The Value of Business Process Improvement
Whether you’re a medium sized company or a large multinational Fortune 500 company, the list of benefits for process improvement are extensive, and the sooner you initiate a process improvement project, the more value your organization and teams will gain.
One of the most prominent process improvement tools is Lean Six Sigma. Over the last 20 years, Lean Six Sigma alone has saved medium to large sized companies over $500 billion. Three of the major benefits that I am covering today are:
Cost Reduction
Improved Efficiency and Cycle Times
Improved Quality
Cost Control and Reduction - Process improvement is extremely useful in cutting and controlling business costs, particularly by stabilizing and optimizing processes. It’s truly an investment for the long-term health of the business. This is done by ensuring that there are minimal fluctuations in the business process. Fluctuations can come in the form of varying deliverable quality or the amount of time it takes to get your product or service out.
A stable process translates into a predictable process, which from a high-level means reduced expenses and money saved. Your organization could salaried time by reducing the amount of rework required when delivering a final product, or cutting your lead time and getting to market faster.
Improve Efficiency and Cycle Time – Another direct result of process improvement is a marked improvement in how quickly and efficiently you can get your deliverable out. By embracing process improvement, you can ensure that you are effective and competitive in whatever industry you operate in. In other words, you do better and take less time.
Improved Deliverable Quality – Whether your business delivers a product or service, or whether your customer is internal or external, the quality of your deliverable is important. Looking at your process and continually improving it is a hallmark sign of a highly effective business. By improving your way of conducting and closing business, you are able to constantly ensure you are giving your customer what they want. This is particularly important if a business has constantly changing customers or requirements.
When processes are improved, so is your efficiency and quality and your costs are reduced as a direct result. This is because waste (non-value added tasks) are greatly reduced, leaving your team more time to do their work and satisfy your customers.
The final product of a pragmatic, and well executed business process improvement effort, is a cost effective business that focuses on what adds value to the business and customer. Which in the long run means better bottom line.
