A complete guide to business process standardization
Business process standardization means creating a best-practice way of carrying out a process and enforcing it as standard across the organization.
Summary
- McDonald’s proves standardization works globally - Same menu items cooked identically whether you’re in New York or Tokyo, with step-by-step instructions for everything from burger cooking to sandwich assembly, creating consistent customer experience and operational efficiency worldwide
- Three core benefits drive adoption - Higher productivity through applying the best method company-wide, easier process improvement by optimizing one standardized version instead of multiple variations, and simpler employee onboarding since new hires learn one consistent way rather than relearning steps across different teams
- Two-step process with enforcement tools - First identify the cheapest, fastest, most valuable process variation, then use workflow software to enforce it in real-time rather than hoping employees follow static flowcharts or PDF maps. See how Tallyfy standardizes and enforces processes
Business process standardization is the act of establishing a “best-practice” of how to carry out a process & making sure that the entire organization follows it.
Standardization can either be done standalone for its inherent benefits (which we’ll explain in a bit) or as a part of a bigger initiative, such as Business Process Management.
BPM is a methodology that maximizes process efficiency through constant re-evaluation and improvement.
In most cases, standardization is a pre-requisite of BPM; It’s much easier to analyze and improve one business process rather than five.
Business process standardization benefits
There are 3 main benefits to standardizing processes.
Higher Productivity & Output - Standardization involves finding the “best” way of doing things and applying it to the rest of the company.
By having more efficient processes, you’ll end up with higher productivity across the organization.
Easier Process Improvement - Eventually, you might end up carrying out a business process improvement (BPI) initiative.
Standardization is something you’d have to do before you can actually go through with BPI.
Instead of optimizing each variation of the process, you’ll end up working on just one (which is the best, anyway).
Easier Onboarding - If you have a standard way of doing things in the company, it’s easier for new employees to pick up the ropes.
Otherwise, working in different teams, they’ll have to re-learn some of the process steps.
The challenge with standardization is not creating the documentation - it is enforcing it consistently. Tallyfy addresses this by turning static SOPs into living, trackable workflows that guide people through each step in real-time.
SOP Management Made Easy
How to do business process standardization
Business process standardization is a 2-step process.
First, you find what the best way of carrying out the process is.
This means that out all of the ways the process is done, you need to find the one that’s the cheapest, fastest and creates the most value.
While it’s rare to find something that does all three, the best process tends to be pretty easy to spot. You just know it. A specialty pharmaceutical company standardized their member onboarding into a 26-step workflow with clear handoffs between Account Managers, Onboarding Specialists, and Setup Teams - the real challenge was not finding the best process but enforcing it consistently across all new accounts.
Then, you need to ensure that your entire organization is aware of the best practice & actually follows it.
This part can be a tad harder unless you employ the right tools…
Business process mapping
You can’t just go up to your employees one day and tell them, “this is how you’ll be doing your job from now on. Good luck! Bye!”
Chances are, they’re going to revert back to the old way sooner or later.
Business process mapping is the methodology of graphically representing your processes as a “map.”
While there are several different ways (value stream mapping, swimlane diagram, etc.) of mapping processes, in case of standardization, you’d want to make a flowchart, specifically.
The other types of maps are meant more for business process analysis and improvement.
The most basic way to do mapping is through pen & paper - take a good look at the process & just draw it out.
Or, if you want to do it digitally, you could use flowchart software like Visio or…
Workflow application
A workflow application is essentially a process map on steroids.
Rather than have a physical map (or a JPG) handed out to your employees, you can use workflow software to keep the processes running in real-time.
You get to design the exact way you’d want the process done online, and the system will enforce it, ensuring that the employees are doing everything the right way.
Other than standardization, workflow management software can also help manage your processes.
Without software, you’d have to manually keep in touch with process managers to see how everything is going.
The software, however, puts all of your processes in one dashboard, as well as allowing for analytics to determine efficiency.
Want to start working with a workflow management tool, but not sure which one to pick? Check out our guide on how to pick the best software for your business.
The next steps - business process management
Once you’ve standardized all the processes within the company, you might be tempted to call it a day and focus on other things, such as marketing or growth.
Having standardized processes, though, doesn’t mean that each and every one of them is working at peak efficiency.
In fact, you might even discover that simply optimizing one of your processes might have a greater effect on your expenses & revenue than focusing on business growth.
Meaning, to ensure that the business is doing as well as it possibly could, it’s important to constantly analyze and re-evaluate your business processes.
You never know what you might find.
Related questions
What are the 4 types of standardization?
We can classify business process standardization of the company into three main categories.
These are product standardization, process standardization, information standardization, and performance standardization.
Each style emphasizes a different point of a company, from developing standard products to optimizing activity and measuring success.
Their usage and implementation helps companies increase proficiency amongst employees, decrease expense and produce more consistent outcomes throughout their business. One financial services team found that standardizing their onboarding process cut the time from initial contact to active status by 30% - and more importantly, it made their results predictable instead of varying wildly between team members.
What is an example of standardization process?
An excellent example of a standardization process is how fast food chains do business.
Consider McDonald’s, for example.
Wherever you travel in the world, you can count on the same menu items cooked the same way.
All these details are accompanied by step-by-step instructions for everything from cooking burgers to assembling sandwiches.
Even the restaurant layout and customer service procedures are standardized.
That gives customers a uniform experience in New York and in Tokyo, and enables the company to work efficiently around the world.
What is standardisation in business?
Standardisation is like a recipe book for the operations of your business.
It’s all about establishing a clear set of repeatable how-to’s, and making sure everyone within the organization adheres to it.
This might consist of established processes for responding to customer complaints, defined processes for how products are manufactured, or guides that dictate how meetings are held.
That’s because you’re trying to minimize variation, improve quality, and ease your employees’ ability to do their jobs well.
It’s not about losing creativity, it’s about creating a strong foundation to build on so that you can build consistency and efficiency into the business.
What is the process of standardisation?
The process of normalization is like cleaning a dirty room and establishing a system to keep it neat.
First, you examine the current practices and identify the best practices.
Then you codify these practices into clear, actionable steps.
Then you train everyone on the new processes.
The next thing to do is test the new standards to ensure they apply well in practical situations and gather feedback of what works and what doesn’t.
At this point, you are putting the standards into practice in the organization and reviewing and revising them frequently to ensure that they remain relevant and effective.
Just remember that standardization is a continuous process, not a one-time event, and it needs everyone in the organization to buy into the process for it to be successful.
Standardized workflow templates to get you started
Standard operating procedure for requesting purchases. Covers when approval is needed, spending limits by role, preferred vendors, and how to submit requests. Following this process ensures purchases are tracked and budgets are not exceeded.
View templateAbout the Author
Amit is the CEO of Tallyfy. He is a workflow expert and specializes in process automation and the next generation of business process management in the post-flowchart age. He has decades of consulting experience in task and workflow automation, continuous improvement (all the flavors) and AI-driven workflows for small and large companies. Amit did a Computer Science degree at the University of Bath and moved from the UK to St. Louis, MO in 2014. He loves watching American robins and their nesting behaviors!
Follow Amit on his website, LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, X (Twitter) or YouTube.
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