Operating Systems (OPS) – If these don’t exist there is nothing to pass on to successors of your business empire. You may be the best in acquisition and mergers, the best roofing expert around, the best building contractor or the most savvy restaurateur etc. but do not have a “how to, when to or where to“ book of operations, strictly speaking your business was “dead on arrival (DOA)” as the medical doctors say.
If you examine the business landscape many are the businesses that have come and gone since their owners died or moved on to something else. The lack of OPS may have been a very significant contributor to the demise of those businesses among other issues.
An OPS ensures that the wheels of your business have a track on which they run repeatedly day-in, day-out. Imagine that the OPS are the rail tracks on which your train (your business) will arrive at each station on its journey to ‘profit land’. Those train stations on the journey are your clients/customers, staff, marketing, suppliers, manufacturing/processing/servicing, accounting/book-keeping and or inventory keeping etc.
For each of these train stations you will document the ‘how to’, ‘when to’ or ‘where to’ of the process related to that station. Let us take staffing as an example. What are your staff entry levels, what qualifications are required for each position that is to be filled? When is promotion considered appropriate at each level of staffing? In which newspapers are adverts to fill vacant positions to be filled placed? The totality of all your policies and procedures for dealing with staff matters are thus enunciated and put down in writing. Hard copy or soft copy? That does not matter, what matters is that the steps to hiring, promoting, categorising, retaining, remunerating, caring for, retiring, firing and motivating all staff are duly documented.
Having these OPS for staffing in place reduces subjective treatment of staff on all issues pertaining to their being employed in your company. It will guide you and your managers in dealing with staff, reduce discrimination, enhance consistent application of rules and regulations in the company.
To start with and depending on the size of your business operations, the OPS do not have to be overly sophisticated and so detailed that those who have to apply them need days of familiarization. OPS to cover all key areas in your company are good to start with and others added along the way of your business’ progress.
For instance, a stock broking company should start with OPS for buying and selling on behalf of clients, accounting for trading margins, staffing, client relations. Automated applications are also available in the market to give a helping hand in many instances.
