Top 3 Process Improvements Every COO Needs

As a Chief Operations Officer (COO), you are tasked with implementing business processes to help drive increased performance and efficiency.

Increasing Productivity and Efficiency

Let’s peel back the curtain on your project management to-do list and zero in on process improvement. What are COO’s doing today to increase productivity and efficiency within their company operations?

1. Upgrading WiFi Infrastructure – As a COO, you want your employees to get their jobs done efficiently. If they don’t have fast, reliable WiFi, accessing their cloud-based apps becomes nearly impossible, let alone making and receiving calls over VoIP. Employees don’t want to hear excuses about why the WiFi is so bad today. They just want it to work, so they can get their job done. Reliable, business-grade WiFi is the backbone of your business. Many companies are moving to better WiFi infrastructure to better support their staff. Your WiFi should support the specific needs of your users. Does your WiFi provide your staff with a great end user experience? In large enterprise environments, a COO would rarely get involved in IT infrastructure projects. However, in a small to medium-sized business, a COO is quite often the executive sponsor working with the IT director on major IT initiatives.
2. Improving Customer Service – Companies today have to continually train their staff to deal with all sorts of customer service issues. Employees should have access to a customer service manual to help guide them in their job. One area that’s always changing is social media and online reviews. What’s being said about your products and services online? Through social media monitoring tools, response time to both negative and positive comments can be addressed with much greater speed. Companies that have proactive communications are gaining a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Monitoring customer interactions, learning how to better solve customer’s problems, and analyzing data for further improvement should be at the top of your list.
3. Restructuring Hiring and Recruiting – Some companies are changing the way that they recruit and hire new staff members. They are writing better job descriptions where the company focuses on what they can do for the new employee in order to attract those that are a better fit. Companies are focusing on people’s personalities rather than skills which can be taught. From a technology standpoint, they are using automated forms on their websites to gather employment applications. Employers are sending potential hires videos to watch to learn more about the company. They are using online calendar links to book interviews. Companies are putting all of this together to encourage the best candidates for the positions.

Small Incremental Improvements or Large Improvements

By improving processes, whether done incrementally with small improvements or in large improvements all at once, your company will benefit from increased productivity and efficiencies which will provide your company with opportunities for growth. And with growth, your company will see increased cash flow allowing you to take more risks, make investments in the company, and pursue new projects.

What is your company changing to improve processes? Please share your thoughts in the section for comments below.

To learn more about process improvement, download your copy of “How to Plan a Successful Custom Software Project.”