How to Optimize Your Business

Optimization of the various processes which make your business work is the difference between getting by and being really successful. If you can optimize your business, you can achieve the kind of results described on this site. But how can you do this without hiring expensive consultants?

Optimization means that a particular process is operating at peak efficiency, i.e. it produces maximum results while consuming a minimum in resources. The relationship between results and resources can be defined by mathematical functions and it is possible to analyze these values by finding the zeros of the derivative of the functions defining the relationship. If, like most small business owners, this means nothing to you, there is a more intuitive method which will get equally good results.

What you have to do is consider a particular part of your business, preferably one which you suspect is not working very efficiently. Identify the output in terms of the results you want to see and think about what goes into that part of the business to produce the output. Typically such a process is an assembly line which produces something but it can also be any other kind of process.

Once it is clear what is going in and what the output is, think about the effect of changing one of the inputs a little bit. Work through what the result on the output should be and see if it would improve efficiency. If it looks like it might, try it out. If it works, try changing the input a bit more. What you are doing is a trial approach to incremental change and it will lead you to an optimal situation if you keep changing the inputs a little bit until the changes don't improve things. At that point you are optimized.

A lot of small business owners do this kind of thing anyway, by instinct, but applying this method systematically through the business will get better results. For a more in-depth discussion of this subject try the "Growing Your Own Small Business" course at Suite University.

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