As a start-up company or business, there are many factors to consider when you begin to develop strategies for growth. Growth in this sense means being functional or operational, offering your products or services to customers as well as setting new business goals and keeping track of progress. You would also find yourself evaluating opportunities that may strengthen your business. Even though not all opportunities may be feasible, focusing on what you need at the current moment and the near future would help narrow your approach within your growth strategies. One key factor that a new startup company or business needs to consider when developing growth strategies is the Standard Operating Procedure, commonly known as SOP.
Standard Operating Procedures is a document that defines the procedures and process flow of how things should be carried out on a day-to-day basis as well as the policies and industry regulations that govern those actions being carried out. It may also describe any system requirements, data requirements, flowcharts, and organization personnel responsible to carry out the day-to-day actions. For some start-up companies who have several departments and personnel working independently or interchangeably to accomplish their business goals, would need to consider defining independent roles, interfaces, what happens before and what happens after, who or which department is involved and the expected outcomes. For startup companies that have a single department with one or fewer people working on similar tasks each day would have a sampler SOP to start with, which describes direct correlation between what they do and what the customer received based on their products or service offerings. Take for example, a person wanting to set up an online store selling beauty products and apparel may have a sampler SOP compared to a person trying to start a group home or a nonprofit.
When setting up your SOP, you first must ask the question - how do I want things to flow and what are the major factors that I need to consider? To answer those questions, you must first understand your products and services, the industry and knowing your target customers. Secondly, you must understand the internal and external factors that may influence the way things flow. The internal factors could be technology tools such as hardware and software, recognizable systems that are already in place, skills and knowledge of personnel required to perform the tasks, team, organization assets and work interfaces. The external factors that may influence how things flow include industry regulations, state or federal rules or compliances, business-to-business relationships, market trends, competitions and consumers perception of the products and services.
Some start-up companies or new business owners may say "I just started, I do not have an operation procedure in place, or I do not need one right now". Once you have started a business, the key is to grow and scale up by acquiring more customers and increasing sales which is well possible if you initiate the right marketing strategies. However, this is the stage where you begin to define your workflow. At the time that you've realize that your new company or business is starting to grow, you would've already established a streamline of activities that would eventually become your Standard Operating Procedure.
There are several software or applications on the market that new companies or businesses could take advantage of to manage their day-to-day tasks. For some new companies or businesses who start up using a website to promote their products or services, they could take advantage of the back-office systems provided by the web platform to manage their business activities. Some of these advantages include managing your inventory, fulfilling customer orders, launching a marketing campaign, processing returns, gathering specific data for decision making or getting customer feedback. Though these applications provide a means of managing your business activities, there are some limitations. For one, they are limited to the sales portion of your business. Secondly, they are all internal factors that influence how things flow. Thirdly, these applications may function independently, and you may not have any control over the process or how you may want it to work to satisfy a custom business need (What you see is what you get).
This situation may be different for a company or business that offers delivery services, restaurant or catering services, Salons, or beauty supplies (Brick-and-Mortar), boutiques, or an electronic repair store. For these services-oriented businesses, there are other factors they may need to consider when developing their SOP, taking into consideration the internal and external factors that may influence how things flow to carry on business the right way. For nonprofits that have fewer or several departments working interchangeably to conduct duties such as outreach or awareness programs, acquiring memberships, conducting team or board meetings, developing policies, documenting, and giving back to the community, it would be great to start developing some form of streamline process in the early forming stage which would enable them to prioritize and avoid misuse of time and efforts as they grow.
As you think about starting a new company or business or already have an existing business but looking to develop a Standard Operating Procedure, here are few things to consider:
Understand your industry, market trends, target customers as well as your products and services.
Start by documenting activities and their impacts at the early stage and see if those occurrences become a routine with consistent outcomes that impacts your business goals.
Develop good policies that would governs how your business operates. These policies should take into consideration industry regulations, diversity and inclusion, roles and responsibilities, ethical code of conduct, boundaries, repercussions, and many other aspects based on your business model.
Identified the recognizable systems that are already in place or being utilized. Learn them very well and begin to think about ways you can improve on them or how you want things to flow from one step to another.
Identify the internal and external factors that may influence the way things flow on a day-to-day basis.
Include your team in the process and allow them to contribute to streamlining the workflow since they will be performing the day-to-day tasks.
Avoid things that are too complex or require too much time and effort. As you scale up and identify areas of growth, you could explore those opportunities of adding new processes to your workflow or enhancing what you already have.
Consider the use of templates to gather or process information. Templates could be self-developed or obtained from an external source.
Start organically using web-based platforms such as Microsoft Office Suite or Google Suite which provide several applications for small businesses that could be used to develop tasks list, schedule, tracking progress, data collection, keeping records, streamlining or some form of automation.
SOP keeps your focus narrow and in place and provides one direction towards meeting your business goals as you are growing and facing many uncertainties.
Conclusion
As a new start-up, developing a Standard Operating Procedure should be part of your growth strategies. Having Standard Operating Procedure will strengthen your growth and create room for new opportunities and improve the way you offer your products and services regardless of whether you are a for-profit or not-for-profit entity. It is better to start at the early stage of your business formation by identifying how you want things to flow and putting it into action. Once you have organically mastered your processes and have an established workflow that directly impacts the business goals, then you could consider either purchasing a software application or developing a proprietary software accustomed to your business operational needs. Your Standard Operating Procedure should be governed by good policies, taking into consideration the internal and external factors that influence how business is done.
If you are finding difficulties developing a Standard Operating Procedure for your start-up company or business, consider speaking to a consultant who could guide you through the process of setting up your SOP that would not just satisfy your immediate business needs but set the tone for continuous improvements as you grow.
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