When it comes to managing your business, you’re always striving for maximum efficiency. It’s a given that you want to get most out of it, in terms of productivity, profits, and so on.
Is your business as efficient as it could be, though? More often than not, unless you practice continuous improvement, the answer is no. To really get the most out of your business, you need to achieve process excellence – and in this guide, we’re going to explain how, exactly, you can do that.
What is Process Excellence?
Achieving process excellence means that the processes your business undertakes are executed effectively and efficiently. That implies cutting down on waste and getting results that exhibit minimal variation.
Variation in results is, to a certain extent, inevitable, but that variation must fall within acceptable parameters. Whether a process serves internal or external clients, variation will affect the quality and result in client dissatisfaction.
Think about it from a customer perspective. You buy apple pie at a certain bakery, and it’s fantastic! Next time you buy one, however, you find that they’ve changed the recipe. You are understandably disappointed because you expected a certain quality of apple pie and you’re not getting it. Will you go back for more? Will you recommend it to your friends? Probably not.
What does the bakery need to do? It needs to stick to the process that delivered good results. The same goes for your business. If you can achieve the right “recipe” for performing a business process, you should follow the same methodology every time you repeat the process.
Achieving Process Excellence: Lean, Kaizen or BPM
There are 3 important business philosophies we can turn to for help when striving for business process excellence. Since each addresses excellence using a specific approach, it might even be a good idea to combine all three.
Here’s a brief introduction to each of them, and a few practical tips you can put to work for you.
Getting Lean
Getting Lean and mean is a proven approach to business process excellence. To get Lean, you get mean on the “seven wastes” identified by Toyota when it embarked on a process of doing things better. Lean means a focus on minimizing:
- Transport (from one place to another)
- Inventory (because inventory ties up capital and incurs risk)
- Motion (movements workers must make to perform a task)
- Waiting (to get on with the process)
- Overproduction (that costs money that could be used more productively elsewhere)
- Over-processing (where the extra work done doesn’t matter to the customer)
- Defects (bin it, or rework it – either way, it’s a waste)
Eliminating waste means that you save money on the processes your business undertakes. You can decide whether you pass the saving on to your clients or whether you bank it and improve your profits.
In short, Lean means doing away with everything that is not necessary to the process or that impedes and delays it. To make your business Lean, you’ll need commitment from every person in the organization – not just top management or a group of employees.
The benefits of Lean include:
- Improved productivity
- Fewer defects
- Better product or service quality (leading to a stronger brand, satisfied clients)
Lean can apply to almost any kind of industry, even a service industry, and it is a widely accepted approach to the achievement of business process excellence.
Kaizen: Getting Better All the Time
Kaizen means “improvement.” Toyota wasn’t satisfied with one drive towards process excellence. Instead, it wanted to keep on getting better all the time.
The secret to successful Kaizen is involving everyone. Your aim is to help everyone to do a better job, to work more efficiently, and to become a part of any process improvement initiative. The whole idea is not to make everyone work harder, but to make work smarter, easier to do, and of a better overall quality.
So you’re probably wondering – how, exactly, do you “do” Kaizen? Well, it’s not something that you do. It’s more a management methodology than anything else. Successfully implementing Kaizen means that your company values initiative from employees, who in turn, contribute a lot to any process improvement efforts.
Although Toyota applies Kaizen in a production environment, it can apply to just about everything. Even life-coaches use the Kaizen approach to help their clients to do things better.
The take-home message of the Kaizen approach is that if we want process excellence, we must make excellence a standard rather than a goal. Whenever we diverge from that standard, we need to stop, think, address causes rather than symptoms, and immediately integrate what we’ve learned into our routine way of working.
To learn more about Kaizen, check out our comprehensive guide.
Business Process Management: Constant Process Evaluation & Improvement
Business Process Management (BPM) views businesses as entities whose activities consist of a set of processes. Since you have a defined set of activities, you can also define how the processes they entail should work. You can even plan for contingencies, and you can repeat your processes and get results that meet a certain standard of process excellence.
