Image by Clarita
Business operations just aren’t sexy.
Marketing is sexy. Human resources, or at least employee relations, is pretty cool. Even finance has its moments of glory. But operations conjures up visions of bean counting, performance reviews, inventory lists, quality control reviews, supply chains, equipment, machinery, communication & IT infrastructure, and documentation. Lots and lots of documentation. Not much fun there.
But for all the talk (including mine) about remarkable relationships with customers and employees, of great management, or of building that brilliant brand, none of it matters worth a hill of beans if you don?t have the operations to back it up.
Operations is more than just all the stuff in business that costs money. Operations is delivery. Operations is where the promises made in marketing are delivered on. Without a focus on operations, your marketing could actually hurt your brand. That is because of a fundamental customer relationship rule: over-promising and under-delivering is the single fastest way to undermine customer relationships.
Operations is more critical to your brand than any of the classic 4 P?s of marketing (product, price, placement, promotion). Effective operations allow you to actually deliver on your promises. Operational decisions can have more impact on your relationships with employees and customers than anything else you do.
A company can build sustainable growth on great delivery. You can?t say that about marketing, even great marketing. Marketing is talk, operations is the walk.
Here are 6 areas to look at in bringing the ?sexy back? into your operations:
- Keep it consistent. Consistent processes support employee effectiveness and good customer experiences. Why are the day-to-day activities strictly controlled in monasteries? Its not about control for control?s sake. It?s about freeing the mind from mundane details, to focus on bigger issues. Nothing slows you down faster than having to figure out how every small step in a larger process works each time you do it. Get a system and stick to it. Customers expect the products they buy to be the same from purchase to purchase. Few things elicit more negative buzz than a product that ?isn?t what it used to be?. In service industries, people want to know that their experience of your services will be the same each time they do business with you. We love variety in many things, but variations in quality of product or service is not one of them!
- Watch your expenses, without losing sight of your values. There are a hundred places for a business to leak money. These leaks can ultimately effect your ability to deliver, or deliver profitably. All the promotion in the world won?t grow your business if you can?t deliver at the price promised. You should know where every penny is going. At the same time, you should contain costs in a way consistent with your mission and your brand. There is no point in talking about remarkable customer follow-through, only to cut half your telephone support staff when times are tight. It may be necessary, but always be clear about the impact on your brand and your mission.
- Use the right tool for the job. As Gallup and Buckingham have shown, not having the tools to do the job employees are asked to do, leads to increased turnover. Trying to use tools that are slow, cumbersome, outdated, uncomfortable, or inconvenient grind us down. Few things contribute to procrastination or time-gobbling ‘task-switching’ more than a piece of equipment or software that we hate using. Poor equipment can contribute to mistakes and even injury. In my interviews with employees, dissatisfaction with equipment and workspace ranks second only to negative management behaviour as cause for dissatisfaction or departure. And even if the employee doesn’t leave, if you think the frustration doesn’t bleed over into their interaction with customers, you haven’t been paying attention.
- The little things matter. Great business is about executing the big vision by paying attention to the small details. In good operations there is no such thing as an unimportant detail. It all needs to get done, and done right.
- Great management is great match-making. So who will do all those things that must be done? Find someone in the organization or sub it out. Each employee should be doing what they are best at, generating maximum horsepower for the organization. Forcing good people into roles they don’t enjoy only results in more dropped balls and more unhappy customers. If there is a task not getting done, don’t just add it to someone’s plat indiscriminately Hire or contract the right person.
- Share the love (and the learning). Great operations are not created overnight. They take time. Mistakes are made along the way. Things that seem like a good idea on paper turn out not to be so great in practice. Finding the right fit of person and task or role takes time. Its a long learning process. Maximize your investment in all that learning by embedding it in your organization. Document everything, and provide ongoing training and peer mentoring. Newer technologies like social media channels and Wiki have created opportunities to do this in a way far more dynamic and reflective of on-going learning than ever before.
Making business operations sexy, or even fun, is a bit of a stretch. But they are vital to the survival of your business. Pay as much attention to them as to the ‘fun stuff’ like team building, leadership, and marketing and it will pay off. Keep your operational decisions consistent with your brand and your mission. Put together the right people with the right tools to deliver the right results. Focus on your operations like this and you will greatly increase your chances of meeting or even exceeding your customers’ expectations.
