Simply selling great products alone won't make you successful. To win over the long term, your company also needs business operations that hum like a well-oiled machine.
"Companies that combine superior products with excellent internal business operations deliver 30% better growth than peers," said Tony Saldanha, president of Transformant, a consulting firm to Fortune 100 companies.
"Companies that rely only on superior products for competitive advantage are operating on only two-thirds their engine power," he said. "Many leaders continue to think of internal business processes like finance, information technology, human resources ... as the necessary cost of doing business. Instead, they should be thinking of them as a source of competitive advantage."
Run Business Operations As If They Were Products
Luckily, many of the skills companies use to design winning products can carry over to improving how they operate, says Filippo Passerini. He and Saldanha co-founded a company called Inixia, which helps companies meet industry and certifications standards.
But applying product smarts to operations requires internal departments, like payroll, to shift how they think. Rather than simply seeing their job as spitting out paychecks, they should think of their department as a separate and efficient company. Try thinking of your payroll operations as a payroll product company competing on the open market. How would you manage payroll then? Passerini said.
"You would drive end-to-end operational excellence, disruptive innovation and lower cost structures — all of it unquestioningly," he added.
This is one insight Passerini and Saldanha, both former Procter & Gamble executives, compiled in their book "Revolutionizing Business Operations: How to Build Dynamic Processes for Enduring Competitive Advantage."
Work At Warp Speed To Create Superior Business Operations
Most tough organizational challenges deserve a fast response, says Frances Frei. And she would know. Frei is now a Harvard Business School professor, but served as Uber's first senior vice president of leadership and strategy.
Skillful responses should be rapid enough to quicken your pulse, she says. The adrenaline rush of fixing an issue with speed should be invigorating. That sure beats the negative feelings of stress when you let problems fester and hope they'll go away.
It's wise to coach employees that racing to fix problems when they arise is mentally stimulating. "Strip out distractions, fast-track the projects that matter most, and update any unproductive beliefs about speed," she said. Urging employees to solve issues fast keeps them sharp. You'll also find that a push for speed will naturally keep meetings short and on point.
"The leaders who don't get speed right tend to use other people's time casually," Frei said.
Choose Curiosity To Create Superior Business Processes
Humans like to focus on tasks they'd like to do rather than what they need to do. And they also tend to avoid conflict.
Work around these traits when leading your employees, says Anne Morriss. Morriss, founder of consulting firm The Leadership Consortium, with Frei co-wrote "Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader's Guide to Solving Hard Problems."
How do you bring excitement to business problems? Urge employees to be curious about how to solve them. "Let go of judgment for the day and invite the wide-eyed, uncynical part of ourselves to take its place — the inner scientist on a mission to discover what's real and true," Frei said.
Make New Friends To Create Solid Business Operations
Whatever hard business operations problem you're tackling, you'll likely find a better solution if you work with people who think in unique ways, Morriss says.
For example, she says if you've been at the company for a decade, talk to someone who started last week. Or speak to someone with a different work background.
"Seek out those people with different perspectives, assumptions and experiences," she said. "Tap into other people's knowledge, focusing on people who are bringing some kind of difference to the table."
Create The Right Culture
Just know that improving how your company operates will take time and effort. Don't expect lasting changes by firing out an email.
Small actions you make to reward better business operations decisions add up over time, Saldanha says. Eventually, employees who see their peers get rewarded will emulate what they're doing. That's how a company's culture changes over time.
"It is the people and the culture that can drive continuing and evolving superior business processes," Passerini said.
