At the start of the new school year in 2023, economic conditions are tense in many sectors of the economy. More than ever, don't try to compete with a ball and chain. To gain market share and bounce back stronger in a few months' time, there's one watchword: Simplify, rid your company of all the complexity it has accumulated over the years, everything that prevents it from running faster than its competitors and innovating.
Here's an unpretentious reminder of your good resolutions for back-to-school 2023.
Simplify operational processes.
Identify processes that are complex, inefficient, or prone to frequent errors. Certainly, find the right segmentation of your activities, to serve the customers, distribution channels or products you've selected. But, at the same time, reduce the number of outliers and stop relying on IT solutions to fit squares into circles. Concentrate on a limited number of processes; eliminate exceptional cases, which create complexity and don't earn you any margin; eliminate redundant steps, special authorization requests and tedious controls; resort to digitalization, favoring solutions that increase your productivity and agility.
Streamline your portfolio of offers and services.
Evaluate your products and services and identify those that have accumulated, no longer correspond to significant demand, or that your teams are no longer able to promote. Get a real opportunity analysis for each offer still in your databases: what margins do they generate? How much sales time or how many linear meters or visits to your website do they use? Is it a genuine range complement, or just a piece of history? Simplify your offer portfolio by eliminating the least attractive offers and focusing on those that make it easier for your customers to choose. Popularize the Bauhaus mantra "Less is more" among your teams.
Improve the customer experience.
Simplify customer interactions by eliminating unnecessary steps in the sales, customer service and technical support processes. Implement user-friendly digital solutions and offer proactive assistance, to deliver a seamless, frictionless customer experience. New technologies, in particular those harnessing generative Artificial Intelligence, can help improve service levels and efficiency ... but don't forget that many of your customers are still attached to conversing with humans, who understand them and significantly improve attachment to your brand.
Simplify your organizational structure.
In times of growth, companies tend to multiply the number of Theodule entities, enlarge central functions, offer numerous supports to operational teams... complexity insidiously spreads to all levels. So, reconsider your current organizational structure and eliminate superfluous hierarchical levels and cross-functional entities. Promote a flatter, more decentralized structure, verticalize decision-making and give power back to your field managers. Delegations of responsibility will be simpler, decision-making times shorter and motivation stronger. At the same time, refocus staff functions on defining policies that are rational, fair, and easy to implement... by operational staff.
Simplify your dashboards and get back to basics.
Identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are most relevant to your business. Concentrate on a few essential KPIs to measure your performance, and make sure they become more readily available, as fewer people are needed to develop them. Here again, fewer data that highlight the deviations to be monitored and that are delivered at a higher frequency can give you a head start in identifying any performance gap and remedying it as quickly as possible.
Promote cross-functional collaboration and understanding of what the customer values.
Eliminate organizational silos and foster a culture of collaboration and information exchange. Encourage teams to work together to meet customer needs and deliver customer satisfaction. All too often, the growth of a company's size leads to the creation of specialized functions, increasingly expert in their field, but far removed from customer concerns, and likely to create complexities without being aware of it. Encourage cross-functional teams with direct links to the field. If necessary, rotate teams between specialties, so that they better understand the roles and constraints of other departments. Challenge internal discussions and decisions, by questioning the added value perceived by customers.
There are many more recommendations we could mention. Once written, they seem basic and obvious. What's not obvious is the systematic approach: the categorical refusal of complexity. Whatever the subject, try to divide the number by at least half: half as many products, half as many customers, half as many items in the database, half as many meetings, half as many suppliers, half as much reporting. Gradually, you'll see viscosity and cumbersomeness disappear, your profit margins stay the same, and you'll free up the company's energies, degree of freedom and investment capacity.
Make simplification a strategic priority.
Involve all levels of the organization and encourage a culture of simplicity and innovation. Reward simplification initiatives and communicate progress regularly. Simplification, like weight loss for athletes, is essential to release the desire to excel and foster agility.
Executives can achieve tangible results quickly, and a virtuous dynamic can be set in motion and maintained over time. The Impact 4 Business partners, with their dual experience in leading strategy consulting firms and as operational executives, are ready to support your journey to getting future-proofed and gaining in simplicity.
To find out more, please contact us: contact@i4b-partners.com
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Impact 4 Business is a collective of partners who provide company executives with the ability to multiply their resources. Our team members all have over 25 years' experience and combine a strong background in strategy consulting (McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Kearney, Oliver Wyman...) and operational leadership (CEO, BU Director, Executive Committee members). Our aim is to "Get your teams up and running like an Executive, while structuring the project like a Consultant". Tailored to your needs, our engagements combine consulting, interim management, and mentoring.
To find out more: www.i4b-partners.com
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