Following Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge to rip out the bureaucracy that blocks investment, Consider Solutions’ CEO, Dan French, explores how businesses can set their own agenda for removing the roadblocks to efficiency and growth:
“The phrase ‘Red Tape’ is enough to send a chill through the veins. The unnecessary policies, rules and activities that delay progress are still sadly present in many companies, big and small. The Prime Minister sees these processes as a barrier to economic growth, and seems hell bent on removing them sooner rather than later.
Red tape exists in our individual interactions with government and consumer brands, but also very much within the operations of businesses today. Some red tape makes sense when it clearly helps to avoid fraud, waste and loss, but over time we often over-engineer these checks and balances.
Consider business practices, for example, when confirming a supplier for goods or services on an agreed budget. This can result in a labyrinth of workflow approvals to fully commit to an order. It is not uncommon to have five or six approval steps after the budget holder and procurement responsible have already authorised the spend. These steps are often necessary only to share information rather than seek genuine approval. This takes excessive time, causes delay in business operations, and creates frustration for all concerned.
Experience of customers AND colleagues together with its foundation, simplicity, are fast becoming recognised enablers for superior business performance. We can eliminate unnecessary red tape by taking a good look at our end-to-end processes for revenue (customer to cash), spend (source to pay), people (hire to retire), product (plan to produce) and so on.
At each stage, ask the question “where are the root causes of downstream defects, errors, waste and frustration?”
Elimination can be even more powerful than automation. This is the core of the “ESSA” sequence of process improvement: Eliminate, Standardize, Simplify, and Automate.
To paraphrase former Apple CEO Steve Jobs: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. You have to work very hard to get your thinking clean to make things simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
The phrase originated in the 16th century when the King of Spain used actual red tape to bundle important documents that needed immediate attention. He had to physically cut through the red tape to read this vital information.
If businesses take the time to consider how to streamline their own processes, in many cases they need not wait for Government intervention to boost their productivity and profits. Like the Spanish King, they must take ownership of a simplified system that helps them achieve their objectives.”
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