Company founders face an imposing challenge when they move to scale their startups into an established, fully functional, profitable business. Scaling is critical, but it must be done correctly to grow a business successfully; improper scaling can result in business failure, even in the initial growth stages. Nearly 70% of tech startup failures are due to an organization scaling too early in its development.  

Efficiently using Business Process Management tools makes a tremendous difference in whether or not your company achieves its goals. Scaling up a startup involves expanding and determining measurable aspects of a company, such as investing capital, user acquisition, hiring employees, and growing profits. You can ensure that scaling your startup steers away from costly errors by using effective Business Process Management strategies. 

Understanding the Importance of Business Process Management for Startups 

Business Process Management refers to the systematic approach of identifying, analyzing, and improving core business processes within an organization. It involves mapping out workflows, identifying bottlenecks or inefficiencies, and implementing solutions to optimize these processes. While it may seem like a daunting task for startups with limited resources and manpower, investing time and effort into BPM can yield significant benefits.

One of the primary advantages of implementing BPM is enhanced operational efficiency. By clearly defining processes and eliminating unnecessary steps or redundancies, startups can streamline their operations and reduce waste of time and resources. This increased efficiency not only leads to cost savings but also allows businesses to deliver products or services more quickly and effectively.

Furthermore, effective Business Process Management enables startups to adapt to changing market conditions more efficiently. As startups grow and evolve, their processes need to be flexible enough to accommodate new requirements or market shifts. By having a solid BPM framework in place, startups can easily identify areas that need adjustment or improvement without disrupting their overall operations.

In addition to operational efficiency and adaptability, BPM also promotes better collaboration among team members. By clearly defining roles, responsibilities, and workflows through BPM practices such as process mapping or process automation solutions; startups can foster better communication within their teams. This improved collaboration leads to increased productivity as employees have a clear understanding of their tasks and how they contribute towards achieving organizational goals.

Lastly, effective Business Process Management provides valuable insights into key performance indicators (KPIs) that help measure success accurately. Startups can track metrics such as turnaround time for processes, customer satisfaction levels, or resource utilization to identify areas that need improvement. By having access to these data-driven insights, startups can make informed decisions and continuously optimize their processes for better results.

Optimizing BPM for Startup Growth and Minimized Risks

When scaling up your startup, it’s crucial to evaluate and mitigate potential risks. Identifying risks as early as possible makes it easier to address them on a manageable timeline.  

Employing effective Business Process Management is key to addressing and minimizing these risks, thereby ensuring sustainable growth.

Managing Employees and Burnout 

As your startup expands, your existing workforce may face an increasing workload. As a result, they may suffer from fatigue and burnout. Leverage Business Process Management to map your processes, orchestrate steps to streamline processes, organize your business operations, and ensure employee well-being. 

Scaling Up Too Quickly 

Premature scaling poses a significant threat to your company’s future growth. Leverage process management to redirect your focus on enhancing internal processes and evaluating your market position and company goals.  

Remaining Compliant 

As your startup grows, staying compliant with legal obligations is paramount. Even minor oversights in compliance can pose long-term threats to your business. Embed a comprehensive compliance assessment into your scaling strategy, considering recent legal changes and ensuring adherence to all regulations.

Ensuring Consistency and Quality in Scaling Operations with Business Process Management for Startups

Business Process Management software brings the quality and consistency necessary for successful startups, as with established workflows, you can consistently streamline tasks to complete a business project. 

A subcategory of process management is process improvement, and it can help your company remain consistent and maintain quality while scaling operations. Process improvement involves finding ways to assess current business processes, and make them faster and more efficient, reliable, and accurate.   

Other benefits of process improvement include the ability to:   

•  Automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks for scaling faster 
• Employ efficient time management practices for employee and resource cost savings 
• Increase competitive edge through product improvement 
• Stay compliant with updated security protocols, regulatory requirements, and procedures 
• Increase employee satisfaction by allowing employees to work on critical tasks rather than repetitive ones 
• Make customers happy with faster response times, consistent service, and product fulfillment accuracy 

Your company will develop a culture of discipline and responsibility through process improvement when all employees understand these processes and refer to them consistently. 

