Reduce operating costs and increase revenue: Process improvement

If your company is like most, some days reveal unflattering information about day-to-day processes: too much effort for little results. You're wasting time, money, and resources . . . and it's impacting your bottom line.

Don't feel too bad. You're not alone. Most companies face this challenge. Yet, there are easy steps to take to streamline—reducing operating costs and boosting revenue.

• Tackle process improvement in manageable phases. As part of this planning, identify priorities and manage your progress to plan. Planning it this way enables you to adjust to support changes in your environment, your budget, your staff, and your priorities.
• Don’t tackle too much at one time. Maybe even start with the easy processes to fix first to get things rolling. You and your employees have a limited budget of time, bandwidth, funding, energy, and even enthusiasm to devote to new initiatives at any given time. After all, you have a business to run, too.
• Adapt a model of continuous improvement. Don't rest on your laurels; once you've improved a process, think about how it can be improved again. By making continuous improvement part of your company's culture, it's everyone's job to make things more efficient. Also, you'll notice that waste is sniffed out sooner, maybe even before it becomes a process.

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