What is operational efficiency and how to improve it?

1. Determine your baseline of operations.

Your baseline of operations lays out the functions currently in place that make your organization run. This is a discovery process to gain insight into how departments and individuals are currently accomplishing tasks and meeting goals. Talk to each of your major stakeholders. Seek to understand the major responsibilities of their department and what steps they take to carry out those responsibilities. Work together to determine what variables, both outputs and inputs, are most important for success.

2. Record your current performance.

Use the variables you selected in your baseline discovery process to identify key performance indicators (KPIs). You can compare your KPIs to industry standards or competitors for further insight. A clear picture of your current performance will give you a solid reference point for measuring improvement.

3. Identify bottlenecks.

Bottlenecks are any steps in a process that prevent a task from being completed. Bottlenecks make the process slower and are sometimes completely unnecessary. Other times, they present a chance for automation or other improvements. Chances are, your employees already know where the bottlenecks are, and they will happily tell you.

4. Remove bottlenecks.

Collaborate with your team to eliminate bottlenecks in your processes. The more invested your team is in updating the way things are done, the more successful they will be in carrying on those new approaches in the future. The following are three common bottleneck solutions that apply across most organizations:

• Templatize documentation. When you create a business document for a client, repurpose it for others. With Acrobat, you can design a fillable template to be reused again and again. You can also templatize document workflows to collect form data and e-signatures.

• Digitize invoicing. You don’t make money unless you bill your clients. But calculating rates and generating invoices can be time-consuming and error-prone. Plus, tracking down late payments and being sure you can account for your work can feel daunting. Instead, try digitizing your process with invoicing software. With the right software, you can log hours, generate invoices, set up automatic payment reminders, and track clients with outstanding balances all from one central location.

• Streamline project management. Good project management software tracks and accounts for the time you bill and integrates with your invoicing software. Be sure that you can automate deadline alerts and reminders to keep your team on schedule and prevent tasks from falling through the cracks.

5. Track improvements.

As you make changes to your operations, measure your performance. Compare your new KPIs to those at your baseline. While you hope to see KPIs improve, be sure that the quality of your work does not decrease. Meet as a team to review your metrics and identify what changes are working and what areas still need to be refined. Use Acrobat to create visuals and reports that keep all stakeholders on the same page.