Operational problems remain unresolved when we think about the business as a structure before thinking of it as a set of processes.

Elements of business structure include – the people, the organisation chart, physical locations, equipment, branches, stores etc.

The structure of the business helps us understand the resources that make up the business, but it provides little information about how the business actually works. For that, we need to understand the processes that the business deploys on a daily basis. Thinking about the process gives us the insight we need to fix an operational problem.

This is what we call putting process first – arriving at what may be possible, and then modifying the structure to suit the process. Too often it’s done the other way around, making operational problems more difficult than they need to be, and limiting solutions.

We show our clients how to put process before structure, and in doing find creative ways to simplify their operations and improve performance.