A system is a coordinated set of four elements:
- objectives
- operating procedures
- functional processes
- people
All of this four elements represent the strategic and operational core of a specific business sector or function.
Now if that short definition makes you feel a bit uncertain on how to go about it, fear not, as we will explain it all very clearly.
To start off, you should know that it’s very easy to define what systems you should create for your company at first. You can simply start by extracting all the different company functions that you have running, ordering them based on the priority they hold in your business. For example, you can pick out:
- Administration
- Purchasing
- Sales and Business Development
- Marketing
- Logistics
- Manufacturing
- R&D
- Human Resources
- Planning
Each of the mentioned function is indeed a complex system that needs to be managed in a strategic way. That is, if you care about your business being effective and produce predictable, consistent results aligned with your vision. In fact, if you don’t start treating each business function as a system, then you miss out on a big part of what it takes to transform success in a predictable company habit.
Let’s expand on the four elements each system is made of:
Objectives, sometimes also known as targets or performance indicators, which represent the desirable outcome the company expects from the function.
Standard operating procedures, which describe the particular way in which the business operates at different levels: from the day to day to once-in-a-while scenarios. Procedures answer to a specific question: how? How does this aspect of the business run? How does it contribute to making things happen and achieve company-wide targets? In a world where everyone wants you to believe that why is all that matters, operating procedures are here to remind you success is achieve by doing the right thing, in the right way.
Key functional processes, which consists in a series of actions to perform in sequence in order to produce a defined outcome.
People, and teams of poeple. A system contains people and teams that take an active part in it, at different levels. In fact, at Intelness we believe that it’s very important to involve and engage people right from the creation of the business systems. This will result not only in a more engaging and positively challenging environment, but also in a more dynamic setup which fosters over-time improvement and dynamicity.
What a real business system looks like and how it’s structured
Pictures of the systems created.
Wait no more, create your company systems and transform success into a predictable company habit
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