Let’s all agree – while the wide business industry offers you a lot of opportunities to explore, juggling all the tasks you have at hand can be pretty much overwhelming.
Hence, when you are monitoring your business processes, it is crucial that you take out the strategies that are not working to lodge new and pertinent ones.
That would lead you to a path anew.
Now, let us go down and discuss what Business Processes are.
Business Processes
Business processes can be generally defined as a series of steps and procedures the company performs to create an output and achieve its ultimate goal.
A well-structured business process allows you to halt any potential huge problems that might arise and put disruption in your day-to-day operation. Also, by means of this process, you get to streamline communication between your departments and properly guide them towards your goal.
Enforcing the right approach to these processes may increase your businesses’ efficiency in maximizing your output without stretching too much resources. However, in contrast, outdated and depreciated processes might hurt your business big time.
It is known that business processes are vital if enterprises want to be competitive in the market, as awareness of these matters generates success. This is according to a study conducted by Majdzik and Okrglicka on “Identification of Business Processes in an Enterprise Management.” This clearly shows that the more mindful you are in creating and monitoring your business process, the more competitive your business will be.
There are three (3) main types of business processes, these are:
Core/Primary Processes
These are the processes that contribute to how you create your end product and how it directly delivers value to your clients.
Also called the operational processes, this deals with all the essential activities that your business needs to perform on a daily basis (i.e. how you transform your inputs into outputs, how you market it to your external clients, and how you provide customer support.)
This process is considered as the “heart of your business’ value.”
Support/Secondary Processes
While core processes deal with external clients, this process serves your internal clients and takes charge of assisting the value-delivering core process by providing the required resources.
Since it doesn’t directly deliver value to external customers, oftentimes, this is being overlooked and deemed unimportant by some businesses which are obviously a big no-no.
Maximizing this process will never leave you down in the dumps, why? Let’s dig it further in the latter part of this article.
Management Processes
Similar to the support process, the management process does not actually drive income into the company. However, it can still be an additional ingredient to your pot since this identifies if the team meets and exceeds the target or not. This involves planning, monitoring, and general overseeing.
In this article, we will center our focus on the depths of Support Processes, so stay put and let’s get the ship going.
What is the Support Process and why is it important
Contrary to what others assumed, the Support Process is one of the prime reasons for the success of the daily functional operation of the business. Usually, these are the administrative and secondary activities of the value chain, hence, this process serves internal clients and they do not directly bring income into the company.
They are usually composed of the people you see working behind the curtains, keeping your business up and running.
Although the support process frequently plays as the silhouette of the core process, it holds a more critical and strategic role in the organization since it supplies the needed resources of the core process.
Here’s how it works.
Consider you are driving a car without engines, it cannot move, right? Similarly, when you do not have people to convert your plans into action, your company cannot move forward.
For example, your IT department is assigned to ensure that all the computer network systems work properly. Obviously, they do not bring money directly to your company, right? However, without them manning the systems, it might break down and your business might go downhill.
Now, putting it simply, the support process is the one responsible for getting rid of all the roadblocks and ensuring that your core process will work smoothly and continuously to gain the customer’s contentment at heart.
How to Optimize Support Process
Get rid of repetitive tasks, automate.
In any organization, it is certain that there would always be a familiar spiel for “too much work.” It’s sick but we can’t seem to get enough with it.
People with experience in running a business, or even a regular employee, can contest how challenging it is when bombarded with too much work. That is already overwhelming. But how much more if your daily tasks seem to be on a loop? Now, that would be horrible.
Automating your support process will help you minimize the time you consume on repetitive tasks and will allow you to divert your focus into tasks that require a higher level of expertise.
Did you know?
According to a study conducted by DJS Research on behalf of Unit4, “office workers spend a whopping 552 hours per year on repetitive admin tasks. This means that 552 hours of work time is wasted on tasks that need no intelligence.”
This systematic approach provides you with a reduced number of tasks with lower costs and improved efficiency. This is a lot more favorable than settling with tasks that will eventually eat a lot of your time and resources.
By taking advantage of the AI-powered tools and programs, your support team would be free from those complex issues and can work relatively faster.
For example, an HR staffs need to input employee benefits data. Doing it manually may cost them a whole lot of time, but with automation running, usual tasks like this can already be dropped off. They can recalibrate their goals and focus on more skilled labor like recruitment and employee training.
While automation may not have been considered important in the past, today where AI and improved technological systems emerged, it’s becoming more and more prominent. Not only in reducing cumbersome tasks but also in increasing productivity and producing accurate output.
Improve knowledge sharing
In an organization, the process of transferring several documented and undocumented information from one person to another is what we called “knowledge sharing.”
To work effectively, every employee should be given easy access to these kinds of resources to maximize their productivity. Just imagine, watching the throbber on your computer screen for an hour, waiting until the internet connection gets restored for you to generate answers to your questions. Well, it’s obviously not how it should work.
It would be better if you can instantly access it yourself as soon as the query arises so as not to prolong the task and save more time.
Research shows that workers spend a month annually looking for the right information and knowledge in their organization. Perhaps for you, it might not seem that important but you shouldn’t sleep on it. Unless, of course, you want your support team to go off one by one and leave you hanging on a cliff.
Terrible. Right?
Now, to resolve these internal challenges, organizations should look for effective collaboration tools. An AI-powered knowledge-sharing platform that will enable you to deliver seamless employee communication that will ultimately optimize your organization’s support process.
If you want to achieve convenience regardless of the different departments and sections you have in your organization, improved knowledge-sharing will definitely be your best friend.
Look for the steps that can be simplified
Needless to say, the support process should always function at its optimum efficiency. However, be mindful of the wasteful and/or unnecessary steps that set you up in a more complex situation.
Gather your resources together, weigh and identify which steps can be simplified. This will let you see a clearer picture of your goals.
Ditch your outdated tools
According to statistics, 67% of consumers stated that a good customer experience is one of the reasons why they come back to a business. For example, in your IT department, when you provide customer support, you handle ticket queries and provide fast resolution. On this matter, excellent support will increase your chance of customer retention.
However, on the flip side of the coin, performing the opposite would be pretty much challenging particularly if you are aware that you’re equipped with the right skill set, but still failed.
The culprit?
Your tools.
Therefore, keeping it improved and updated is an important part of the support process you shouldn’t miss.
Now that we are standing in the middle of a more modernized and technology-based society, the pressure in keeping up with the shift can leave us all stunned and dumbfounded.
Several innovations have already emerged and it seems like the world finally mastered the art of change. Businesses have transformed, the processes have progressed, and the workflows have changed. In the next few years, who knows what will happen next.
All that is certain is, business processes will continue to improve and help businesses grow.