Your Business Is Growing: Are Your Processes Still Fit for Purpose?
“We have grown, but our organization still operates as it did when we were a team of ten.”
As a small business grows, its organization often evolves gradually.
A new employee joins, a new task emerges, an Excel spreadsheet is created to address a specific need, new software is added, or an informal procedure develops between two people or departments...
Each solution addresses a specific issue at the time it arises.
But as the business develops, these successive solutions can gradually create a complex organization in which information does not flow easily, some tasks are performed several times, and operations rely heavily on established habits and employees' individual knowledge.
What worked when the company was small may no longer be suited to its new size.
The objective is not to formalize every process or turn an SME into a large corporate organization. It is to preserve the agility of a small business—a source of flexibility and innovation—while providing enough structure to support its development.
An Organization Built Around Emerging Needs
In a small business, processes are rarely designed from the outset. They develop as the business grows.
Initially, the business leader may personally prepare quotations, approve orders, monitor customer payments, or manage certain supplier relationships. Employees communicate directly with one another, and everyone generally knows what they need to do.
The organization therefore remains largely informal. The business leader and employees are primarily focused on developing the business, satisfying customers, and addressing immediate operational needs. Structuring processes is rarely a priority as long as the existing way of working allows the business to move forward.
As the company grows, more people become involved and responsibilities are gradually distributed.
But the processes themselves are not always redesigned accordingly.
Common situations may then arise: information is entered several times into different files or software applications, certain tasks depend on the knowledge of a single employee, or responsibilities and approval procedures are insufficiently defined.
For example, a customer order may be entered into a sales database, re-entered into the invoicing software, and then manually entered again for production tracking. Each step works, but the same information is entered multiple times, creating just as many opportunities for errors and discrepancies between files.
Taken individually, each of these issues may seem minor. But as they accumulate, they result in lost time, increase the risk of errors, and make it more difficult to access reliable information. These inefficiencies have a cost that can ultimately affect the company's profitability.
A particular challenge for small businesses is that their operations often rely more heavily on individuals than on clearly defined processes.
As long as the people concerned are present and activity levels remain limited, this way of working may be perfectly satisfactory.
Difficulties arise when activity increases, an employee is absent or leaves the company, a new person has to take over a role, or several departments begin to be involved in the same process.
The company may then discover that a significant part of its operations relies on individual knowledge that has never truly been embedded in the organization.
Organize and Simplify... Then Automate
When faced with these difficulties, the first response is often to look for a new tool.
The company searches for new software, changes its ERP system, adds an application, or looks to digitalize and automate certain processes.
These tools can deliver significant benefits. But they cannot, on their own, solve organizational problems.
Digitalizing a poorly organized process does not necessarily make it more efficient. It may simply reproduce the same problems in a new tool.
For example, implementing new software without first defining responsibilities and approval levels may simply transfer the same issues into a new environment.
Before automating a process, it is therefore important to understand how it actually works. The tool should support a process that has first been properly considered and structured.
Structuring a process does not necessarily mean writing a twenty-page procedure.
Above all, it means understanding how the process works, clarifying roles and responsibilities, organizing the flow of information, and defining the approvals and controls required to ensure its reliability.
This review often identifies opportunities for simplification before technology even enters the discussion.
Improving processes does not necessarily mean challenging the entire organization.
Rather, the objective is to identify what can be simplified, better organized, or made more reliable within existing processes: tasks that add no real value, duplicate data entry, insufficiently defined responsibilities or authorization levels, inadequate controls, or activities that could potentially be automated.
The sequence matters: organize and simplify before automating.
Automation then becomes a way to improve a process that has already been defined and is working reliably, rather than a premature response to a poorly identified organizational problem.
A More Reliable Organization to Better Manage the Business
The consequences of an insufficiently structured organization are not limited to lost time and its financial impact.
They also affect the quality of the information available to manage the business.
If sales, operational, and financial data are recorded in several different tools, if some information has to be re-entered manually, or if it only becomes available after several processing steps, it becomes more difficult to produce reliable and timely information to manage the business.
The dashboards and key performance indicators discussed in a previous article can only make a meaningful contribution to managing the business if the information on which they are based is sufficiently reliable and available at the right time.
Similarly, automation and developments in artificial intelligence, discussed in previous articles, are most effective when the company has properly structured data and well-defined, reliable processes.
Digital transformation does not therefore necessarily begin with selecting a new tool. It often begins by taking a closer look at the organization itself.
However, an organization's processes should not be considered fixed.
A process that is appropriate today may not necessarily be appropriate tomorrow. Business growth, an increase in headcount, the opening of a new location, the launch of a new activity, the implementation of a new tool, or the integration of a new entity may all require changes to the organization and to certain ways of working.
The organization must therefore evolve with the business, without necessarily calling its entire operating model into question.
Key Takeaways
✓ Processes that have developed gradually and work well for a small organization may reach their limits as the business grows.
✓ An insufficiently structured organization can lead to wasted time and errors, reduce the company's efficiency, and generate costs that ultimately affect its financial performance.
✓ Structuring processes helps clarify responsibilities and authorization levels, improve the reliability of information flows, and reduce unnecessary or duplicate tasks.
✓ Digitalization and automation are more effective when applied to processes that have first been understood, simplified, and made more reliable.
✓ The organization must evolve with the business: the objective is not to multiply procedures, but to make operations more reliable without losing the agility of an SME.
Afine Conseil supports SME business leaders in analyzing and improving their organization and processes, to make their operations more reliable and better support their company's development.
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