Productivity, Accountability, and Robust Process Management 

Process management plans allow for improved workflows, thereby creating transparency on what team or department is accountable for which parts of your plans. Proper process management encourages accountability in the company, building and improving team performance and productivity. Goal-setting and leadership development through people management techniques will provide direction and clarity to employees as they work on company projects.  

When employees understand their company’s processes and workflows, their role in it is clearly defined. They feel more motivated and connected to the business. Low employee engagement means increased turnover and decreased productivity. Effective process management, while your startup is scaling up, creates a positive company culture and the employee buy-in necessary for a successful business.

For a startup company, good process management means avoiding these “don’ts,” including: 

• Setting unrealistic expectations and goals 
• Being afraid to change 
• Imitating large companies 
• Adopting complex project structures and organizational charts 
• Overlooking the strength of your employee team 

It’s not about having the most talented employees in your company but instead giving your employees the process management tools they need to lead your organization successfully.  

Best Practices for Implementing Process Management in Startups 

Depending on the company’s pace and needs, multiple Business Process Management methodologies can complement your startup. Here are some best practices that can help you scale up: 

1. Focus on the Customer 

Any plan to gain and maintain customers should originate with categorizing your company’s products based on customer orientation. Prioritize those processes that solve customer issues and deliver services to them. Use your internal data and reach out to customers through surveys and interviews to obtain critical feedback and determine what your customers like and want most. 

2. Set Realistic Performance Goals 

When you know what your business processes are, you can identify where your company needs to improve and its pain points. Devise realistic key performance indicators (KPIs) that you can easily measure and monitor. You can track the progress of any changes that you implement, which can help your management plan lead to improvement and progress. 

Machine Learning is another technology startups can use, regardless of industry or sector, to help define and achieve realistic performance goals. These solutions will also assess your company’s processes and identify processes where employees are spending time on basic tasks that can be automated. Process automation can be beneficial for growth, due to increased productivity and reduced operational costs. 

3. Effectively Communicate with Employees 

Once your company has several teams or departments, the number of people involved with a single process can impact its execution and performance. To avoid setbacks, you must communicate clear tasks and responsibilities to your teams. Observe how your teams work, and if you notice workflow issues, then make a change. Clarifying each team’s role will determine if you can begin work or realign the teams’ roles. 

4. Find a Balance 

In process management, each task includes multiple sub-tasks, and you need to find the number of detailed tasks that won’t overwhelm you or your employees. Balance the level of detail your tasks require while remaining focused on the impact on your business. Process mining is a way to visualize your whole process, and it lets your team zoom in on one specific task for further analysis.  

Wrapping Up: Empowering Your Startup Through Robust Business Process Management

In the dynamic landscape of startups, mastering the art of scaling is pivotal for success. Robust Business Process Management emerges as the cornerstone that propels your startup towards scalable growth. By optimizing processes for efficiency, you pave the way for accelerated expansion and enhanced operational performance.

The post Scaling Startups Efficiently with Business Process Management appeared first on Comidor Low-code Automation Platform.

You are ready for takeoff, and no matter the hours logged in the “air” with your instructors, now it’s time for your solo, and it’s you with your startup jet and your map. Flying is all about energy management and a pilot knows at all times how to manage fuels and altitude. Similarly, you should know when and how you spend your precious budget to reach your next milestone. Always stick to your charted course. Your startup business plan is your map full of waypoints that have been agreed by your vendors before “flight”. These, are not simply some dots in the middle of nowhere, rather they represent two things:

• Heading: Always evaluate and re-evaluate your current position in relation to the market and your business plan
• Energy (Speed and Angels): Based on the milestone reached you should calculate if you’ve under or overspent. If you’ve overspent, you should be able to know why and take corrective actions immediately. If you’ve underspent then either you are off course and you didn’t realized, or your “pre-flight” calculations were wrong! Check your business plan again and hope is the latter. In any case, don’t panic.

