Should you customize your company’s workflow?

Every business runs differently. Today, the corporate industry is highly affected by fast-paced technological advancements. They need updated tools and devices to keep up with the market’s demands and fast flow of tasks. 

Fortunately, software solutions are accessible to ease a company’s workflow management. It provides companies with a better way to streamline the workload of their employees that is geared towards efficiency and improvement of business operations. 

There are various ready-made workflows available for businesses to adapt, but others prefer customization to align their entire functions to their main competencies. 

In this article, we will tackle customized workflows and their importance to businesses. 

What is a customized workflow?

Customized workflow, as the name suggests, is a system specifically built for companies in a certain industry.

Usually done to uphold their core values, companies opt for customization to promote interdepartmental collaboration, nurture employees with better work management, and encourage productivity that can’t be achieved with ordinary workflow software.

Because it is tailor-made, the cost of developing a customized workflow is high compared to the readily available ones. However, the return of efficiency and seamless workflow will definitely enhance a company’s internal operations.

When should you customize your workflow?

Deciding to customize your business’ workflow should be done when:

Need for collaboration

Customized workflow is needed when working on a project, and the final output heavily relies on your team’s individual tasks. Moreover, there’s an order of checking that should be followed—one employee cannot start their part unless the other’s output is finally checked, submitted, and cleared. 

The time used for waiting for one employee’s part to begin can be allotted to other developments that would speed up the project’s progress. 

This is where a customized workflow helps. Employees can work simultaneously with their respective tasks in a single document on the software. 

When there’s a need to revise, an employee only needs to change the custom status of a single part to notify his editor and the next person after him. In this way, revisions can be addressed immediately and applied to the succeeding parts. 

Customized workflows are a great solution to consolidate a company’s workload, projects, and ongoing developments. Your employees will also find it easier to collaborate with one another with its real-time project status features, edit or revise notifications, and deadline reminders.

Time constraint

Tasks aren’t completed in a single go. Oftentimes, it goes through a thorough process of editing, proofreading, and modifying between an employee and his editor. 

Once an initial draft is ready, an editor will wait for his member to send it to him for double-checking. When done, he will send it back to the employee for the application of revisions. 

It is a cycle that every workforce is familiar with, but sometimes, it can delay completion. Suppose that your project requires numerous revisions but is set to a strict deadline; the progress will be the stagnant status of going back and forth to the team. 

Customized workflows are needed if this circumstance arises. Time is of the essence, especially for projects with strict deadlines. Every accomplished step is valuable, and going in circles will only push back a project from finishing. 

The advantages of a customized workflow

A customized workflow can give out the following benefits: 

Efficiency

Customized workflows allow employees to view their tasks clearly. With the color-coding and sorting features, the workforce can organize their deliverables according to deadlines. 

This boosts efficiency as it permits employees to work on their respective tasks easily. In custom-made software, the to-do list can also lay out the supplementary documents or materials needed to accomplish them. Employees won’t have a hard time searching and arranging their backlogs for the day.

Visibility

A company can choose what to include in its customized workflow software. You can create dashboards, individual homepages for your employees, or a shared tracker that’s visible to the entire workforce. 

It also provides insight into the overall development of a project. They can simply change a task’s custom status to either “Ready for Editing”, “Editing”, or “Complete,” depending on the progression of their assignment. 

Moreover, the project head can oversee what’s finishing, improving, or needing guidance with custom-made workflow software. 

Flexible

Since it is a customized workflow software, it can also adapt to the changes your company undergoes. When there’s a need to change or adjust your business process according to a specific project, it grants companies modification of employees’ individual tasks and overall management of the workflow without limitations. 

Transparent 

Another advantage of customized workflows is transparency. With the built-in status and trackers, your company and your employees can supervise one another on their respective assignments.

Customized workflow builds your company’s competitiveness 

Customized workflows allow your business to strengthen its operations, management, and workforce efficiency and productivity despite the higher costs. 

The personalized components can definitely contribute to a positive market performance while remaining loyal to your core values, mission, and vision. With this option, great rapport with your customers and employees can be established. 

Overall, a customized workflow promotes a competitive advantage that will help greatly in the success of your business.