Back-Office Excellence is an initiative that focuses on improving business performance by eliminating waste through process standardization. It requires leadership focus, strong engagement of all team members, a clear focus on costs reduction, and often includes outsourcing. Good examples are low-cost structures to achieve global cost reductions or lower attrition rates due to high staff turnover.
Increasing profitability through back office improvements can be challenging and complex, but it’s critical to successful business growth. Investing in the success of your back-office operations helps ensure that you have the infrastructure in place to support your company as it grows and your business needs change over time. Here are ten tips to boost productivity and back-office excellence.
1) Define Your Mission
Creating a mission statement can be thought of as creating a mission or vision for your business. It’s important to take some time out and think about what your company stands for, how you want it to grow, etc.
2) Hire the Right People
When you have a big business idea but only limited manpower, you need employees who can help bring your vision to life. That’s why it’s important to hire talented people that can effectively contribute to your company.
3) Create Structure and Processes
With a clear set of company rules in place, it’s much easier for employees to know what is expected of them at work. When everyone knows what needs to be done daily, productivity can increase dramatically.
4) Build Transparency Into Day-To-Day Operations
For example, you can use software that helps your team track what they’re working on from a portfolio-level view. That way, everyone knows which areas need help in terms of capacity or resourcefulness.
5) Automate Where Possible
Automating repetitive tasks frees up your employees’ time to spend on other, more valuable activities. Automation also decreases errors since it is done consistently, meaning that there are fewer mistakes. You can do this by working with your human resources, information technology, legal, compliance/fraud/risk management, procurement, finance/accounting teams.
Customers don’t want to wait while you manually enter their information into your CRM. Create a self-service portal that allows customers to submit their information online, eliminating bottlenecks in processing time.
6) Reward Progress With Recognition and Promotion
Just because it’s not salary doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be recognized. Companies that recognize non-salary achievements will have higher employee morale, positively affecting productivity. Recognizing success in small ways can go a long way when your goal is to improve overall company performance.
7) Leverage Technology
The best way to optimize your back office is through leveraging technology, such as voice-recognition software, information management tools, and barcode scanners.
8) Monitor Key Metrics
Track key performance indicators (KPIs) to understand how well your back office performs compared with industry standards. Look for trends and make improvements accordingly.
9) Standardize Processes
Standardizing your processes will make them more consistent, reliable, and repeatable. It will also allow you to focus on your core activities by delegating back-office tasks.
10) Maximize Team Collaboration
Make sure your teams work closely together by bringing front-office, middle-office, and back-office functions closer together. This will ensure a smoother customer experience for everyone involved with your business.
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