Are standard operating procedures important in business?

We all know that consistency is crucial when trying to achieve success, both in a professional and personal capacity. Sporadic effort and action will never generate the type of results you require. Aside from motivation and a great product or service, it is important that you take massive action to exceed your goals.

The world of business is a huge area and there are many facets to the modern day business. For example, we are all aware that when starting a business we need to consider things such as finance, branding, a website, products/services, pricing, customers, the list seems to be endless.

However, one area that doesn’t get much focus is the actual operational side of running a successful business and what this actually entails. If you look at most businesses they will have certain tasks and processes that are integral to their success.

This could involve how new clients are onboarded for example, right the way through to how complaints or problems are resolved. In essence, it is clearly defining how mission critical tasks or processes are completed or standardised. In this week's blog, we wanted to answer the question, are standard operating procedures (SOPs) important in business?

What are standard operating procedures?
Before we go any further, it is important to understand the definition of standard operating procedures. They can be defined as, “a set of step-by-step instructions compiled by an organisation to help workers carry out routine operations.”

A simple example that we are very familiar with is one of the world’s most popular franchises, McDonalds. Regardless of where you travel in the world, the layout, branding and customer journey in each store will be very similar.

Moreover, the process for cooking and serving customers will be almost identical across their various outlets. This is because McDonalds have standard operating procedures in place for the various actions that their employees perform. As a result, they are able to standardise the experience for customers and achieve a high level of satisfaction even though they have thousands of stores worldwide.

What are the main aims of standard operating procedures?
As alluded to above, consistency is one of the main drivers behind standardising processes. For example, SOPs ensure that a business can achieve increased efficiency, quality and a uniformed level of performance, while at the same time reducing miscommunication and failure to comply with regulations.

They also help a business benchmark its internal performance to see any areas that need improvement or further development such as staff training. Businesses that are looking to grow and ultimately scale, need to ensure that they have standard operating procedures in place that they monitor and refine over time.

How do you create standard operating procedures?
Most business owners are fearful when they hear the term standard operating procedures and incorrectly assume they are difficult to create or the business is not large enough to merit their creation.

The truth is, every business, regardless of size, can actually benefit from SOPs. For example, as a business owner, you want to achieve consistency and reliability in your business and processes. From how you market your brand to how you bring on new clients, it will never be a bad thing to have standardisation.

The process of creating SOPs will start with documenting how you completed a certain task. For example, let’s take the idea of signing up a new client within a Digital Agency. There are certain tasks and processes that will need to be followed for every client regardless of what solution they have purchased.

For instance, you will send a welcome email and store the clients' information in a dedicated folder. You will then raise the first invoice and set the billing date for future monthly fees. You will allocate a monthly meeting slot to catch up with the client and provide reports. Finally, you will begin work on the client project.

This is a sample of what a SOP could look like for onboarding a new client. The key thing to remember here is to break down an activity into smaller tasks that can be documented and replicated each time. As a result, you can start to standardise processes and ensure that whether you or an employee are carrying out the activity, it’s done to the same level/quality every time.

It’s best practice to create SOPs for as many aspects as this will provide long term benefits for your business. For instance, SOPs are particularly useful when you overcome a certain problem or challenge as they act as a reference point in the future.

Furthermore, as your business grows it will be important to delegate tasks to other team members. This is where SOPs really prove beneficial as you can ensure that employees are still performing tasks in a uniformed way.

Customers and clients will also appreciate the well-thought-out and clear plans you have in place. This minimises back and forth communication such as requesting information as well as reducing the chances of receiving customer complaints.

Should standard operating procedures be updated over time?
In our opinion, it is always a good idea to monitor and update your SOPs on a regular basis. Refining processes and making them more agile is one of the best aspects of being a business owner. Over time, you will most likely pick up useful hints and tips that will help you improve your processes.

It’s important that improvements and suggestions are documented to ensure that the SOPs being used within a business are the most up to date methods for completing tasks.

Summary
As we have seen throughout this week's blog, standard operating procedures are vitally important in a modern day business. Standardising processes and refining these over time can help any business scale quickly and have a ready-made plan for almost all mission critical activities.

SOPs ensure that management, employees and clients are all on the same page which results in a positive experience for all stakeholders.

To find out more about some of the key SOPs we put in place for new partners when they launch Digital Agencies with us, please contact a member of our team.

Until next time, take care.