Add the necessary metrics to your processes.
When we start to analyze the business processes of our sales area, the first thing we see is that we do not always have the necessary measurement parameters: How long do the tasks last, what effort do they consume, what resources are necessary to complete them properly, etc.
They are the necessary metrics to be able to complete the analysis of the processes. Without them we cannot measure, we cannot know exactly what is happening and, above all, we cannot determine what we need to improve: What is the appropriate time for each task, how much resources should we allocate, how many people should collaborate with the commercial to get the sale, etc.
That is why it is so necessary to add these metrics to our current processes. To do this we can, for example, analyze the historical results of the last 6 or 12 months and draw the relevant conclusions. Or we can also set an evaluation period and see how operations develop during that time, focusing on the metrics that seem most relevant to us.
Evaluate the consumption of time, resources and money of each process.
When we already have the appropriate metrics, we can now measure our business processes and obtain estimates of the resources used in each of them: personnel, time, material, etc.
Now, just any metric is not the same as a key indicator, a KPI. The key indicators are the metrics that inform us of the degree of fulfillment of our objectives as a company, these are the fundamental ones, which we have to measure. If we collect all the information from all possible metrics we will end up with a mountain of meaningless data.
That is why we must spend some time before seeing what our KPIs are, what metrics are relevant to us. Some of the most common are: The time required to execute the entire business process, the time broken down into the different tasks and the total cost of each process.
Find out what you are doing well and what you can improve.
Once we are in a position to measure the processes we can really analyze which processes (or parts of a process) we are not doing as well as we could, that is, where we can improve.
One option is to try to validate if the sales processes are working properly, globally. The key to finding out is to investigate the rate at which ongoing opportunities convert to sales.
Another option is to find and contrast our processes with the best practices in our sector of activity. In this way, we can compare the details of our procedures and take note of those that are furthest from market standards.
