Process Management For Startups
The process of starting a business from scratch is a long, arduous one. There are so many things to think about, so much data to analyze, and so many decisions to make – it’s an inherently stressful time.
For the vast majority of startup entrepreneurs, the vast majority of their time is spent on the business launch itself. If you’re currently starting a business, you’ll likely experience the same: you’re thinking about getting your business up and running, making a splash, and starting on the right foot.
It’s entirely natural for the actual genesis of the business to dominate your thoughts; in fact, thinking beyond those first few months post-launch can almost seem like tempting fate.
However, there are real benefits to thinking beyond the launch even when you’re still in the startup phase, as these considerations can help to ensure the long-term viability of your business rather than just those first few weeks.
There is one area, in particular, that is worthy of additional focus during the startup phase, and we’re going to focus on this area below: process management.
What is process management?
Process management sounds an example of the kind of business jargon that everyone dislikes; similar to “blue sky thinking” or “looking at the big picture” – phrases that don’t really have a concrete meaning and are more concepts than anything actionable.
However, process management is a real, functional idea that can significantly benefit your business. In a nutshell, it essentially means focusing on individual processes within your companies and seeking to streamline them as well as possible.
What sort of processes?
Most businesses will rely on a number of processes, starting with the most obvious: order fulfillment. For example, if you’re selling products, your order fulfillment process will look something like:
- Customer places an order
- You receive the order
- Find the right product
- You ship the product to the customer
- The customer receives the item
This is just one example of the many processes found in most small businesses – there are countless others, all following the same broad framework. From invoicing management to purchasing to recruitment, businesses are built on an endless stream of processes.
Why are these processes so important to businesses?
These processes are, in essence, the way in which your business is able to function. If each individual process is performing well, then your business will perform well. If there are problems in an important process, then the business will falter.
For example, taking the example of purchasing. This seems, superficially at least, rather simple: you look for items you want to sell, and then you buy them. However, this description is far too broad; it needs to be broken down into a reliable process that has been optimized to deliver the best possible success. For example:
- Perform market research to learn more about what your customers want
- You find suppliers of these products
- You compare prices
- Negotiate the best possible deal
- You receive the products
- Check the products have arrived in a satisfactory condition
- You pay for the products
The two examples above – the simple sentence, and the bulleted breakdown – achieve the same goal, but the bulleted list leaves far less room for error. As the process is broken down into smaller, achievable sections, it is possible to ensure full management of each and every element.
What are the benefits of effective process management?
Essentially, everything.
- Process management makes life simpler for you – and your future employees – as it allows you to keep tabs on every element of every part of your business.
- Process management helps to ensure costly errors are avoided, as you can identify each point in the sequence and isolate problems that occur.
- Finally, project management is a crucial component of business efficiency. By breaking every process down into separate elements, you can ensure each individual link in the chain is working as well as it possibly can, which leads to far greater overall efficiency.
Is process management really something that startups should focus on?
Process management is frequently seen as a matter for established businesses, and most methods of process efficiency are implemented when the business is already up and running. However, it is usually far easier to develop a process right from the foundation of your business rather than trying to retrofit management techniques.
By focusing on process management from day one of your business, the methods you use become ingrained – they become the norm, the standard, just how your business operates.
Don’t you need to have gone through a process to manage it efficiently?
This is an understandable concern for startup business owners; the belief that to make a process run at its best, you need to have direct experience of that process on a practical level. However, this isn’t the case, and process management greatly benefits from theoretical strategizing before launch.
Much of process management focuses primarily on common sense, which you can strategize for without ever having actually gone through the process itself.
Retrofitting process management means that your decisions will always be influenced by what you already know and the problems you have experienced. While this insight can be useful, it can also be a distraction. It’s always helpful to have a theoretical, best-case-scenario to work from.
What if the theories formulated aren’t actually helpful?
As a startup, you may well theorize aspects of process management that you later discover cannot be adhered to on a practical level – and that’s absolutely fine. Process management is ever-evolving, and all businesses need to constantly analyze each process and how well it is performing.
You can start with a baseline, an ideal, and then see how it plays out when the business is actually in operation – which gives you a head start. If you enter into business without focusing on process management, intending to deal with this at a later date, then you’re essentially running behind – you have no starting point to judge your later efforts from.
By having a starter plan for process management, your later analysis will be all the more effective, as you’ll already have an idea of what works and what doesn’t. For example:
- You implement Process Management Plan A from the moment your business launches.
- After three months, you analyze Process Management Plan A, and realize it isn’t working as you hoped.
- You switch to Process Management Plan B.
- After three months, you analyze Process Management B – and it’s working well.
- Your total time to reach the optimal strategy for that particular process was three months.
Alternatively…
- You do not implement any strategies for process management when your business launches.
- After three months, you decide to implement Process Management Plan A in an effort to increase efficiency in your business.
- You analyze Process Management Plan A after three months and discover it is not delivering results.
- Switch to Process Management Plan B.
- You analyze Process Management Plan B after three months, and it is performing as you’d hoped.
- Your total time to reach the optimal strategy for that particular process was six months, because of the delay in attempting Plan A only to find it wasn’t working.
As the above example shows, process management is far more efficient when it is integrated into your business from the very start.
How I get started with process management?
Process management is actually rather simple:
- Focus on order fulfillment and purchase order spending initially, as these are the heart of your business’ operations: the funds you spend on supplies, and the orders you receive from customers.
- Look for services and options that can help to achieve the best possible results in these areas. For order fulfillment, you could implement some of the tips discussed on https://www.handshake.com/blog/order-fulfillment-process; for PO invoices, you could consider using the likes of www.dataserv.com/solutions/3-way-match in order to benefit from automation.
Essentially you’re identifying the individual process to start. Then looking for the methods you need to ensure that process is as smooth as possible.
When you have dealt with the two areas above, you can then expand to other elements of process management, such as:
- Customer service, with a particular focus on how queries or complaints are responded to
- Your returns process
- The management of your website, such as how often you run security checks or update your blog
When you have your initial plans in place, all that’s left to do is see how they perform in practice. It is helpful to schedule a check-up of all of these processes after three months of business operations. If all is working well and you’re happy with the results, carry on as before. If you find issues, go through the same steps again: identify the process, then formulate a (different) potential solution.
In conclusion: An effective Process Management strategy
Process management is often seen as an in-depth area of business that startups do not need to concern themselves with. However, you can save time, and increase efficiency, by building the principles of good process management. You can put this into the very core of your business. With the tips above will enable you to do just that.
Did This Blog Help You? If so, I would greatly appreciate if you could comment below and share on Facebook
Facebook: facebook.com/coachmikemacdonald
Email: [email protected]
Considering Starting a Home Business?
Check out my Work With Mike Section
“I help coachable and teachable professionals become Financially Free and Live Full Time! Helping you create a better tomorrow through a better you!”
P.S. If you aren’t generating leads for your business it’s because you don’t have a system in place to do it. CLICK HERE to set up the exact system I use to Rake In Quality Targeted Leads Daily
If you enjoyed this post, Process Management For Startups, please retweet and comment below
