5 questions for uncovering your operational pain points

As a developer, many things can trigger a Pavlovian response to apply the appropriate script, database, or technology that will ultimately improve a business’s processes and systems. Developers and tech consultants are skilled at understanding patterns and repeatable processes, then turning their observations into intuitive actionable interfaces. At Daylight, our strategists are focused on understanding your goals, timelines, and resources to create tech solutions that fit your business. Here are our top five questions we ask to help us assess operational inefficiencies for our clients.

1. Do you use spreadsheets for a large part of your business operations?

Spreadsheets are great for balancing, organizing and reporting your business data. However, they can be hard to share or integrate with other systems which often renders it as a passive data source. We recommend that you turn static information like this into data that moves, reacts, notifies and integrates with your business processes.

2. Is important business information being unnecessarily siloed?

Every employee has their set of specialties and over time inherit valuable knowledge about your business. But what happens if that person gets sick or leaves the company? All of this siloed information usually goes with them leaving you and your business scrambling. Decrease your risk, by keeping that data in a shared repository and spread that information to other employees.

3. Do you have remedial tasks that you do over and over again?

Moving information from one source and formatting it to fit into another can unnecessarily eat up precious time. In other words, copying and pasting are never fun. Save yourself hours of time, and carpal tunnel, by automating repeatable processes and workflows. It’s amazing what a little pattern matching know-how and scripting can do to streamline processes for businesses of all sizes.

4. Does your process often get stuck causing missed or pushed deadlines?

With sequential business processes, you can only move as fast as the previous steps are being executed. Adding a human element can leave your process bombarded with daily interruptions,  jeopardizing timelines. To “unstick” your workflows, identify potential risks and gaps that can be automated to streamline your process.

5. Are your goals easily and accurately being measured and shared?

The success of your business hinges on you hitting certain goals. Being able to track and monitor the right data around those goals quickly can be laborious, especially if you need to export data and manually create reports. Hit your goals faster by identifying which key data indicators to capture, share and track progress on, then packaging them up with automated reports and notifications to keep you efficiently informed.

If you’re interested in learning more about how technology can be used to streamline your business systems, our tech strategists are always eager to meet up for a beer or coffee to discuss a solution that’s right for you. Just reach out to us!