More than half (54%) of senior managers in SMEs are wasting a day every week just managing process, with a further third (34%) wasting two days each week.
These are the findings from a recent report ‘The State of Process Management in UK SMEs’ carried out by software firm Process Bliss, which also found that the wasted time and inefficient process management can lead to a variety of issues across the business, with the majority of processes for SMEs found within HR, finance, operations, marketing and sales.
SME leaders do recognise that there is a great deal of room for improvement, with 76% admitting that they do not manage process – the small day-to-day and repeatable tasks that drive a business – effectively.
The report shows that there is not a standard way of managing processes within most SMEs. The most common ways of managing process information are within individual systems (41%) or on spreadsheets (30%), neither of which are truly effective and can make reporting and cross-referencing information a significant challenge. Worryingly, the third most common way of managing process for SME managers is in their head, with 12% admitting that was how they stayed on top of process and tasks.
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Email JaimeAlister Esam, CEO, Process Bliss, commented, “Processes are hugely polarising – people are mostly either really detail-orientated and love them or are more ‘big picture’ and feel restricted by processes
“But whatever your personality type, processes are integral to any business and should be managed in a way that means people aren’t wasting so much valuable time each week.”
He added, “For many SMEs, processes can feel like a chore and an element of the job that people resent, so they seek shortcuts, such as relying on their memory.
“This is a sure route to process failure, which in turn can have an impact on the customer experience, accounts, HR and virtually every function in the business. Using the right tools to manage processes is a no-brainer – for smaller companies the cost is nothing and they can be up and running within minutes.”
A fifth of senior managers say process management software would boost their efficiency, while the research respondents were also mindful of exactly where in their business that process improvements could be most effective. The greatest business benefits cited by SME managers were improved efficiencies (18%), better control (17%) and improved communication (16%).
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