A smart sailor will consider an investment in charts and navigation tools; like nautical slide rulers and course plotters; to be money well spent. Sure some may rely on the old tried and true methods of celestial navigation and calculate position with the stars and a compass, but those sailors are far and few these days. Today’s sailors admit (like all of us) that we love the convenience of electronic navigation--whether it's with an electronic chart plotter, a GPS, or simply our computer. Why not navigate our businesses in the same way? With the proper tools, it is some of the best insurance you can buy. So what would typical “process” navigation for placing an order at a print shop look like?
1. Customer orders business cards
2. Art department gets initial design for customer
3. Art department creates design
4. Customer shown proof for approval
5. Print department checks that they have materials to make business card
6. Print department schedules time on press
7. Print department prints business cards
8. Shipping department packages business cards
9. Customer notified order is ready and picks it up
10. Admin marks order completed
Now if you were in charge of this process, you would want to know the status of each order in the process (because you are successful and have several orders daily) so that you can schedule staff, have sufficient supplies on hand, proper machinery, quality control, efficiency and track shipping schedules. This information is needed daily and is very important. However, what about longer term?
Your system should be letting you know that there was a delay getting to the press as the machine could not keep up with the volume of work. This would allow you to find a way to increase capacity like run a second shift; or get another press. The system should know what your sales are, who your customers are and what their purchase history is. You should know who your prospects are and have a system in place to turn them into happy customers.
Your system should be a business dashboard that lets you see the status of your business at this point in time and in the future to let you know whether or not you are on track. And this electronic navigation tools needs to be convenient and would be an investment well spent.
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