When developing an innovation strategy, it is important to discuss ways to innovate internal business procedures. Spend time brainstorming on the various steps in your internal business procedures and look for ways to simplify or eliminate steps to streamline those procedures.

However, before getting to the issue of innovating a business procedure, there’s a critical preliminary question: Is the procedure necessary?

I recently worked with a company that performs repair services on electronic appliances. The company had a detailed “inventory procedure” that was completed every morning before the store opened. The procedure required an employee to print a report of all “open” repair orders from the computer. Then, the employee handling the inventory procedure that morning checked to be sure that every appliance in for repair was actually in the store. The employee manually checked off each appliance on the list. Read the rest of this entry »