Many small and medium-sized enterprises do not realize that the way to gain the profit means to handle the routine processes in terms of speed and price.

As an entrepreneur you pay the price of every second spent by you and by your people in the company, so you should therefore be interested in how each second contributes to achieving your goals.

It is logical that we initially focus on those processes that are most time consuming to the company and are most repeated.

Let me give a simple example – if your secretary’s wage is CZK 25,000 with included payments means CZK 33,000 with time off for vacation, sick leave and other times you pay but get no return, labor costs reach about CZK 40,000. If we add the related costs (the costs of her job, phone, etc.) costs reach about CZK 50,000. If the working time per year of 2011 means 2024 working hours for every minute of the work of your secretary you pay CZK 4,94. The amount per hour is CZK 296.

When I know this I can easily calculate how much I pay for every routine process in terms of personnel costs. If the secretary goes to the post office twice a week and it takes her (including transport) two hours then it costs you 50 times 600 = CZK 30,000 per year. If I make an offer to you and said that I could go to the post office and I’ll do it for six hundred you will probably think I am crazy.

The good thing is that if you manage to optimize the process to maximum efficiency the difference goes straight into your pocket. If my accountant needs let’s say, one minute for processing a document and I set her better working practices that reduce the time to 54 seconds. My productivity has risen by 10 % and I can implement more work at the same cost.

In every company we can find processes that take people more time than necessary. A few months ago creating a menu for a client took us about 10 minutes. Recently the common issues we come to take around one minute. We are currently working on making our own invoicing proceedings without the intervention of a human hand.

This optimization of routine processes will not only save money but will also lead to a greater control of the firm. An optimized process is always better communicated to employees and therefore leaves less room for improvisation which can of course be sometimes innovative but usually means it is inefficient or comes with a loss. In addition, the optimization of a process does not mean that it is permanent at current levels but an ongoing process which is open to improvement. So if your people come up with better procedures you can switch to the new ones after verifying the efficiency.

Which processes are you going to start to optimize this week? And next week?