Written by: Sandra Stone
In many companies, when they are asked why they follow a certain process, this is the answer received. This ‘office-lore’ is often based on processes put in place many years ago, and may not reflect current company goals, and may not be using current technology and knowledge.
Your business is run by many processes that all work together to achieve your company goals. People are the process; the tools they use include knowledge, rules and technology.
As company goals, people and technology change, the business processes often need to be changed and improved to enable you to meet your goals.
Customers are continually demanding better products and services, and companies are striving to be able to do more, with less effort and at the highest possible quality. One of the major inhibitors to achieving these goals are Business Processes that are contributing to errors, duplication, bottlenecks, frustration and cost increases.
A Business Process Improvement exercise can help you improve existing systems and processes and it includes taking into account technology capabilities to help streamline operations and avoid waste.
One of your biggest assets in improving efficiencies, effectiveness and agility in the marketplace, is your SYSPRO ERP System. SYSPRO V7 takes advantage of the latest technology, to provide more functionality, more mobile capabilities, more automation capabilities and more integration capabilities. By leveraging SYSPRO V7 capabilities, you have the opportunity to improve your business processes, reduce inefficiencies, open the door to new products and services that you can deliver, and make it easier for customers and suppliers to do business with you.
Phoenix Systems experienced Business Consultants can work with your company to initiate and conduct Business Process Reviews. Once company goals are confirmed, then the process looks at each department or process, and basically addresses the following:
What are you trying to do?
How do you do it?
What works and does not work
What can be changed to make it better?
The resulting recommendations for improvement can encompass a wide range of activities. Some examples we regularly make are:
- Use new functions in SYSPRO that can improve the process
- Automate within SYSPRO tasks that are repetitive
- Training for staff on new functions and new processes
- Realign department responsibilities for different stages in the process
- Reduce the number of spreadsheets in use, and have the data kept and maintained in SYSPRO – ‘one version of the truth’
- Relook at old custom solutions to see if still required, as that functionality may now be a part of the latest version of SYSPRO
- Bar coding and scanner solutions for Inventory and Warehouse Management
- Automate the creation of Web Site orders in SYSPRO
- Clearly define responsibilities and work flows, and ensure they are documented and staff members are trained on the workflow processes.
And one final comment: Business process improvement is not a static exercise. The most successful companies implement CONTINUOUS Process Improvement programs, so that ongoing fine tuning reflects the ever changing goals of the company, the market place, compliance requirements and technology.