Business Process Optimization vs. Continuous Improvement: What’s Best for Your Growth Stage?

Every business wants to be able to do more with less while growing.  But how you do that depends on how mature your company is. There are two strategies that are often in use: business process optimization and continuous improvement strategies.

Applying the wrong methodology can zap your resources and kill your momentum.  In this article, we explore the variances between business process optimization and continuous improvement strategies in order to help you determine which one is right for you based on where your company is in its growth phase.

We will also touch on how business process consulting and continuous improvement consulting companies use tools such as process flow diagrams, business process maps, and business process mapping or BPM to produce results.

What is Business Process Optimization or BPO?

Business process optimization is a result-oriented approach to improving core activities. It typically includes the following steps:

• reviewing current workflows
• determining the inefficient steps,
• redesigning the processes.

BPO often produces more dramatic outcomes than slight tweaks. It may be accessing automation instead of manual processing, changing the organization of work functions, or removing steps that duplicate processes altogether. Business process consulting and optimization firms will generally utilize tools to enhance the improvement group’s vision process flow diagram and/or process map of how work currently flows through the organization.

These solutions enable consultants to more clearly view points of contention or bottlenecks, duplication, or delays in work or performance. They then recommend identifying new workflows that rely on improved or enhanced use of resources.

BPO is especially effective for companies that proceed through a rapid phase of growth requiring funds and friendly, or enterprises that perform substantially under legacy situations utilizing outdated workflows.

With the help of experienced specialized business process consulting firms, businesses can transition to modern up-to-date systems with streamlined and better process performance impacting directly a company’s profitability and scalability performance.

What is Continuous Improvement?

The concept of continuously improving yourself and your employees is the idea of making minor changes to systems and processes on a continual basis to improve your business operations. Continuous improvement can stem from an overarching improvement system such as Kaizen, which stands for continuous improvement, or with other systems like Lean or Six Sigma. To promote the concept of continuous improvement, teams at multiple levels of an organization need to be involved in making continual improvements to their work processes.

Continuous improvement is not a single event or one-time exercise, but rather it is an organizational culture and the culture exists to develop the way its processes develop gradually over time, not all at once. Continuous improvement consultants assist individuals in committing to the mindset of continuous improvement while helping them embrace, and implement, cycles of regular improvement.

The continuous improvement model may fit mature businesses that have already implemented processes in some fashion. Using continuous improvement practices helps organizations evolve those processes and even improve customer experiences, to continue staying relevant and competitive.

In practice, organizations would utilize techniques such as business process mapping and performance metrics to guide their thinking and decision-making. These are techniques that go a long way in helping companies to implement a continuous improvement model. They would also use tools like dashboards, feedback loops from employees, and performance KPIs.

As a result of this, continuous improvement paves the way for organizational sustainability. And what goes along with this sustainability is engagement and sustainability from their employees. Continuous improvement is less about changing things rapidly and more about creating the company that is able to build capabilities so it continues to improve itself over time, regardless of whether the improvements are external or internally motivated, or some combination of both.

Business Process Optimization vs. Continuous Improvement

Though both approaches aim to improve efficiency, their methods and use cases differ significantly.

BPO is about re-thinking how things are done, often requiring a considerable outlay of money on new systems or technology while continuous improvement is about empowering teams and incrementally shaping new workflows. 

Business process consulting companies are often comprehensive and can shift between the two types of improvement depending on the scope of the project. For example, a company may start out by optimizing then later transition to a continuous improvement model to help solidify their improvements. 

Making an informed decision about using the right strategy at the right time can drive long-term efficiencies without exhausting teams or wasting capital.

Matching Your Growth Stage with the Right Approach

Whether to choose BPO or Continuous improvement will depend on where your company is within its growth lifecycle.

Startups usually have the most to gain from optimization. Startups need to optimize processes and put in place solid operational foundations. As startups have no legacy processes, they have the most freedom to create productive workflows and can optimize a wide operational model around a business that has just begun.

Scale ups, on the other hand, are growing but also suffering the pain of increasing delays, redundancies, and inefficiencies. In this situation, a great solution is to optimize processes – to allow for increased volume for a growing business. Or, potentially, a simultaneous strategy of optimization along with continuous improvement – as well, using this time to evolve the organizational culture in a more positive manner.

Tools and Techniques to Support Both Strategies

Both optimization and continuous improvement have structured tools and structural documents that accompany them. Here is how you can support either, or both:

Process Flow Diagram: One way that may have occurred to you is to facilitate process mapping or provide a visualization of the steps in a workflow. This is crucial for both addressing inefficiencies and for tracking improvement.

Business Process Mapping: The process mapping technique lays out all of the tasks, responsible persons, and key decision points. By following a mapping protocol you create clarity and ensure all parts of the department are aligned.

Business Process Management or BPM: Business process management is an overall method for managing processes, incorporating software specifically for that use, metrics to measure performance, and governance for consistency.

How to Create a Process Map:

Define processes and their scope

• List all tasks
• List responsible persons and operating systems
• Lay out the sequence using flowchart symbols
• Collaboratively find and analyze problems

Using these tools allows many businesses to deploy strategies with consistency and can measure progress accurately. There are many business process consulting firms that will incorporate process mapping, flow retrieval, and mapping as components of their overall consulting engagement.

Enterprises usually have stability in their systems but need agility in its process to remain competitive. Continuous improvement in its processes is key for service quality, service propagation, staff performance, and staff engagement, among other things.

Additionally, you must think of other factors such as adjustments related to total budget, available technology, team size, and urgency. If it is more prudent to get a process transformed as quickly as possible, then BPO is more appropriate. If it is more important to keep improving a service over time, then continuous improvement would be ideal.

A solid process consulting company will support the assessment process of these elements, arriving at the right point of action, methodology and achieving your strategic objectives.