Start at the End: How Companies Can Grow Bigger and Faster by Reversing Their Business Plan

Chapter 6

Systematizing Your Business

How fast does your business move? How many mistakes do your employees make? Armed with the right business assets, such as great products, a highly trained team, and a large customer base, achieving success should be fairly easy, unless your team moves slowly and makes mistakes.

For example, if Apple often shipped customers the wrong product, the company would falter. If it took twice as long to develop and introduce new products, sales and profits would dip considerably.

As you know, Apple doesn’t exhibit these flaws. Why? Because Apple, like most great companies, has developed multiple systems that dictate how it completes vital functions such as hiring and training employees, processing orders, and managing customer experiences. Systems are an extremely valuable business asset that allow you and your company to reach its goals.

Systems allow you to progress faster and with more consistency. Conversely, without systems things can and will go wrong. As an example, consider the ordering systems most restaurants use today. Waiters and waitresses can now take your order on a handheld device. They can also take your order on paper and easily enter it on a touch screen computer.

The results? Among other things, these systems automatically calculate customer bills. Conversely, I remember as a teenager recalculating handwritten bills in my head and finding mistakes. These systems also prevent ordering mistakes, such as cooks being unable to read the ...