You should always, always rely on your instruments. Flying your startup jet is not about intuition or impressive aerobatics. At your cockpit’s right, there’s your state of the art cloud CRM Project Management software acting as your situational awareness panel. Look at your “fuel” gauges to manage your budget, your “altimeter” to see your position relative to market competition and your “oil pressure” to determine how much you can stretch your limited resources.

At your left, you have your Project/Tasks cloud suite acting as your engine/throttle manager. Apply throttle responsibly to achieve your projects and reach your milestones. Check your budget consumption, your market position and your resources availability at all times and especially before applying more throttle and re-calculate these indices in each waypoint in your business plan.

Far up, you have your collaboration tools to manage the comms between your colleagues, your vendors and your customers. Track all incoming information based on priority (criticality), to make sound decisions on the fly and keep track of productivity measurements, while using Business Intelligence reports.

Lastly, be agile and forward thinking anticipating the unexpected. You might be in positions (more than once) requiring course modifications and adjustments. Rely on your instruments, get your readings, re-calculate and do whatever it takes to get back on course. Your destination is to make your idea a product to be used and enjoyed by many. This is your flight. Enjoy it to the maximum. Speed and angels may always be with you.

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What are some great online tools for startups?

1.       Dropbox

Dropbox has become a synonym of Cloud storage. If you want your documents to follow you wherever you are and with any device you use then DropBox will be very helpful. For free users the storage limit is 2GB, which is ok for a startup. The problem with DropBox is that there is no connection of your Documents with your everyday work and communication. It is mostly used as a backup

2.       Google tools

Google provides users with a set of tools valuable for startups. The web email client is fast and stable, though Google has been criticized many times for using tools which extract data from your emails to offer ads customized to your needs. The size of your mailbox is 15GB, huge for a typical company. Your email attachments can be combined with Google drive, a cloud storage where you can upload your digital documents. Its user interface however can be confusing for most people who are used to a desktop environment. Google Contacts is a great backup of your contact list, since it can be easily synchronized with your Android mobile, while google Tasks let you organize your everyday work in a quite simplified way without too many options.

3.       Skype

Skype is the best video chat software at the moment. The acquisition by Microsoft shows the power it already had and the potential for the future. Its architecture lets you use audio and video chat with clear voice and quite good resolution most of the times. On the other side, Microsoft sometimes can be confusing (I am still trying to find out what’s going on with my multiple accounts and skype in Windows 8) and may pose some limitations, for example when you are working in different operating system (Linux, MaxOS)

4.       Mailchimp

MailChimplis a cloud marketing campaign software. The design tools offered for your emails are simple to use and very convenient. The most interesting part is its Reporting system, which lets you track the visibility of your Campaign and track down your subscribers. You can also post updates to many social media and connect your campaigns with your profiles. It gives you the ability to use an API and connect their service to other CRM software, but this also shows their limitations

5.       Mozy

If your company has critical data that need to be secured and backup, Mozy is a nice solution and a quite cheap one. It lets you sync your folders (like DropBox) so that you can access your documents anywhere and at any time, but it also lets you schedule backups so that you are sure you will not lose anything. Ofcourse, this is functional if you are still working using a desktop application and not SaaS software. In the latter case you will not have problems with backup since most SaaS providers offer you this choice.

6.       Zohocrm

Zoho CRM, in its full fledged version, apart from the typical Accounts- Contacts and Opportunities/Leads management, it also offers  workflows, invoices, social integration as well as document creation/sharing.  In its free version though, (for up to 3 users) only Leads/Opportunities, Accounts management and limited social tools integration is provided.

7.       Trello

Trello it’s a  free light task management solution organized around the concept of boards. It is good for creating and assigning tasks and issues and for adding/inviting new members. Trello cannot compete in the project management arena as it has no Gantt charts for planning, no calendar for organizing and no document management functionality.

