business. Though they do not directly play a role in profit-making outputs, they keep the business moving. An example of supporting processes is employee payroll.
Management Processes
These are processes that should govern other operations in your business. They are accountability measures that ensure that every different function within the business works smoothly. Just like supporting processes, management processes do not directly contribute to the profit gain of the company. However, they ensure the longevity of the business. An example of a management process is client acquisition.
Now that you understand how business process design works, you can improve the effectiveness and productivity of your business by creating one that works for your business. For a more effective and accurate business process design for your business, read books, magazines, or even blogs related to business process design, or take an online course that teaches you how to create these processes and continue to improve your business.
