Business Bullets - Operations

Large businesses, often with dedicated IT staff, usually manage their own servers for email provision. At the opposite end of the scale many new-start businesses use the 'free' email address which comes from their ISP (Internet Service Provider). Unlike mobile phone numbers, these email addresses are not transferable. The price paid is that the business (or individual) becomes tied to their ISP. I do not use ISP email addresses even for my personal emails. I have seen these types of unprofessional email addresses printed on stationery and even on the side of vans!

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Business Process Re-engineering' is a term that is often used, but a technique that is often under used by businesses. One of the key steps to undertaking this work, in a controlled manner, is to map out the processes of your business. This can take days to perform, which can put a lot of people off. It can also be done in minutes and how to do this quickly but effectively is the focus of this article.

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In the first part of this article I discussed email systems, rapid process improvement and the need for routines. This concluding part looks at the remaining four problems I see on a regular basis that adversely affect productivity in the office.

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Over the last ten years I have seen a number of recurring themes that affect how much work gets done during the working day. This short article looks at the three of the seven common problems I witness on a regular basis. The other four common problems are covered in a separate article (Part II). Each section includes several steps that you can try and test so that you can avoid the same pitfalls.

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