Enhancing operational efficiency is crucial for numerous companies aiming to improve productivity and streamline operations. But many struggle because they lack clear strategies or effective ideas.

This article highlights approaches and useful ideas on how to enhance operational efficiency. It’s a must-read from start to finish if you are a manager or a digital transformation officer looking to do things better.

What Is Operational Efficiency?

First, let’s define operational efficiency and then explore approaches that can help resolve business issues.

Defining Operational Efficiency

In a nutshell, operational efficiency eliminates overburdens, wastefulness, and unevenness in business. Companies need to maximize earnings with limited headcount, costs, and time. Improving operational efficiency is one of the greatest challenges for companies.

Why Operational Efficiency Is Important

Many companies across various industries and sizes have recently sought ways to boost operational efficiency. As indicated earlier, one key driver is more effectively tap limited resources and maximize earnings. Major societal changes have also had an impact.

Overcoming Labor Shortages

Japan faces dire labor shortages owing to its aging population. This issue affects numerous sectors across the economy. It has become common for companies to struggle to attract candidates, even when advertising positions.

Maintaining and improving productivity is challenging with traditional business processes and workflows in a shrinking workforce. So, many companies are striving to streamline operations by rethinking how they do things.

Addressing Changing and Diversifying Work Practices

A shrinking workforce amid its aging population and overwork are burning social issues in Japan. Many companies are speeding up moves to overhaul work practices. They are also shortening long working hours by better monitoring time and attendance records and reviewing personnel management.

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed attitudes toward careers and work-life balance. Companies need to tap new tools, revamp internal infrastructures, and change workflows to accommodate diverse setups like telework, staggered work hours, and workcations. Together, these improvements can streamline the world of work.

Corporate Benefits of Business Efficiency Deployments

How exactly can companies benefit from streamlining operations?

Eliminate Overwork and Alleviate Workloads

Taking a fresh look at routines often unveils inefficient tasks and business processes.

For example, suppose your sales department doesn’t share customer information. In that case, someone might mistakenly schedule an appointment with a customer already negotiating a deal with a colleague. Such inefficiencies increase workloads and lead to daily overtime that overburdens employees.

You could resolve such issues by deploying a customer relationship management or sales force automation system to centrally manage customer information within your department. Improving operational efficiency can be opportunities to enhance existing business processes, review workflows, and eliminate long working hours.

Maximize Earnings by Trimming Unnecessary Spending

Chronic long working hours because of unproductive tasks result in wasteful labor spending. Equating more time with higher costs dampens corporate earnings and reduces operational efficiency.

Consider expanding your business domain or starting a new operation to improve sales and profits. Of course, it’s hard to take on new challenges when your people are swamped with day-to-day toils. Such a situation impedes sustainable growth.

Efforts to improve operational efficiency help optimize earnings with limited resources. Reviewing business processes can free up people, enabling you to expand and explore new opportunities.

Eliminate Uneven Work Quality and Reduce Labor Needs

In some cases, uneven work and product quality arise from inadequate workflows or assigning tasks to unprepared individuals. Many workplaces lack work manuals, with only certain employees knowing what to do.

Improving operational efficiency can ensure consistent performance, even if different people handle tasks. This increases the prospects of eliminating uneven quality.

Better Motivate Employees and Bolster Recruiting

You are more likely to boost morale by streamlining work and eliminating overburdens, wastefulness, and unevenness.

For example, you’ll improve work-life balance by rolling out a teleworking program or shortening overtime. More people will enjoy serving your company. If you also maximize earnings with limited resources, you can share profits with employees, accommodating demands for higher wages.

On top of that, if your company trims personnel requirements by eliminating waste and establishing efficient processes and workflows, you’ll be able to maintain consistent outcomes and enhance job satisfaction. Establishing comfortable environments will lead to more rewarding and fulfilling work, fueling further productivity gains.

You’ll retain your workforce if more employees want to stay with you longer. You’ll also elevate your recruiting profile; your organization will become a magnet for job seekers.

A First Step in Digital Transformation: Worthwhile Ideas for Improving Business Efficiency

Streamlining operations is essential for digital transformation. This process involves changing products, services, and business models to cater to customer and social needs. It also means leveraging data and digital technology, allowing your company to nimbly address sea changes in the business climate and become more competitive. You can gain an edge over rivals by transforming your corporate organization, processes, and culture. Let’s consider some ideas for improving operational efficiency as a first step in digital transformation.

Start by Organizing Your Business

First, list your current businesses and snapshot your overall operations and systems. Otherwise, you might only partially optimize your setup. Separate operations that need fixing from those that work well. Take an inventory of everything. When creating reports, for example, look carefully at the content, how you prepare these documents, and the printing and filing procedures.

Next, think about solutions and prioritize operations that changes will most impact.

Identify and Review Workflows You Should Change

As well as detailing work processes, you’ll also find it helpful to produce task execution flow charts to improve efficiency. For the report creation process described above, for example, you’d find it easier to understand the following: create → report to section manager → report to department manager → store report data → print report → file report.

When you store report data, you should also consider whether or not you should print or file reports or create a control chart that people can check at a glance.

Creating and Organizing Operational Manuals

Consider preparing an operational manual if a single person performs a task or output quality varies among workers.

Present the content clearly so anyone can understand and complete tasks as prescribed. Many companies now create manuals as video clips. Ideally, the content should also be clear to colleagues in other departments or occupations and new employees.

Database Operational Requirements

It also helps to create a database that consolidates necessary operational information and specialized knowledge.

For a sales department, databasing customer information and updating progress with deal negotiations eliminates liaison missteps, such as making double appointments or making sales calls right after losing orders. Digitizing information should also reduce the time and effort you need to pinpoint vital operational information.

Leverage Communication Tools

Many companies have found that the rise of teleworking and other flexible work styles has reduced employee communication. The worry is that employees may struggle to collaborate effectively if they rarely see each other in person at the office.

If communication issues concern you, we suggest deploying business chat tools or videoconferencing systems to complement emailing and telephoning. In a world with myriad communication tools, it’s important for your company to standardize the ones you use. These tools help maintain and improve the productivity of teleworkers and contribute to overall business efficiency.

Deploy Robotic Process Automation Systems

Robotic process automation applications perform repetitive tasks in place of people. Typical routines include data entry, creating documents and reminder emails, and managing orders. Automating these tasks helps streamline operations with limited personnel and allows you to concentrate valuable resources on more productive efforts.

Introducing a robotic process automation system can significantly enhance business processes and efficiency across applications, including mailers, browsers, and internal enterprise platforms.

Explore Tools to Streamline Business

The first step in streamlining is to organize current operations and eliminate wasteful or inefficient ones. Adopting IT tools is both a cost and an investment. We also recommend evaluating returns on investment to determine how much your expenditures enhance efficiency and reduce unnecessary resources.

Ricoh helps customers adopt digital processes by providing turnkey support from sales through maintenance. RICOH kintone plus, a cloud-based operational improvement platform, is one of its most useful tools for enhancing efficiency. You can link this offering to various Ricoh products and services. This allows you to better manage your customers and projects, analyze and employ accumulated data, and use cloud services linked to MFPs, thus advancing and further automating your business.

See the following article for more about Ricoh kintone plus and Ricoh’s vision for the future of work.

How Ricoh and Cybozu Joined Forces to Revolutionize Work through Cloud-Based Business Improvement Solutions