The companies that really grow are not the ones that work harder
Theory and practice
They are the ones that work best, because continuous improvement does not come from improvisation but from clear, shared and verifiable company procedures.
For many SMEs, however, procedures are seen as an obstacle: “They slow us down.” “We've always done it this way.” “Everything works fine here without formalities.”
The problem is that it often “works”, but only until an error, a delay, a dispute or simply an increase in volumes comes along and makes unmanageable what used to be managed “from memory”.
Procedures serve to define clear steps towards achieving an objective, reduce errors, create controls and make processes repeatable and improvable over time. And above all, they allow the business owner to act on objective data, not on perceptions.
Let’s look at a real case: the purchasing process.
At one of our client companies, purchase orders to suppliers were prepared using a simple Excel file called “supplier order form” and then sent by email: an apparently practical system but with several critical weaknesses, linked to the high risk of manual error, the lack of integration with the warehouse, the absence of automatic checks and the difficulty of verifying consistency between order, goods receipt and invoice. When a business grows, relying solely on people’s attention becomes dangerous.
We therefore introduced a computerised purchasing procedure, through the management software, structuring the operational flow in a more rigorous and efficient way, in which:
- quantities ordered were derived directly from the proposals generated by the MRP system or from formal requests by the various company functions;
- prices were drawn from predefined price lists that only the Purchasing Manager could change, so as to guarantee data integrity and consistency;
- payment terms were automatically linked to the supplier master data;
- orders placed by anyone other than the Purchasing Manager were authorised by electronic key, preventing unapproved purchases;
- orders issued could not be amended without specific authorisation.
But the real step change came in the next phase: receipt of materials. The company did not use structured protocols for checking incoming goods, so we implemented systematic checks: automatic retrieval of the purchase order entered in the system, comparison of physical quantities with delivery notes, verification that the order matches the transport document, and a conformity check of the material received against what was ordered.
Does your business work with defined procedures… or does it still rely on the experience of individual people?