HOW GOOD ARE YOUR INTERNAL OPERATIONS?

With the technology and tools available to us, analyzing internal operations has become more accessible. The key to understanding how good your internal processes are is to have clear visibility of everything going on, which means to leverage technology, including IoT, automation, or other digital tools, to ensure that you have constant information coming in from every level of your business. You can then analyze this information and create action plans for areas that need improvement.

How can we get the right information?

Tech, tools, and analytics have to come together to create a transparent, and consistent process that delivers insights quickly and enables accurate and quick decision-making.

The bigger the decision, the harder it can be to take it. It becomes easier when decision-makers are furnished with valuable data that is compelling. 

AI, machine learning, and automation are essential to gathering this data, processing it, analyzing it, and delivering it as a comprehensible report. This allows for broader observation across the organization, quicker and more profound, more relevant insights.

Data collection from multiple points concurrently and in real-time has become a necessity. Businesses cannot wait to comb through complex processes once they are over. The information must be relayed immediately to ensure that an improvement plan can be worked on and implemented right away.

Automation allows vast quantities of data to be aggregated with minimal interference and with high accuracy. Now, it is vital that automation isn't just confined to one part of the process but is implemented throughout the ecosystem wherever possible. 

For example, if an eCommerce business had multiple data touchpoints and these were tech-enabled (through IoT), vast quantities of data would flow. Ideally, this data would accumulate at a central point. Instead of being presented as raw data, it would submit reports with insights on how to improve specific areas of the company's process. With automation, this data is processed almost in real-time. 

This allows decision-makers to act based on actual data, not rely on experience or assumptions. It reveals additional previously unavailable data to be factored in and provides data to create scenarios to test new improvements before implementation.

Balancing Tech

Tech isn't only the latest trend. It has become essential for the survival of businesses. However, we must understand its limitations. Companies have to focus on becoming tech-enabled, not purely driven by tech. This means that your business must use tech to improve its processes and ultimately improve its bottom line. However, your business cannot rely entirely on tech alone to achieve success. Your tech requires constant refinement, just like your processes. This allows you more clarity over time and helps you improve your technique continually.

How do I start?

Start with introspection. Understand what you want to gain.

For example, ask questions like, what capabilities are we looking to create? What resources and skills already exist to serve as a foundation? What software requirements, processes, and compliance measures need to be considered?

The first step is to create a hypothesis and either prove it or disprove it. This will help understand the areas that have more value. Use the right tools. You may hear of a one-stop solution that caters to all your needs, but that may not be what you need. You need to understand what tech you can benefit from and leverage the right combination of tech for your business.

A logistics company may require all schedules, available vehicles, out-going load, location of vehicles, delivery time, and various similar aspects to be automated. This would add immense value; however, they may not be large enough that they need AI to communicate with their drivers and clients.  

You don't need to create a new process to use technology. Incorporate it into your existing processes to determine what you are doing right and what needs improvement.

A tool or tech suite doesn't help you replace your subject-matter expert. It only provides information. This information is for the subject-matter expert to analyze and help you come up with a more practical approach. Tech is excellent at finding out issues and catching things that the human eye may have missed out on, but we must realize that the talent that leverages that tech and knows how to get the best out of the tech is the true star. 

As mentioned at the beginning of this blog, transparency is vital. With the tech available today, you can have complete transparency throughout your entire ecosystem and internal processes.

The goal here isn't to follow the trend, do what others are doing.The goal is to become better through a better, more defined understanding of your process and continually and consistently working on improving it.

Cogent Infotech employs digital transformation techniques to help scale  business. With over 100+ Federal, State, and Local Customers, 65+ Fortune 500 customers, and 18+ years of reliable service, Cogent Infotech is the one-stop solution for problem-solving using great talent and technology.

If you want to make your process robust contact us today

‍