The Customer-Focused Business Process Result

At the heart of the process approach is a critical thought – processes produce customer-centric products. It means that each business process has its client. Or several. We can safely say that some market mechanisms of supply and demand must work in business processes. If you, as a customer, do not like the result of the business process that you received, you can influence it by simply voting with your feet. In real life, you can always buy another product, but everything is somewhat more complicated in the system of business processes.

The main guarantee of the effectiveness of the system of business processes and its improvement is the understanding of employees that any work (process)  is done for someone. Whatever you do, you will get a particular result, and someone will use this result further. The result you get is your product. You are both a manufacturer and a supplier. And the company’s process system is the market to which you supply. It’s simple. Your customer is the one who “buys your product. This means that to be successful in the “business process system” market, you must meet the needs of your customers better than others.

How To Make The Result Of A Business Process Meaningful For A Client

Find out who will use the results of your work in the future

First of all, you need to make a list of everything that you do at work. The list will show processes, procedures, functions and individual operations. Then, opposite each item, you must indicate which products appear as a result. These can be reports, inquiries, some semi-finished products, etc. Now, next to each product, write down the people who use the products in the future. This list is precious to you. It will enable you to become the best manufacturer of your products. This list is your customer base and should be treated the same as your commercial customer base. By the way, you can prepare the same list for other areas of your life, not just for work.

Find Out How Your Product Is Being Used

Take your list of customers and start figuring out how customers are using your products in order. For example, if this is a report, find out what information is most important and what is done with it next. You can get some of the data yourself without interviewing clients. However, remember – you can use even self-evident things in a non-obvious way. You will discover many new things for yourself if you regularly communicate with your clients.

Change Your Attitude To Work

Probably the most challenging point. You need to understand one simple thing:  you are a manufacturer and a seller in one person, and you work FOR your customers. Forget the term “I’m just doing my job”. Someone needs your job. Someone depends on you and the quality of your products. Stop doing it for the sake of the process. Do for the sake of the result that your client will like.

Make no distinction between “important” and “unimportant” work. Must do any business well. Very good. Good enough to make you like it. The best seller recommendation might be “I use it myself”. And another critical point, do for yourself as carefully as for others. Learn to be proud of what you do and do it all the time.

Ask Your Customer How They Want Your Product To Be

Each client has product requirements. Find out from your customers, since you already have a list of them, if they like your product. Do they want to change something, and if so, what exactly? What are they missing? Or vice versa; maybe something needs to be removed. Improve your product. Ask clients and search for yourself.

Go Ahead And Always Get Feedback On Your Products

When you send a letter, tell your client information over the phone, personally hand over a business plan, then ask if the client is satisfied. Always ask your customers for their opinions. Like in the marketplace, it is the most valuable source of information that allows you to grow. By improving your products and focusing on customers, you are improving yourself.

Monitor And Manage The Targeting Of Internal Clients As Well As External Ones

When you can implement the five previous points about yourself, you need to help others get through it. It allows you to customize your entire process system to be customer-centric. Yes, you understood me correctly; changing the thinking and perception of people means changing the system of business processes.

By the way, any change in the process, more precisely, the introduction of a change, begins with a change in the participants’ heads. It is exciting but a separate topic, to which I will return more than once. In the meantime, you, as a manager, help employees change perceptions. And control the achievement of the result. Bring the entire process system to focus on internal and external customers.

It’s simple –  your external customers will be happy when your employees are happy.  And material motivation has absolutely nothing to do with it. Need proof? Remember the Hawthorne Experiment.

Also Read: Remote Management Of Business Processes In An Organization