Starting a new business?

Want to increase your chances for success?

Every company, regardless of its size, needs to plan and establish an internal processes. Not only does a well-ordered set of core processes allow your business to consistently improve and streamline its operations, it also makes the sustainable expansion of those operations more likely.

Many new entrepreneurs are so eager to get going that they often haven’t given much thought to how they should design and build the operational systems that define their business.

Key business areas that require a solid and structured foundation to produce the best results include:

• sales
• purchasing
• product, service, and software development
• client servicing
• staffing and recruitment

How Organized is Your Startup?

When you’re a small business owner, especially a new small business owner, you’re often forced to work with a limited budget and an even more limited staff. This can mean adopting multiple roles and doubling up on a wide range of professional tasks – from bookkeeping to generating new clients.

But all of this shifting back and forth between responsibilities can lead to things falling through the cracks along the way. Invoices get misplaced and go unpaid. Customer queries don’t get answered. And orders begin to outpace supplies, and the necessary workforce to fulfill them.

Whether your company employs a handful of people or dozens of workers, business systems that are properly organized will put you on the right track, and keep you there. You’ll save valuable time that can be invested back into the growth of your company, and you’ll be far better prepared to beat the odds and hang in there for the long haul.

Make it Kanban Simple

Developing new internal processes and staying organized is dead simple with the use of a Kanban application. Kanban takes a few forms, but the core design is very simple. There is a screen with a few vertical rows, with each row indicating progress through a work process. When a new task is formed it is given its own ‘card’ and the card is moved across rows from left to right as the task is progressed.

Kanban style workflow makes it dead easy to know in a glance the current stage of all your open tasks.

Kanban started out as a highly visual Japanese manufacturing system developed by Toyota. When a car order was initiated a new card was created and then moved from row to row as the manufacturing process progressed.

There are hundreds of Kanban applications, but some of the more common ones include:

• Trello
• KanbanFlow
• Pipefy

Why is it so crucial for your business to digitize and prioritize its process development? The answer to that can be found in Kanban’s many success stories, including those from multimillion-dollar companies like Siemens Health Services. But mostly it is just a really easy, affordable way to improve internal work flows and stay organized.

Kanban in Sales

While originally developed as a lean manufacturing method, kanban has been widely adopted in sales. The traditional sales funnel that is adopted by most organizations fits perfectly with the kanban model. For example, if your organization has 5 stages in the sales process a new card would be created when a lead is generated. After the lead is qualified the card is moved one stage to the right, into the qualified column.

Lead —> Qualified Lead —> Proposal —> Negotiating —-> Won / Lost

Kanban for sales is embraced by sales managers and sales reps alike. Sales reps love it because they can tell exactly where they are in a deal at a glance. And sales managers love it because they can quantify their sales pipeline accurately by allocating closing percentages to each stage of the pipeline.

These days one of the most popular sales tools employing kanban method is Pipedrive.

Kanban Interconnectivity

Kanban’s uses aren’t limited to just sales or manufacturing. Anywhere in your business there is a system that requires attention, kanban can probably help. One of the biggest benefits of using Kanban is that it connects the business functions of various departments by making them more interactive and visible to everyone. Also, many kanban tools use API to communicate with other business tools like customer care tickets or warehouse management solutions.

Whether they’re production or sales-related, Kanban makes your operations easier to modify as your business grows. And that can play a key role in helping you manage your business efficiently.

As a lean methodology designed to boost efficiency, reduce potential mistakes, and communicate progress, Kanban is the ideal way to manage and improve the workflow of your small business – from task definition to customer delivery.