As a Small Business Owner, you may have heard about the idea of Lean process improvement as a strategy to save money in your business and be more efficient. Maybe you’ve seen Lean applied in other settings but you’re not quite sure where to begin applying lean in your own operations. If you’re a Business Owner who is lucky enough to have some knowledge or awareness about Lean, you likely have a few reasons, justifications, and opinions about why NOW is not the time for Lean:
We’re too busy. We’re just trying to keep up with customer demand and everything there is to do and handle with running a small business. I’m the storekeeper, the salesman, the marketing department, the order scheduler, the IT guy, and the accountant all at once. When do you think I have time for Lean?
I know there are problems, but where do we start? There are so many things that aren’t working. Our network of band-aid solutions is holding it all together….for now.
We don’t have enough money. Implementing Lean sounds expensive and our cash flow is still inconsistent and irregular. Our business is seasonal, we either have money or time, but never both at once.
Lean won’t work here. We make custom products, there is nothing that can be standardized. Lean is only for companies that are much larger than ours.
Lean sounds like a good idea for after we survive the pandemic. We need to focus on keeping the lights on and the doors open, we can’t do lean right now.
Sound familiar? All of these reasons, justifications and opinions leave Business Owners with the conclusion that the best time to implement Lean is LATER. What they don’t see is that these same reasons, justifications, and opinions also prevent them from seeing the real opportunity of Lean and what’s possible. And even worse, at this point Business Owners often throw more people or technology into the mix in attempt to solve the problem. And then they wonder why those actions result in more, frustrated people, increased turnover and automated technology systems and software that don’t deliver what was promised.
We’re too busy – What are you busy with? Odds are, you’re busy with non-value added activities (also known as process waste) like waiting, correcting mistakes, under-utilized capacity, searching for stuff, and fixing production defects. Working harder is not the answer.
I know there are problems, but where do we start? – You start where you are and create from there. Having to get somewhere before implementing Lean is an illusion.
We don’t have enough money – Non-value added activities consume a lot of money. Many small businesses find 20-40% savings from the initial Lean process review. What would you do with 20-40% more money in your bank account?
Lean won’t work here – Lean process improvement applies to any process, big or small. From the smallest mom and pop shop to the largest corporation, Lean is about being effective and efficient with each action, ultimately saving time and money. The bonus is that Lean rarely requires a large capital investment, most solutions are low-cost and easy to implement.
Lean sounds like a good idea for after we survive the pandemic – Are you really committed to just surviving? Yes, there is to be responsible for the current pandemic circumstances and do take the actions necessary to keep the lights on and the doors open. The pandemic will end, how do you want your business to be positioned when that time comes?
So when is the right time to bring Lean into your business?
Many Lean Consultants would say that you should start NOW because the longer you wait, the more resources will be wasted and time consumed by inefficiencies. The longer this goes on, the more you experience rising costs for your products and services, increased defects, and longer turnaround times, negatively impacting your customers and your bottom line.
However, this canned answer doesn’t fit all businesses and all situations.
If your business is in start up phase, you’re likely short of both money and resources, and probably have inconsistent cash flow. In this situation, your initial focus should be on developing, marketing and selling your product or service to establish a reliable revenue and customer base. At this stage, formal business processes aren’t as critical to have because the operational processes are still being established.
As the business grows, there is a limit to its’ growth – you. At some point, the business hits critical mass and you, the Business Owner, become the bottleneck for growth.
You find yourself spending most of your time ensuring the business can meet the daily demand of your customers, dealing with breakdowns, solving problems and making it all work. You grow increasingly tired and frustrated as you have less and less time to focus on business strategy, product development and marketing (the future of your business). Despite your best efforts, mistakes start to happen. Other people don’t understand the business the way you do and the flow of errors, late deliveries, and quality issues begins, creating even more problems for you to deal with. This impacts your customer relationships, your reputation, and your future in business. If these issues are not timely addressed, the mistakes and inefficiencies will impact your revenue, increase expenses, and even cost you your customers.
Many promising businesses get stuck in this stage. Growth stagnates, the poorly defined processes and lack of meaningful measurements severely impact customer value. High overheads, re-work and excess inventory to compensate for poor processes may lead to financial difficulties.
When your business is established, when you have stable revenue streams and when you’re looking to grow and expand is the right time to implement Lean. Ideally this should happen before the business reaches the stagnation phase so you can avoid wasting a lot of time and effort investing in more resources and technologies that fail to improve the business. However, it’s never too late to implement Lean and there is no process, no matter how badly it performs, that cannot be improved with the power of Lean.
Are you ready to look at what’s possible for bringing Lean to your operations? Click here to book a complimentary Discovery Call to uncover the hidden potential your business.
Recent Comments