Is Your Organization Making These Operational Mistakes?
Every business makes mistakes. Every single business. Elon Musk might be able to put a car - and astronauts - into space, but even he makes mistakes. Now your business probably doesn’t have to worry about share prices dropping because of something your CEO tweets, but there are smaller common mistakes that you might be making right now.
Scattered Data
Are you ready for the understatement of the 21st century?
OK. Here it is.
Data is important to your organization.
It’s not just important. It’s crucial. Want to spot trends? You need data. Want to see where things can be improved? Data. Looking for an idea of how things are going? Data.
You need data, and you need to be able to investigate it.
Yet the most common mistake we see is people scattering their data everywhere. There’s something you’ll see on our website. “Say goodbye to seven hundred spreadsheets.”
We say that because organizations use so many different places to collect different data that comparing, analyzing and investigating becomes so difficult that it never gets done.
Luckily, there’s a simple fix to this mistake. You just bring all that data together. You collate it.
With a tool like Array.
Lack of Oversight
Want to know what the root cause of most poor business decisions is?
Lack of oversight. The people who make the decisions don’t have enough clear data. They don’t get the big picture. Sure, they’ll get the corners of the jigsaw puzzle, maybe a couple of edges, but too many missing pieces means they don’t know exactly what they’re looking at.
And they still need to make a decision that affects your organization. Maybe it’s at the local level. Maybe it’ll affect a whole region. Or maybe the future of an entire multinational rests on the right decisions being made.
Bringing that scattered data together makes it easier to find all the pieces, but to avoid this mistake you need comprehensive reporting that gives decision makers full oversight of everything that’s going on.
Luckily, Array’s reporting functions can do just that...
Unclear Workflows
Want something done right? Do it yourself.
But what if you can’t do it yourself? What if you’re relying on field operatives in the next county, or self-reporting customers in the next state? Then what do you do?
The biggest mistake you can make is to send them a rough outline of what you need. When you’re unclear, they’ll be unsure. And when they’re unsure, what you get back might well be unusable.
Getting your workflows clear, reliable and repeatable is the key to avoiding this mistake. Now you could have a checklist that you read out over the phone to the person doing the work.
Or you could use Array to guide them through the workflow, confirm each step has been completed, and automatically compile a report.
We know which one we’d prefer.
Labor-Intensive Processes
Hard work is good for the soul. But it’s bad for the timesheet. It’s not about being lazy, it’s about being smart.
Maintaining labor-intensive processes that take up valuable time from multiple people is a mistake for your organization. Because streamlining them frees up time that can be spent growing and expanding your operations and ultimately your business.
Not embracing automation is a mistake for any business. Using tools like Array to automate emails, checklists, SMS messages and more is the fastest way to working smarter, not harder.