Introduction

Take Control of Your Business to Increase Your Income!

Operations Planning - What is it exactly?

Operations Planning is a method of documenting and analysing your systems, using operations blueprint models, that enable you to take control of your business.

An Operations Flow Chart is a step-by-step list of instructions on how to “best” complete a single task, shown in a diagrammatic “flow chart” type format. Each task is made up of a series of individual steps called processes. These processes combine to form flow charts enabling you to analyse and fine-tune all of the systems that enable your business to operate smoothly on a day-to-day basis.

One task might be the best way to “Answer the telephone”. You’ll see what I mean on the following pages.

Purpose of this document

Why bother using flow charts?

Reduce Costs

Businesses can document important processes enabling them to;

·           Identify and eliminate duplication of effort

·           Identify and eliminate costly recurring mistakes

·           Save on valuable time thus reducing internal costs

Increase Sales

Businesses can document important processes enabling them to;

·         Identify those areas where an extended sale could be made “Would you like fries with that?”

·         Minimise lost sales by designing flow charts for;

• How to answer the telephone and reply to email inquiries in a way that will increase sales by say 10%
  ‍ (see “Telephone Etiquette” flow chart on following pages).

• Training staff to recognise extra sale opportunities.

• Best treatment of customers to encourage repeat business through analysing data collected from customer feedback.

Sell Your Business at a Better Price

A well-written operations plan is a very good way of enabling business owners to sell their businesses at a higher price. The prospective owner is able to see clearly how the business works day to day. There won’t be any surprises. This helps to underpin the “goodwill value” as part of the asking price. New owners are more willing to pay for goodwill if it can be justified.

More Free Time

A well-written operations plan will also enable business owners to take a holiday without worrying if their business can cope while they are away. Also, the extra free time created can be spent working on the business not in it.

Upon Completion of this Document

Upon completion of this document, you will have a sharper focus on how to increase your income through the development of efficient systems by using effective operations flow charts.