Help! I'm too successful!
Introduction
When you started, you didn't think you would be complaining about having too many customers to balance! Suddenly, everyone agrees that the great idea you had, is a really a good idea. But now you are spinning plates and providing 'just enough', when really you want to develop your offerings and add value to your customers. What do you do? Stop taking clients? NO! You don't want the reputation for being too busy 'oh I tried him but he's always too busy'.What do you do then?
First let's ask some questions?
- How much time do you spend searching for documents?
- How much time do you spend redoing documents because 'you know you it's somewhere but you can't find it'?
- How many times have you had to ask for copies of invoices that are due because you can't find the original and it's not on the system?
- How many times have you had to do things last minute when you have a million things to do because you completely forgot about that meeting tomorrow?
- Have you been hit by an event you could have predicted but you hadn't planned for?
You might not be surprised to learn that you aren't alone. Business operations is a key function of a business but is so often overlooked because founders are 100% focussed on what they are passionate about, delivering an amazing product to enhance the lives of their clients. And so they should be, that's why you got into this in the first place, right?
Solution
If you answered yes to more than 2 of the above questions, then maybe you should consider employing the principles of ISO 27001. The ISO standard of Information Security Management Systems. So much of our business now is information and data, by controlling this, you manage your business more efficiently and effectively.
At a very high level, the standard is about ensuring that:
- Everyone knows how to do repetitive tasks and what do do if exceptions arise.
- You identify and monitor risks.
- Cybersecurity is an integral part of doing business - avoiding threats and what to do if a cyber event occurs.
If you're concerned that processes and controls will stifle your creativity, make sure you apply processes to things you don't need or want to be creative with. How creative do you need to be when you buy and pay for a product? How creative do you need to be when you want to pull collateral together for a pitch? Or logging your receipts for your business expenses? You would rather not be forced to be creative when an foreseeable event hits you, I would imagine.
Read more here about ISO 27001. You don't have to apply the whole standard if you want to improve but don't want to go for accreditation (accreditation is a strategic decision that requires upfront investment and ongoing continual improvement), you can apply the principles to the various aspects of your business and work towards accreditation in the future.
Alternatively, you can apply for accreditation but it doesn't have to apply to your whole business, you could apply it to certain processes for which clients are demanding proof of your data quality and security.
Not the Solution
Ignoring the whole problem and hope it goes away, it might, but more likely your business will stall and fail to grow, you have to mature your processes to set the foundation for high quality and sustainable growth.