The success of any business hinges on making the right decisions at the
right time. Judgements on products and services, working methods, hiring
and corporate policy can determine whether a company thrives or fails,
especially when the impact of these choices aggregates over time.
Decisions can be made a by a centralised team of managers, or delegated
across an organisation, based on employee seniority and expertise. As a
business grows, it becomes increasingly important to know which people
can be relied on to judge the best course of action in any given area
or department.
A consistent framework
Often decision making is based on subjective criteria and guessing, free
of any consistent framework. But without a clear structure for a path
forward, organisations will struggle to repeat success or avoid past
mistakes. Results are inconsistent and hard to predict, making it
difficult to pin down why a particular business activity is or isn’t
working.
Conclusions need be informed as much as possible by relevant data,
preferably collected in real-time. Analysing historic data helps you to
see what activities have made the most impact on your business in the
past, and how that shapes any plans for the future.
Business rules
Having a set of objective criteria by which to make decisions provides
clarity, saving time and effort. For example, you might say that if a
project isn’t going to generate at least £10,000 of revenue, then it
isn’t profitable to pursue at current cost levels. Or that work for clients who pay within 30
days of being invoiced should take priority over those who fail to do
so.
After carrying out research and drawing up a cost/benefit analysis,
business rules can be implemented across an organisation, streamlining
decision making by cutting out ambiguity and doubt. By automating these
criteria, you can cut out error-prone human guesswork to a large degree,
and be assured of consistency and accuracy based on your predetermined
guidelines.
Delegation
Having a comprehensive understanding of everybody’s role and skills
across your business means you are far better equipped to delegate
judgements. With a clear hierarchy of responsibility, and how that
shapes business processes, every step of an activity can be assigned to
the appropriate employee at the right time.
Employee performance data relating to accuracy and productivity when
dealing with any given task can be factored into which decisions can be
reliably delegated, and to whom. If a staff member is consistently
working on their own initiative to achieve quality results, you can be
more confident in assigning them judgements in their area of expertise.
How SwiftCase helps
SwiftCase is a powerful business process management platform that
facilitates better decision making at all levels of an organisation.
- Get a clear framework of your business processes, and identify the points
at which a decision needs to be made - Gather accurate data in real-time to make better informed business
decisions - Automatically assign decision making tasks at any point in your business process,
based on employee roles and skills - Automate decision making with predetermined criteria, reducing
the potential for human-error
Get in touch today, for a free, no-obligation demonstration.