4-Stage Cycle to Improve Business Results

Continuous growth is what every owner looks for in a business. In addition to raising sales, there are other ways for business progression.

• Lowering overhead and production costs

• Measuring and sharing

• Reducing staff turnover

• Increasing digital traffic to your social media pages and website

• Improving the return on your marketing investment

• Increasing market share

• Boosting repeat business

• Lowering returns and customer complaints

• Improving receivables turnover

• Lowering your tax liability

Whatever the pathway is taken for business growth, stats are needed to show the actual results. Quantitative score or scorecards is something that helps businesses to comprehend how far they have come in accomplishing their goals. A good scorecard is one that is developed by all the stakeholders or parties involved and that holds everyone accountable for their actions.

Let’s go over each of the steps in a business cycle that involves scorecards as a way of measuring benchmarks:

Stages to Improve the Business Cycle

Designed by all Connected Parties

Everyone who will be looking at these figures, including the leadership and operations teams, should agree on the values to be measured on the scorecard. Everyone must comprehend the significance of these principles and the motivation behind the goals. You can use the measure phase of the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) to assess past performance to determine whether things are going well or if more needs to be done.

Let's imagine, for illustration, that you wish to lower your running expenses. Prior to developing an ideal prediction or a goal number for the following year, you will need to be aware of the actual values you had in the past. Both the leadership and operations teams must examine previous outcomes and determine which aspects could be eliminated and how in order to arrive at the optimal amount.

Measured and Shared

Results are measured in the control phase in order to keep track of them. Measuring can be done in a variety of methods, but it is crucial that it be done "online," meaning that the person carrying out the activity can assess how well s/he is doing at the Job in real-time.

It's challenging for an employee to figure out how to improve if they worked in a vacuum and could only judge their performance by the money they received. Since you learn better by doing than by listening, instructing someone on how to improve is not necessarily more effective than practically taking them through the process.

If the process doesn't allow it, each employee can simply keep track of their own progress on whiteboards or Excel sheets. If that isn't possible, daily status meetings can be useful. That is, if you are aware of how you are doing, you can take action. Imagine that while you are driving, your speed counter is not functioning and you are unsure of your exact speed. Only by comparing it to other cars can you make a prediction.

However, Employees must be fully aware of their control boundaries as well as their current "speed." For instance, motivation can be used to get millennials to align their process with Lean Six Sigma.

Analyzed

Not only do we want some figures to fill up our monthly charts, but we also want to be able to act on the outcomes, which is why we measure and share them. One task that a lot of businesses struggle to properly complete is analysis. You should be able to comprehend each report you receive, spot problems, and determine its underlying reasons with the help of your team.

For results analysis, many businesses simply have a competent team. Depending on the type of process you are working on, it's best to make sure that the same person can measure his results and look for ways to enhance them as he completes the task.

When the process veers off course, management should be able to analyze the findings as well and offer suggestions. Timely delivery of feedback qualifies as effective feedback. When a process becomes out of control, control charts act as a highly effective tool for staff to pinpoint their misled directions.

Resolved

Utilizing the information from your analysis to take action is the fourth phase. Employees would be less motivated to improve if they realize that you keep the stats but didn't actually take action. As a leader, you must see to it that the issues are resolved and that you locate or assist your team members in finding solutions for the problems found previously.

You'll notice that your troubles start getting significantly worse as you reach near your deadlines or completion of the task. Management choices that are not made on time are the root of 80% of the troubles. A checklist can be used to keep track of ideas and execution deadlines.

Making sure that everyone is aware of what to measure and how to do so can help you enhance your outcomes. The key for management is to teach every employee how to conduct self-evaluations, and to teach your leaders how to take action rather than just observe.

Conclusion

The business cycle is a very important aspect for working professionals in business, finance, and economics. You can make better strategic judgments if you are aware of what stage of the business cycle the firm is operating currently in.

In order to accomplish organizational goals, everybody must be aware of what to measure and how to measure it. As you track and supervise your business cycle, then you can make an action plan on how to go about it. This is how continuous growth takes place.