Business Systemisation - Blue Ocean HPA

Many business owners are too busy working IN their business to work ON their business. The result? They spend every waking hour just trying to “get things done”. They don’t have time to plan where they want their business to go, much less implement the steps needed to get there.

Systemising your business is all about being able to work smarter, not harder when it comes to your business. When your business is systemised, it means your staff can get on with the day to day things that are essential to keeping your business running, leaving you, the business owner, time to work strategically on your business. Staff members understand their roles, know how to deal with everyday tasks without asking you what to do, and know who to ask when difficult situations arise. Systemisation is not about losing control over your business, it is about gaining control over your life!

What Does Systemisation Involve?

Here are the 6 key steps you need to follow in order to systemise your business:

Step 1 – Analyse Your Existing Business

First, you must objectively analyse your business – you must understand how it works yourself before you can work out what needs changing. You will need to find out who in your business does what and when. You may be surprised at the answers. Record the results. (Note: even if you do all the tasks yourself at the moment, you still need to record what you do.) Don’t forget to inform your staff – ensure they don’t feel threatened by the questions you are asking or think you are simply finding an excuse to give them more work or, worse, make them redundant.

Step 2 – Develop Your Existing Systems

When you have established your existing systems, you can work on developing them – making your business a leaner, more efficient money making machine. This is the exciting part of the process because you will start to see the real potential of your business.

Step 3 – The Operations Manual

Create an Operations Manual for your business – this will record exactly how your business should be operated by your staff. Once complete, look at your WHS/OHS Management, Environmental Management, Quality Management, Employee Management systems in order to have the basic compliance for your companies.

Step 4 – Invest in Your Staff

Implement training systems for your staff to make sure they can run your business the way you want. Your staff are the key to running a successful business without you doing everything yourself. Invest in them.

Step 5 – Include Technology for Automation

This is the most critical and one of the most challenging aspects of systemisation. If done successfully, you will have a business that is repeatable and will work without you. Your understanding of technology needs to be zero, your willingness to achieve needs to be optimal. Let's face it, technology is not going away therefore we need to adopt it and leverage from it in many ways. Be it your strategic direction or operational aspects, you must not leave this step out of your process to business sytemisation.

Step 6 – Free Yourself from Your Business

This is the most difficult step for many business owners. A truly systemised business should be capable of operating succesfully even if the business owner never steps foot on the premises. That doesn’t mean the business owner stops working ON the business – far from it – but he or she no longer works IN the business.

When Should You Systemise Your Business?

If you are planning to grow your business, it is important to make sure your business can cope with the extra turnover that will come as a result. For some businesses, where capacity is already an issue, systemisation may need to be the first step. For other businesses, who already have in place adequate systems to deal with some expansion of the business, systemisation is best done alongside the growth strategies, to ensure the business continues to run smoothly and to lock in the benefits of the new growth.

Need Help Systemising Your Business?

Blue Ocean can help you systemise your business by not only taking your business through the 6 Steps outlined above, but providing the crucial external viewpoint – helping you to identify which are the good (and not so good) practices already at work in your business and how to change or improve them quickly and efficiently. We have helped many SME's achieve ISO accreditation or the required WHS/OHS accreditation in their chosen fields, please do call us to discuss your needs.

Interested in joining this program or want to find out more?