“If you cannot describe what you are doing as a process, you do not know what you are doing” – W. Edwards Deming (1900-1993)

What are trading systems?

Business systems are documented procedures that establish how your organization operates. They are processes that, in general, combine actions carried out by people and some form of automated application, organized in such a way that they meet a certain set of business objectives. Typically, such systems can take place without direct action from the company founder / owner, over and over again, in the most efficient way possible.

Process examples may include how your staff should answer the phone, how they take and convey messages; the procedure for lifting, approving, placing and receiving orders; the process of generating, verifying and sending customer invoices, as well as receiving payments and monitoring pending invoices, etc.

Regardless of the size or type of your business, you probably already have procedures in place that cover many functions within your organization, which employees follow out of habit or as directed by their supervisor / manager.

Business systems are the blueprint for your business; the “know-how” of any business that many founders / business owners tend to have in their heads and have failed to put on paper.

Why implement business systems?

There are many reasons and many benefits for having established and documented systems in your business, some of which include the following:

1. They provide a framework for your operations and an effective structure to support your business.

2. Improve consistency: production, delivery, customer service, after-sales service, and so on.

3. They improve results and / or productivity, because you and your employees don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time.

4. They provide a better working environment for your employees, as an effective system will help clarify roles and responsibilities and provide staff with some guidelines to refer to.

5. They guarantee compliance with legislation, safety regulations or any other specific legal requirement for their type of business operations.

6. They give your business the ability to expand and facilitate business growth by making your business more attractive to any potential investor or buyer.

Which system works best?

Although there are similarities between many functions, such as accounts, HR, sales, stores, logistics, etc., unfortunately there is no one perfect system, one size fits all, that works for all companies. Any system should integrate the business objectives of the company, its people and the way it provides its products or services.

It is important to have a well-designed system, customized for your type of operation and designed by people at all levels within the organization.

All employees are more likely to follow such a system as they have been involved in its design and understand the value that having a system in place brings to the quality of their work and the service they provide to customers.

One point to keep in mind is that having excellent people working with poorly designed systems, or no systems, is likely to lead to an underperforming business. On the other hand, great systems without good people won’t work either, hence the added benefit of involving employees in designing a system or simply documenting the processes they are following.

Similarly, employees who have been trained in their business systems must also feel empowered enough that they don’t feel like they just have to follow a certain script without using their heads.

For this reason, it is important to encourage feedback not only from your customers, but also from your employees and to use such feedback to continually review and improve and develop your business systems.