Introduction

Many organizations may be familiar with Quality Management Systems (QMS), Health and Safety Management Systems (OHSMS) and Environmental Management Systems (EMS). These systems are focused on specific objectives relating to product or service quality, health and safety in the workplace and environmental performance. But, what if we took a step back and looked at the bigger picture: your business. A Business Management System (BMS) serves as the foundation for all other processes or systems in a business, and allows an organization to standardize its best practices. This article provides insight on what a Business Management System is, its business benefits and common organizational challenges.

 

What is a Business Management System (BMS)?

A Business Management System, also referred to as a BMS, is the combination of core policies, processes and standard operating procedures that align a company’s daily activities with its vision, mission and overall business plan. A BMS helps guide the planning, development and implementation of company policies and procedures, which provide organizations of every size the foundation and recipes for repeatable success, or the ability to analyze failures. The combination of department policies and procedures represents the BMS, and commonly includes departments such as:

• Accounting,

• Administration,

• Contracts \ Legal,

• Finance,

• Health and Safety,

• Human Resources,

• Information Technology,

• Management,

• Marketing,

• Planning,

• Production,

• Public Relations,

• Purchasing,

• Quality,

• Sales,

• Servicing, and

• Training.

A great example of an effective Business Management System in action can be seen at Chick-fil-A. You can learn more about Chick-fil-A by clicking this link. Have you ever wondered how Chick-fil-A has been able to rapidly expand and successfully provide customers with a consistent experience across 2,500 restaurants in 47 states in the United States and Canada? Without company policies or procedures in place, there would be very little consistency across locations. Chick-fil-A has figured out and locked down their recipe for success, and has been able to replicate that success nationwide.

 

Organizations that don’t have a BMS are not able to duplicate success because they don’t have a documented way, or recipe, of knowing what worked to begin with. They may also have trouble with assessing where issues stem from in their organization and may be making process changes based on guesswork. These organizations may lack consistency, due to employees simply doing what they think is best instead of how activities have been designed and optimized for success.  They also may have difficulty with onboarding new employees, due to the organization working solely off of legacy knowledge instead of being able to provide standard operating procedures for guidance.

 

Benefits of a Business Management System

A Business Management System provides constant benefits throughout the life of an organization. A BMS that is properly established, implemented and maintained can:

• Provide the foundation for organizational growth;

• Establish the recipe for repeatable success;

• Streamline and standardize organizational processes;

• Improve productivity and collaboration;

• Eliminate guesswork and strategically improve processes, based on analyzing documented processes;

• Support the onboarding of new employees as a means of training.

 

Challenges with Establishing a BMS

Employees or SMEs may be reluctant to provide the necessary information in order for an organization to document how they perform their job. From the employee’s standpoint, they may feel like they are giving up job security. However, it is important to stress that just because a process is documented, it does not mean a company will not need them anymore. They are still the number one asset. In reality, a business management system comprised of documented procedures and procedures is a huge benefit to employees. Employees can enjoy time off from work while ensuring that the information needed to complete the work consistently is now documented in an SOP. A BMS also relieves stress and allows them to focus on their own work, since the process has been documented which may result in fewer questions from other employees.

 

An organization may also be reluctant to develop a BMS due to security concerns. They may worry about the risk of their documentation with propriety information falling into the wrong hands. One action to mitigate this risk would be to limit the access of the documentation to only key employees who need it. All documented information does not have to be widely publicized. This can include storing documents in a secure location on a company’s intranet, and only allowing certain employees to access specific employees read-only access to the procedures they need.

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, the success of a company should not be based on luck. When properly planned, designed and implemented, a Business Management System (BMS) can help align your people and processes to achieve repeatable success. The time and resources spent on developing a BMS can provide an organization with a lifetime of benefits and support its continual improvement goals. By identifying, documenting, and implementing policies and documentation for processes, an organization can ensure that its people and processes are aligned and are working in sync. Interested in learning more about a Business Management System for your organization? Contact us to speak with our business consultants today.

 

Author

Victoria Ontiveros | Marketing Supervisor

Victoria focuses on creating quality educational content that provides value to current and potential clients. By collaborating with members of leadership and sales, she is able to develop informative articles that answer common questions and connect with current trends.

Victoria earned her Bachelor of Science in Sociology with an emphasis in communications from Texas A&M University.