Have you ever questioned why a certain thing in your business is done in a certain way?
Probably not. That’s the thing about running a business – when things are running smoothly, you don’t worry about them. The work comes in, it gets done, you move onto the next thing.
But the other day I had cause to stop and think, why do we do that job that way?
It was a simple thing – the way we process customer orders. They go to the sales person, then they go the accounts management people, then they go to the accounts people, then they go to the delivery team.
All sounds logical, right? It’s a process that served us well. But the chain system creates a bit of a problem, as there is often a lag from when we get an order to when we start the process of delivery.
It might be a few hours, it might be a day. If someone really drops the ball, it might be a few days. But any delay is bad for customer service. If we could promise same day delivery, we might create a new (small) competitive advantage.
By changing the system such that orders essentially hit the desks of everybody at the same time, we can speed up delivery. Our responsiveness has lifted, we feel like we’re right on top of the market.
And it’s all because we were prepared to fix something that wasn’t broken.
Get it done – today!
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
