Have you ever wondered how some companies managed to grow a business starting from their bedroom, garage or kitchen and turn it into a massive organisation?

Business systemisation and automation are the main ways to maximise an organisation's Return On Investment (ROI) to leverage your time and money. 

Most successful businesses scale up their operations through systemisation and automation. This guide will show you how you can also do the same.

What Is The Meaning Of Return On Investment (ROI)?

Return On Investment (ROI) is a performance metric used to assess the efficiency or profitability of an investment or to compare the efficiency of several investments. 

ROI attempts to quantify the amount of return on a specific investment relative to the cost of the investment.

ROI gets calculated by dividing an investment's benefit (or return) by its cost. The result is presented as a percentage or as a ratio. The ROI formula is below:

ROI = (Current Value Of Investment Less Cost of Investment) / Cost Of Investment

To illustrate, assume Jane invested $2,000 in XYZ Limited in January 2021 and sold the shares in January 2022 for $2,500. Divide the Net Profit of $500 ($2,500 - $2,000 = $500) by the initial cost of her investment being $2,000, yielding a ROI of $500/$2,000 = 0.25, or 25%.

Hence, Jane achieved a 25% return on her original investment of $2,000.

What Is Business Automation?

Business automation uses technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of a company's processes. 

By automating business processes, you'll save time and effort, allowing you to focus on more critical tasks, which leads to increased profits.

Automation can involve doing the following:

• Utilise software programs, hardware, various systems, and processes to carry out specific tasks or operations that would otherwise require human input. 
• Implementing best practices in managing business operations allows organisations to operate more effectively and efficiently by utilising available technologies.

What are the Benefits of Business Automation?

Automating your business can help you achieve maximum ROI due to the following:

• It can help reduce costs, increase productivity, and improve customer service by ensuring the business stays ahead of the competition and making its processes more efficient.
• It can improve communication and coordination between different parts of the business and increase the speed and accuracy of operations.
• It can help process large volumes of data more quickly and easily, leading to improved decision making and increased productivity. 
• It can reduce the risk of making a human error, leading to improved customer service.

Process automation helps enhance productivity and minimises the amount of time spent on non-core operations, allowing you to maximise your ROI. 

What Is Business Systemisation?

Business systemisation is how you can organise a company's operations to manage it more effectively by doing the following:

• You can create specific structures, processes and systems to help manage and track information, make decisions, and achieve goals.
• You can develop standardised procedures to improve efficiency, communication, and overall operational and financial performance.
• You can establish policies and procedures governing how employees work. 
• You can utilise various interconnected systems to scale your organisation more effectively.

For example, when you systemise your business, you can better handle the growth in your customer base when you implement mechanisms to generate more leads successfully.

Business systemisation can help to ensure that an organisation operates effectively and efficiently by reducing operational costs while improving the company's performance and productivity to remain competitive in the market.

What are the Benefits of Business Systemisation?

Systemising your business is one of the essential steps to achieving optimal ROI. By implementing systems and standardising and automating processes, you'll be able to optimise your operations and achieve better results faster. 

There are several benefits to having a systemised business, as outlined below.

1. Improve Efficiency

A well-organised business can run more efficiently due to the systematic way in which it operates, leading to reduced costs and increased profits.

Having a systemised business leads to less frustration in the organisation, making the company a better workplace. Hence, you can find better loyal employees who are open to being more creative with tremendous enthusiasm in performing their role.

There are several ways to improve the efficiency of your business. For example, you can enhance the flow of information and processes within your business to help you achieve your goals more quickly and with less effort.

2. Reduce Costs

There are many ways to reduce costs by systemising your business. Here are some tips:

• Create a system for tracking expenses that helps you identify where you're spending money and whether the costs are necessary. 
• Create a system for ordering supplies and making purchases to help you avoid overspending and save money on unnecessary items. 
• Keep track of your staff's productivity, allowing you to identify areas where employees are wasting time and resources and make changes accordingly. 

By following these tips, you can reduce costs while still ensuring that your business achieves its goals.

3. Improve Customer Service

A systemised business can provide better customer service by coordinating efforts between employees. It ensures that customers receive a consistent standard of customer experience. 

For example, customers can constantly get treated well and receive the support they need quickly and efficiently.

4. Increase Profits

A systemised business can increase profits by reducing costs, streamlining processes, and maximising efficiency. By doing this, a company can remain competitive and continue to grow. 

For example, systemising the business can improve financial results by speeding up the customer service delivery process through increased staff productivity. Hence you receive customer payments much faster. 

