Business Resolutions for the New Year
New Years time is a classic period for personal introspection. Many personal resolutions come out this process, but is it appropriate for a business to go through the same process? Absolutely.
So what may a business resolve to do differently? The answer of course is as diverse as the number of firms in operation, but here are two big ones to keep in mind:
- Resolve to re-examine at at least 3 business processes that exist in your company. This can be as mundane as accounts payable or a focus of innovation like new product sourcing. The key is to go in to a re-examination with a focus on efficiency and elimination of wasted effort. Simply challenging a current process will often yield good results.
- Engage employees in creative problem solving. Small and mid-sized firms tend to be top down driven decision makers. Resolve to promote a more grass roots method for problem solving by issuing challenges to employee groups. The results may be expected, but having a bottom up approach should at the very least promote responsibility for the results. And a good solution may appear that was not apparent.
Like a personal resolution, the success or failure of a business change process is dependent on commitment and execution. However, when dealing with an organization keep in mind that promoting this sort of change can have positive results long after a particular business process is ever changed. Happy New Year!
