Many business consultants stress the importance of
processes to help a business grow. Processes
are very important as
they ensure quality, efficiency, and
many other factors that help a business grow.
But are processes always productive? Or
do
they also cause harm to the business in certain stages?
Let us discuss.
Every business starts with an idea, a skill or
an opportunity. In its early days, much of the
business may depend on the entrepreneur personally. She starts
it as a hobby, knows the customers, buys the raw materials, manages production,
keeps track of payments and decides what needs to be done next.
At this stage, flexibility is often an
advantage.
Putting too many processes in place too early
can actually make a small business more difficult
to run. However, as the enterprise
grows, depending entirely on individual memory, judgement and informal
arrangements can create a different set of problems.
The challenge, therefore, is not simply to
introduce processes. It is to introduce the right processes at the right stage
of growth.
In the beginning, simplicity has value.
Consider a woman who starts making snacks at
home for a few customers in her village. She
buys ingredients according to the orders received, prepares the products herself
and collects payments directly.
Does she immediately need detailed purchase
procedures, inventory systems, customer databases and multiple registers?
Probably not.
At this stage, complicated systems can consume
time without adding much value. The entrepreneur needs to focus primarily on
understanding the market, improving her product, finding customers and
establishing a reliable source of income.
The same applies to many first-time rural
entrepreneurs.
A person starting a small dairy business,
handicraft enterprise, food-processing activity or service business needs
enough structure to understand income, expenditure and basic business
requirements. But excessive documentation or rigid procedures can make
entrepreneurship unnecessarily complicated.
Early-stage businesses also need room to
experiment.
The entrepreneur may change the product, alter
the price, find different suppliers or discover that customers prefer something
completely different from what was originally planned. Too much structure at
this point can restrict that flexibility.
Processes should support the business, not
make the business serve the processes.
But with growth, the situation changes. Let
us discuss that in my next blog.