5. Improve Accuracy

Systemising your business can improve accuracy by providing a structure for organising and recording data, tracking progress, and communicating with stakeholders. By systematically monitoring data, you can identify trends and patterns that may get overlooked when looking at individual transactions or pieces of information.

By having standardised processes in place, you can ensure that the information is consistently collected and analysed. Hence, making it easier to make informed decisions about allocating resources and improving overall performance. It can, in turn, reduce resource wastage, increase efficiency, enhanced profitability and improve ROI.

6. Avoid Costly Mistakes

Systemising your business can help you avoid making costly mistakes. For example, suppose you have a sales process spread out across different departments. In that case, a systemised process will ensure that all the steps get performed correctly. 

Hence, it will minimise errors and increase your chances of success. Additionally, a systemised approach can help you optimise your resources and streamline your workflow. By taking these steps, you can maximise your ROI and increase the likelihood of achieving your business goals.

7. Improve Operational Performance

There are several ways in which systemising your business can improve operational performance. Firstly, by creating standardised processes and procedures, you can ensure that all aspects of your business operations are consistent and accurate. It will help provide better results and make your work easier and more manageable.

It can reduce the time needed to carry out repetitive tasks and minimise the risk of errors. Additionally, by establishing clearly defined goals and objectives for each department, you can ensure that all activities lead towards achieving specific goals. 

It will help to optimise profits and ensure that your company remains competitive in the market. By implementing these steps, you can significantly improve the efficiency and profitability of your business operation.

8. Reduce Risks

A well-organised business minimises the risk of not achieving its objectives. Companies can track their progress and make adjustments by implementing appropriate systems. It helps ensure that they make the most efficient use of their resources and achieve their goals.

There are several ways you can systemise your business to reduce risks. For example, creating a production schedule and tracking each process step might be beneficial if you have a manufacturing business. It will assist in helping you identify problems early and correct them before they cause significant delays or damage to your product. 

By developing a system for tracking progress, you can make the necessary adjustments required to maintain optimal performance and maximise the ROI for your business.

Additionally, suppose you have a restaurant operation. In that case, it is helpful to provide standardised menus and pricing structures to know what to expect from each customer. This way, you can avoid over-serving or undercharging customers, leading to lost revenue and decreased profitability. 

Taking these steps and implementing good governance practices can help protect your company from fraud and other unethical behaviour. You can ensure that your business is as safe and efficient as possible while maximising its growth potential. 

9. Reduce Knowledge Loss

There are people you hire who will develop innovative ways of doing things to achieve their desired outcome. The staff may create a new idea as a form of innovation about an existing process. Perhaps the employee comes up with a new way of performing an activity in your organisation that you must capture so that the process is not lost when the employee decides to leave the company.

How Can You Systemise Your Business?

There are many ways in which a business can be systemised. Here are some tips on the most common methodologies you can utilise to systemise your business:

Tip #1. Creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

SOPs are guidelines that all employees need to follow to run the business effectively. It ensures that all operations are conducted consistently and minimises the chance of confusion or error.

Tip #2. Implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Business Management Software

An ERP or business management software package is invaluable for managing a company's finances, inventory, and other operational data. 

Many different software programs can help you systemise your business. Some of these applications allow you to keep track of your finances. In contrast, others can help you manage your contacts and customers better, such as all-in-one business management software. 

By integrating one or more of these programs into your business, you'll be able to improve your ROI and increase efficiency.

Systemise Your Business In Five Steps

Small organisations tend to struggle with how to systemise their business. Business owners can begin systemising their organisations to achieve maximum ROI by following the five steps outlined below.

Step 1. Systems Tasks List Development

The initial step is to list all of your company's tasks for a specific area of your business workflow. In this step, don't focus on documenting these processes.

The initial stage is to assess the project's scope to determine the various systems that need development. For example, determine the process of how you will acquire new customers. The customer acquisition process may involve the following steps:

• Obtain word-of-mouth referrals regularly. 
• Send out direct mail weekly. 
• Publish a monthly newsletter.
• Conduct cold calling daily.
• Set up an appointment with a prospect to establish a relationship and analyse their needs.
• Create a cost estimate for a qualified prospect. 
• Schedule an appointment to present the proposal to the prospective client.
• Close the deal or proceed with the follow-up procedures.

By listing the customer acquisition process, you can determine that the following systems exist in the business:

• A customer referral system
• A direct mail system
• A newsletter system
• A telemarketing system
• An appointment scheduling system
• A customer needs analysis system
• A customer proposal system
• A customer proposal presentation system
• A contract completion system
• A prospect follow up system

In this step, list all of your organisation's current systems. The focus in this stage is to develop your company's systems structure by identifying and naming all of the systems in your business so you can assess the scope of the project.

