The First Step to Systemizing a Business

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What do you think when you hear the term ‘biz systemization’? This is one of those ‘buzz words’ that’s flying around a lot at the moment, but what does it really mean?
Ultimately, business systemization means making your business more efficient to the point where it is capable of running without your input and where it will be better designed to deal with challenges and obstacles. Biz systemization then allows you to either step back and loosen the reigns, or it allows you to expand and take on more challenges.
So what does business systemization look like? How do you begin? It all begins with a single step.

Analysis and Reflection

The first step towards biz systemization is to analyze and assess your current systems and how they are working. You will be powerless to make any effective change to the way your business runs if you don’t recognize the systems that are already in place and if you aren’t able to find the stress points that are slowing your business down.
This initially requires something of a shift in the way you are thinking about your business. Here, your organization itself can be thought of as a kind of ‘master system’ which is made up of much smaller parts.
You can demonstrate this as a flow chart. So say your business deals with web design, you might have a simple flow chart for your main input > output system that represents your business as a whole. This might look as follows:
Client Gives Instruction > Time Invested in Site Design > Profit > Marketing
A good business model like this should ultimately loop back to the start so that you are perpetually gaining new clients and customers and starting new projects for more profits.
But each of these systems can be broken down into smaller systems and contingencies.
For instance, ‘time invested in site design’ might mean another flow chart, like this:
Initial Meeting and Discussion > Moodboard > Second Meeting > Wireframes > Initial Construction > Feedback > Refinement > Launch
You could then break down the ‘Initial Meeting and Discussion’ further and on and on.
Once you’ve done this, you can then assess each of the miniature systems and look at how much time they’re taking and whether they could and/or should be more efficient. What is taking longer than it should do? What is taking up too many resources? And what other systems are in place as contingencies should everything not go to plan?
Once you find yourself asking these questions, you have truly begun the process of biz systemization!