You can relate BPM to both Kaizen and Lean. Your processes should continually improve, and they should strive to eliminate waste. As soon as you identify a waste you must eliminate, you can quickly entrench the necessary change by altering the business process. As soon as you spot an area for improvement, you act.
BPM is a bit too big of a topic to cover in this article. If you’re like to learn more, check out our article on the ins-and-outs of business process management.
Enforcing Process Improvement with Workflow Software
Once you’ve figured out how to improve processes, and hence, achieve process excellence, you need to actually implement it.
If you’ve ever tried to change anything in an organization, though, you’ve probably noticed that it’s not that easy. While the improvements make sense for the good of the organization, your employees aren’t too keen on changes.
They’ve been carrying out the process the same way for months, if not years. No one wants to re-learn something they’re already good at.
So, how do you overcome inertia and resistance to change? Technology provides the answer.
Workflow management software, such as Tallyfy, helps you digitize your processes. Whenever you have to make changes to your processes, you do it through the software, and it handles the enforcement for you.
As an added benefit, it the system also helps facilitate the process. It assigns tasks and deadlines for your employees automatically, making everything much smoother.
Related Questions
What are the requirements for process excellence?
Process excellence requires five key elements: clear goals, engaged people, documented steps, regular measurement, and continuous improvement. Teams need to understand what success looks like, have the right tools and training, and follow well-defined steps that everyone agrees on. Most importantly, there needs to be a culture where people feel safe to point out problems and suggest better ways of working.
How do you measure process excellence?
Measuring process excellence involves tracking both numbers and experiences. Key metrics include how long things take, how much they cost, how often mistakes happen, and how happy customers are. It’s also crucial to listen to the people doing the work – they often know when processes are clunky or frustrating, even if the numbers look okay.
What’s the difference between process excellence and process intelligence?
Process excellence is about making workflows better through human effort and smart planning. Process intelligence is more about using data and technology to understand how work happens. Think of process excellence as the journey of improvement, while process intelligence is the GPS that helps you navigate that journey.
Why is process excellence important for business growth?
Process excellence directly impacts a company’s ability to grow and compete. When processes work well, companies waste less money, make fewer mistakes, and can take on more work without burning out their teams. It’s like having a well-oiled machine that can reliably produce quality results while adapting to new challenges.
How does process excellence affect employee satisfaction?
When processes excel, employees spend less time fighting broken systems and more time doing meaningful work. They face fewer frustrations, feel more productive, and can clearly see how their work matters. This leads to higher job satisfaction and makes it easier to keep talented people around.
What role does leadership play in process excellence?
Leaders set the tone for process excellence by showing they value improvement and giving teams time and resources to make things better. They need to walk the talk by participating in improvement efforts and removing roadblocks when teams identify problems. Without strong leadership support, process excellence efforts often fizzle out.
How does technology support process excellence?
Technology acts as a catalyst for process excellence by making it easier to track work, spot bottlenecks, and automate repetitive tasks. Modern workflow tools can show exactly where work gets stuck and suggest improvements. However, technology alone isn’t enough – it needs to be paired with smart process design and human insight.
What are common barriers to achieving process excellence?
The biggest hurdles often include resistance to change, lack of time for improvement work, unclear ownership of processes, and poor communication between teams. Sometimes people get so busy keeping current processes running that they can’t step back to make them better. Breaking down these barriers requires patience and a structured approach to change.
How long does it take to achieve process excellence?
Process excellence isn’t a destination but an ongoing journey. While some improvements can show results in weeks or months, building a true culture of excellence typically takes years. The key is to start small, celebrate early wins, and gradually tackle bigger challenges as teams build confidence and capability.
Can small businesses achieve process excellence?
Absolutely! Small businesses often have advantages in pursuing process excellence because they can make changes more quickly and have fewer layers of approval. They can start with simple improvements that make a big difference, like creating clear checklists or setting up basic tracking systems. The principles of process excellence work at any scale.
