When a business owner contemplates how to sell a business, they often look for quick hit projects that will improve productivity and, as a result, business valuation.  You may not have the time, money or will for a massive projects like enterprise-wide business process re-engineering project that encompasses large teams and sophisticated software.  Instead, consider smaller scale, targeted workflow improvements to improve business productivity and value.

First, a few terms to review.  A business process is a coordinated set of actions that produce a business result, and business process mapping is documenting them.  An example process would be opening a customer account or creating a purchase order.  The mapping goal is to capture how the different parts of an organization work together to serve customers.

The result is a process map, or a visual representation of a process that displays inputs, outputs, tasks performed, and task sequence.  There is quite a set of nomenclature and tools around this, but do not be put off.  For very simple and small projects, we have used post-it notes and a very big wall.

When first launching a work flow improvement effort, you should select which work flows to redesign.  Just a few things to consider include when making that decision:

• Follow the money…  Which processes are important in generating revenue?  Which use a high level of resources where cost reduction opportunities may exist?  What process brings the most value to the client?
• Where are the problems?  What process or organization appears to cause the most problems?  Where is there a strong quality improvement need?  Which of these processes seem to have the highest impact?
• Where can technology make a significant process improvement?
• Which processes cross the most organizations within the business?
• What improvement would have the greatest positive impact on selling the business and its business valuation?

Process mapping has become a key business analysis and quality improvement tool.  It builds an understanding of a process as it is currently performed, then identify gaps, risks, and opportunities to improve it.  At a high level, we are asking the basic questions:

• What is happening?
• When it is happening?
• Who is doing it?
• Where it is happening?
• How long does it take?
• How is it being done?
• Why is it being done?

It is through seeing a visual representation of complex activities that we can find ways to streamline work flow and improve business performance.  Once you see it, you can act on it.

There are several elements to capture when mapping and redesigning workflows:

1. The process goal and owner
2. Inputs – what is coming into the process
3. Organization – what is the structure of the process
4. Processes – what group of activities to consider in and out of scope, and what those activities are
5. People – the roles and responsibilities of those involved in the process
6. Products – what’s being processed (products, customers, patients)
7. Outputs – what’s coming out of the system
8. Outcomes – the impact of the outputs
9. Feedback – continuous information on how you are doing

Quick pointers include organizing around outputs, not tasks, functions or products.  Design processes for simultaneous processing and link steps in real time.  Capture all critical information once and at the source.  Consider including the customer in the process improvement effort.

As you document the processes, keep an issues list of problems, and opportunities for positive change.  Once you have the current processes documented, you can start to review how to improve them.  As you review the visuals and the issues list, some changes may be obvious.  Other thought provoking questions to consider are:

1. Are there best practices we should be considering?
2. Is there a technology that could make a dramatic improvement and or would implement best practices?
3. If time, money, labor, technology, and other resources were not a concern, what would the ideal process look like?  What would be the barriers and risks to implementing it, and how could they be mitigated?
4. What in the process is considered high value and / or a differentiator by the marketplace and by a potential buyer?
5. What do we consider to be our core competency?  What can we outsource?

Although this has been a brutally brief overview of process improvement, it should demystify it for you.  Small process improvements can be quick hit projects that can improve the performance and valuation of your own organization as you move to sell a business.

I invite you to use these ideas during your journey to sell a business.

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