Step 2. Systems Tasks List Prioritisation

You should now have a list of your company's system framework in this stage. You can then determine the project's scope for process documentation, which needs to get prioritised.

You can categorise the items as A, B, and C. An "A" gets assigned to all business-critical systems. Those systems with minimal business impact classify as a "C'. Then categorise the rest of the tasks as a "B".

You can prioritise the tasks list in a variety of ways. For example, you may require to hire a new salesperson. If you don't have your sales procedures documented, focus on writing them immediately, as it will make training the new salesperson so much easier. 

The new salesperson will get onboarded and learn much faster by providing them with the relevant training processes and appropriate procedures on their first day with your company. Hence, the new staff can become productive sooner to begin generating revenue for the business.

Additionally, perhaps you're spending too much time on administrative tasks. Once the administrative tasks become documented, they can get outsourced. Hence, you can focus more of your efforts on higher-value tasks such as generating sales for the business. 

In this instance, you can prioritise documenting those administrative tasks to delegate them to someone else in your team or outsource it to a virtual assistant more easily.

Step 3. Systems Documentation Management Process

In this stage, start documenting the process using the prioritised list and then manage the documentation writing process. Obtain the support of others to help you write the documentation required for the various business processes. 

Get the relevant employee's cooperation to document specific systems and tasks they perform. Then follow it up with them to ensure it gets completed, and review what they've written in the documentation.

Step 4. Process Implementation and Staff Training

Implement the documented procedure by putting it into action immediately. When you've finished writing a system, use it straight away. Your team will realise the value of processes once they use them. They'll begin to think in a systemise way, resulting in more documented systems completed by your staff over time.

It's essential to train staff on the new processes to achieve the desired efficiencies in your business operations. Doing this will ensure that all aspects of the company are running smoothly. It will result in a higher level of productivity and increased ROI.

There are several ways to train employees on the new processes as follow:

• You can use manuals or online resources to provide comprehensive instructions. 
• You can hold training sessions in person or online. 

It's essential to ensure that all employees are aware of the changes in the process and how to use the new systems you're implementing.

Step 5. Systems Monitoring and Usage Evaluation

It's crucial to monitor and track the results of those who use the systems documentation. This stage is a managerial function in the business. Depending on the company's size, the business owner could be responsible for all of the organisation's functional areas. Hence, the business owner needs to evaluate how well their staff's documentation get used.

This step is essential, and although it's not a particularly difficult task, many business owners tend to ignore it. They believe that once the systems and documentation are in place, that's all they need to do.

However, ideally, the business owner should continuously assess the results of using the systems and process documentation with the person performing the relevant tasks. It is essential to keep it current and accurate. You can use it to conduct staff performance reviews and assess how well they performed against their key performance indicators. 

Ensure that the methodologies and operational performance get adjusted constantly to achieve the desired business growth through continuous process improvements.

How Can You Implement Continuous Process Improvements?

As the company grows and changes, it's essential to periodically evaluate and adjust your systems and processes. 

Keeping track of progress and adjusting existing processes continuously ensures that the business runs smoothly to achieve your goals successfully.

By regularly reflecting on how you're progressing towards achieving business systemisation and automation, you can assess what you can do to improve it in the future. 

To ensure you continuously maximise ROI through business systemisation and automation, follow these four steps:

1. Evaluate your goals and resources. 

2. Assess how you have progressed towards your goals. 

3. Make any necessary adjustments to the systemised plan. 

4. Undertake ongoing business improvement activities.

You can determine that you're getting closer to attaining your desired outcomes by regularly revisiting your goals and business objectives related to your company's vision. Additionally, by assigning staff responsibility for various tasks and continuously tracking progress and results, you can determine the effectiveness of your business systemisation process. 

Hence, if any process adjustments are needed, they can be made quickly and avoid major disruptions to critical business workflows.

Conclusion

Systemising your business is a gradual process that can take time and effort. This process may require periodic revision and optimisation to create an efficient and effective operation that maximises ROI. 

It involves regularly reviewing your processes and systems to ensure they work effectively, efficiently and align with your overall goals and company's vision. It helps ensure that your business runs as smoothly as possible and maximises its chance of becoming successful.

Systemising your business is simple, but it isn't easy. However, it's worth it as it can maximise the positive impact on your ROI. 

By following the five steps in the guide, you'll be on your way to achieving better results in maximising your ROI and increasing your chance to grow a profitable business successfully.

Disclaimer

This article is not a form of legal, business, financial, or accounting advice. All readers must seek the assistance of qualified professionals as required.