5 Tips for Creating Effective Business Systems

A business system, or standard operating procedure, is a guide that outlines the exact steps that need to be followed to complete a task. While seasoned team members already know how to complete the tasks, and think that documented business systems are unnecessary, when new employees are hired, having the business systems documented will help them complete their job and achieve proficiency. Recording your systems can be daunting but following some basic guidelines can help you find success. Here are five tips for creating effective business systems.

1. Be the Expert
It helps if you are intimately familiar with the task that you are documenting. Your personal experience completing the job can help but don’t be convinced that your way is the best way. Talk with your staff and take notes.

2. Make it Clear and Concise
When writing down the steps of a procedure, you want to be sure to use simple, direct language. Your business systems need to be understandable to anyone who has a basic, working knowledge of the industry.

3. Remember the Details
You want anyone reading these documents to be able to complete the task without having to ask questions. Be sure to include helpful hints to the steps involved. These could consist of specific locations of valves and switches or where needed supplies might be stored. When it comes to the position of valves and switches, consider making labels that you can refer to in the system documentation.

4. Link Related Procedures
Whenever possible, you want to cross-reference related procedures. Most business systems require users to perform multiple associated tasks for them to complete their goals. For example, a process for using the Print Preview function in your software should be linked to procedures for the Print function.

5. Combine Small Steps
Usually, when documenting business systems, it is best to only write one instruction per numbered step. However, you can often combine smaller steps to keep the document from becoming too lengthy. For example, “click the save button” and “close the application,” can be combined into a single step, “click the save button and close the application.” You can combine multiple steps when the concepts are simple.

Well written business systems and standard operating procedures should leave the users feeling comfortable with the experience and confidence in their ability to complete the task without having to ask questions.

But What is The Benefits of Implementing Business Systems:

One of the best things that you can do for your business is to implement business systems. When you properly design and apply them, they will provide your company with many benefits. If you want to create a high potential company, you need to build viable systems that will allow your business to run without you. With the right business systems in place, your company will gain the following benefits.

Meet and Surpass Customer Expectations
Using a systematic approach to your marketing efforts will allow you to monitor the expectations and satisfaction of your clients. The subsystems that you put in place will analyze, measure, compare and provide you with possibilities for making a specific conclusion about what your customers want and what they don’t want. This will provide you with constant information about what you need to improve.

Produce Consistent Results
Systemization will allow you to repeatedly produce the same and better results every time. When you implement business systems, you can ensure that your employees will complete each task with the same consistent results, every time. Business systems will ensure quality in the completion of every task, every time, with the same quality as before.

Improve Employee Performance
Business systems will allow your employees to complete the same job in less time, increasing their productivity. As their productivity increases, so will their performance. The goal of business systems is to allow for the proper education and opportunities for all employees so that they can complete their work more effectively and efficiently.

Reduce Costs
When you donÕt have to repeat activities several times to complete them, you will dramatically reduce your costs. Documented systems help to reduce costly mistakes and improve the quality of work that your employees accomplish.

Increase Profitability
With documented systems in place, you will see a marked improvement in your productivity and performance. This, in turn, will help to reduce the costs associated with running your business, increasing its profitability. Meeting and surpassing the expectations of your customers will help to build customer loyalty and increase referral rates, which have a direct impact on your companyÕs profitability.

To set up documented systems within your business, spend some time determining the repetitive tasks that can benefit from being systemized. The benefits youÕll gain by systemizing your business are much greater than the time and energy youÕll need to invest to get them up and running.