Business Systems & Why You Need Them
What are business systems?
Simply put, a business system is a documented set of procedures and processes that outline how your business does something and achieves its goals. Think of a business system as your company’s standard operating procedures, one “system” could have multiple processes or procedures that layout how to accomplish tasks and move towards goals. For example, your business development system could have a process for email outreach, cold calling, mining LinkedIn for prospects and networking; each of those would be a process under the business development system umbrella.
Every aspect of your business (accounting, client onboarding, hiring employees, marketing, operations, team building, communications, culture, etc.) could essentially have a system in place. However, some business systems will be more important to implement and track (using business metrics) than others. Those are the ones that are geared around company goals and strategic initiatives, and these must be implemented, tracked, adjusted and modified.
Why do you need business systems?
As mentioned above, your business undoubtedly has some goals or initiatives to be achieved; they don’t even have to be that formal, it could be something as simple as just increasing sales. Putting systems in place will allow your business to increase efficiency, track progress and run more smoothly. Here’s a sample of why you’d need a system: we’ve talked about company culture before, and if a core part of your culture is open communication, it will be important to build standard communication processes in order to create the culture you’re looking for, otherwise the culture your looking to build may not get put in place.
Business systems allow companies to scale faster and become a valuable asset which could pay huge dividends as you start to think about what an exit from the business looks like. They also lower labor costs, help identify problems and allow changes to be made in real time, while mitigating key man risks that are common in most businesses.
How do you create a business system?
A common question is how to create business systems that will work for your business. There is no right answer to this, or right way to do it, it’s specific to individual companies, their goals and strategy. That said, here are some general steps to think about as you start to create systems.
Map out the process – who's going to do it, what needs to be done, when does it need to be done
Figure out the process – what the goal, what’s the best method to achieve it, how will you track the steps/process, who’s going to document the process
Document the process – create a library or manual of processes in various forms (flow chart, video, audio) that are easy to digest
Execute on the system – follow the steps that have been laid out
Track, evaluate and adjust – always be looking to tweak your systems to improve them and make them easier to run, track the metrics, adjust when things aren’t moving the way you want, or you aren’t making the progress you need towards goals.
Implementing systems doesn't have to be overly time-consuming and you may already be intuitively running some systems. It’s important for business growth to spend some time working these out and implementing them.
Have questions about business systems and how to implement them in your company? Contact us for a free consultation.