Focus on processes to improve performance

A winning strategy to thrive in the coming recovery is to focus on improving operational efficiency. Improving your processes to be more productive and make your business more successful, but which processes and how?

Now is the time to make operational improvement in your business to yield results for you when the good times arrive. Success in improving productivity and your business processes hinges on mastering the key activities of value-adding processes, and supporting processes. Understanding how these groups of activities interact is essential for optimising your operations and driving sales and growth.

1. Value-Adding Processes
   These are the core activities that directly contribute to what your customers value—and are willing to pay for. Whether it’s manufacturing a product, delivering a service, or designing innovative solutions, these processes are the lifeblood of making sales, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.
   
   – Impact: Value-adding processes directly enhance the quality and functionality of your offerings, making them indispensable to your customers.
   – Examples: Manufacturing, service delivery, product design.
   
2. Supporting Processes
   While these activities may not directly add value from the customer’s perspective, they are critical to ensuring that value-adding processes run smoothly and effectively. Supporting processes keep the operational wheels turning, providing the infrastructure necessary for your core activities to thrive.
   
   – Role: Supporting processes are the unsung heroes that enable your value-adding processes to excel by maintaining efficiency and stability.
   – Examples: Human resources, IT support, finance, maintenance.

The Bottom Line
To maximise success, focus on continuously refining your
value-adding processes to boost value to customers, customer satisfaction, and to drive sales and margins. Simultaneously, streamline your supporting processes to reduce costs and enhance operational efficiency. Together, these processes form the foundation of a resilient, high-performing business ready to meet today’s challenges and seize tomorrow’s opportunities.

For a no-obligation discussion on navigating the current slow-growth recovery and succeeding in the coming good times, see below to contact me or one of the EBI team.

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