Domestic Stock Control

(Or the tale of two workflows)

I’m (generally) an ordered person. At home, as food items run out, I add the item(s) to the shopping list, I take the list with me when I go shopping and I then buy those required items on the list. I think it is reasonable to call this a successful strategy.

I love my wife very much but we are very different. For some reason the above strategy does not seem to work out for Lisa, she has a rather more ‘ad-hoc’ approach to the shopping. After some reflection I have concluded that it is just one of those differences and the cost of trying to change it would not be a blessing to either of us. I can also see that Lisa has many qualities and abilities that I lack and that I rely on her for (Lisa assures me it’s a very long list!).

Our two differing approaches can lead to a real difference in the final checkout spend, mine hopefully producing a concise till receipt, with everything required. My wife’s receipt may be bloated (with extra items included as a consequence of trying to remember what is needed) and of course not forgetting the mid-week top up shop required to get the missing ’undocumented’ items.

This is not me bragging about how my way is better, just different, but in business, the type of ad-hoc approach adopted by my better half is detrimental to not only efficiency but also costs. With a structured process workflow (such as my shopping list), tasks are not forgotten, are completed in a timely fashion and spend is concentrated as required - keeping costs down.

PacSol have to provide a service to our customers. To do this, we rely on structured processes to govern our interactions (such as our support desk platform) that ensure we meet our client’s needs. We, as our clients, often need to access information or complete tasks in a timely manner. Things have to be organised, thought has to go into finding the successful strategy. Despite time pressures, someone in the organisation has to be thinking of strategy so that tasks and procedures can meet the needs of the business and customers. This can lessen the workload on staff leading to a happier and less stressful working environment. In essence, a well designed workflow, making use of automation that drives processes to a successful, timely conclusion.

Document management and automation can make a lot of difference in these areas. You may be right at the beginning of a journey to a successful strategy and can only list all the problems, or you may be further along and can envisage the things that need to be changed. PacSol can help in this process, facilitate your strategic thinking and apply our many years of process knowledge to your business process for efficiency, employee wellbeing and cost reductions.

So get in touch and we can talk things through (probably virtually) over a cup of coffee, assuming that we haven’t run out of milk…

 Mark Wheadon, Managing Director. April 2023

 

 

 

#PacSolUK #DocumentManagement #Workflow #BusinessProcess