8.       Appear.in

appear.in is a web-based group video calling service. There is no need to login/register or to install any particular app or software. It can cater up to eight participants and supports chatting and screen sharing. Though secure enough ( SSL/SRTP to secure and encrypt  chats and video conversations) it doesn’t support mobile and works using WebRTC, so it will only work with browsers that support WebRTC.

9.       Freeagent

FreeAgent supports unlimited users, clients, accounts and invoices. It is very useful for creating and emailing invoices, track time, expenses and budgeting under projects’ scope, and is compatible with PayPal, Google Apps. However, FreeAgent does not include any document or task management functionality and doesn’t support mobile.

10.   Comidor

Last but not least Comidor is a cloud business application suite integrating CRM Project Management, Collaboration and Low-Code App Builder  in one platform. Comidor is ideal for SMEs (including startups) due to its efficiency and cost effectiveness in managing all business operations.  Comidor offers projects (tasks, resources, Gantt)  accounts (opportunities/leads), contacts, integrated e-mail client, document management, workflows and even business intelligence tools for up-to-date powerful reports.asks, resources, Gantt)  accounts (opportunities/leads), contacts, integrated e-mail client, document management, workflows, productivity measurements and even business intelligence tools for up-to-date powerful reports.

The post 10 Software For Startups That Will Help You Work Effectively appeared first on Comidor Low-code Automation Platform.

Sadly enough and without any sense of romanticism, we all agreed that it’s the latter. That bitter sense of business gravitational force that pulls everything down to raw numbers. Proof of that is the number of times you were going like: “What? No, way this will sell”. But it did big time. So, to all young guns out there, two words of advice: Wrap your ideas and wrap them PROPERLY. We, the old dogs, gave our fights with VCs when we had to sell our non-wrapped ideas armed only with our passion.

But for you youngsters, there are no more excuses. You are lucky enough to start your business in the decade of PNR (Point of No Return). From all decades and centuries ago, this and the ones to follow are the most promising, (business-wise) liberating and democratic, in the sense that you have all the business tools to succeed in whatever it is you’re doing.

No excuses. You have SaaS tools that can move mountains, from dropping jaws cloud project management tools and task tracking software that run your projects with auto pilot “ON” to Enterprise Collaboration systems which can make teamwork online a reality! But before and above all, you have the new killing breed of Business Intelligence (BI) tools! If you have to choose from all tools just one to start you business, BI should be the only option. Good news, you don’t have to choose. Most of the best cloud CRMs come with powerful BI embedded. So powerful, that you need a life time to fully explore their potential.

These BI tools can transform any of your raw data into meaningful and useful information that will help you identify, develop and create new biz opportunities. Use your BI “responsibly” to explore these opportunities and to further implement competitive market strategies that will make VCs start looking where to sign.

The concept is old but the underline technologies and speeds have transformed BI tools to necessity. While common functions of Business Intelligence tools include reporting, data/process mining, etc. is the triplet of descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytics that is of outmost importance.

Simply put, descriptive analytics assist you in answering questions related to what happened and why did it happen. They mine historical data to look for the reasons behind past success or failure. It is a kind of post-mortem analysis commonly employed in sales, marketing, operations and finance. The next phase employed in BI tools is predictive analytics. Predictive analytics try to answer what will happen. They achieve this by combining historical with external “market” data all filtered by rules and fed to algorithms to determine the probable future outcome. Last but not least, prescriptive analytics are employed for suggesting actions to benefit from the predictions and showing the implications of each decision option. So in essence prescriptive analytics not only anticipate what and when it’ll happen, but also why it will happen making them essential decision making tools.

Got the picture? You’re not alone! You have your youth, your passion, your friends, a plethora of software tools (a.k.a your best friends) and finally us the old guys right next to you for all your bitter and sweat moments ahead.

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