The way businesses conduct their daily operations evolves with time. A few decades ago, enterprises carried out all their operations in-house. In the last decade, the trend toward outsourcing certain business functions caught on. Outsourcing repetitive tasks and non-core business functions to external service providers became the norm. Now, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is an accepted and desirable practice. 

Do you ever find yourself answering the question of “why are we doing it this way?” with “Because we’ve always done it this way.”? You’re certainly not alone. Think about restrictive dress codes, or archaic policies, or even the vendors you work with. Outdated business processes tend to increase their shelf life in organizations “just because.” What about the answer, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it”? However, if you analyze the impact of an outdated business process on your bottom line, your ability to compete and service your customers, and the time it’s steals from your employees...it IS broken, and it needs to be supplanted by a better way.

For the last few decades, there has been an ongoing debate about paper vs digital for business processes. There are pros and cons to both, but ultimately the paper vs digital debate ends up in favor of digital.

Your business processes are what allow your company to function. Without well-defined processes, your entire company would be randomly acting to pursue an unclear goal. A strong business process, on the other hand, will make your business run like clockwork. It is for these reasons that you should always seek to enhance a business process.