It doesn't matter if you own a company or not. Keeping it simple is the must-have survival strategy for the moment. And you can start by doing two things: finding purpose and cutting off overhead both for yourself and for your company. In three articles, I'm going to discuss how to apply this with examples focused on the educational sector, companies, and your own life.

This is the second article of the series, and it will be focused on companies.

Part II: Companies

1. Finding purpose  

2. Cutting off overhead in your company

3. Create Art That Speaks to You and Prepares Your Mind to Act

1-Finding purpose

First, you need to stop and think about what your company can offer to create a better world. 

You need this because holding on to digital marketing strategies and fast and reliable customer support is not enough for your company's survival.

So, better than focusing on tech solutions is to concentrate on how to become a more empathetic and ethical business.  

For example, many Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions have expensive support contracts attached and also provide options that a small to medium company doesn't actually need. In this case, more important than knowing how you would adapt your company to use all the features you're paying for (HOW), would be to ask WHY your company needs this tech solution to fulfill its purpose.

Many companies are still living inside a technologically centered bubble that aims at showcasing technology as a competitive differential. While this may work as a marketing strategy in the short-term, in the long-term, it adds overhead and can hinder the company from its real purpose.

2-Removing overhead.

When we remove overhead, we can redirect more energy to create a real impact on our customers, and indirectly to all living beings on this planet.

Instead of devoting time and money to create an expensive marketing campaign or investing in tech infrastructure, we should spend our energy on genuinely helping our customers.

In other words, don't become delighted with technology. You don't want to get into buying services and products that solve a problem that you don't have or create a new one you didn't have at first.

In 'normal' times, this would be a recipe for a 10-year downhill into failure. In times of crisis, it's like riding a roller-coaster without fastening the seat belts.

3-Create Art That Speaks to You and Prepares Your Mind to Act

There's an easy and beautiful way to detect overhead by creating art. You'll also end up with a picture that you could use to visualize the processes you want and how distant each process is from the purpose of the company.

How to create:

1- Start by drawing a circle.

2- For each process, you're going to draw a line from the center of the circle to its edge. Don't forget to group together processes related to the same department or topic.

3 - For each process (radius), draw a small line across it. The fewer steps the process has to be completed, the closer to the center you draw the line.

4 - Next, draw a straight line linking each of the small perpendicular lines on the wheel.

5 - Fill in the triangles that appeared inside the wheel with a different color for each department or topic you're working on.

6- Good job! You successfully created your piece of art.

The bigger the art, the more opportunity for optimizing processes to use fewer steps and the least amount of technology to accomplish the task.

A Practical Example

Imagine the following two sales department processes.

Process for someone who’s a first-time customer and wants to buy a product.

Step 1: The customer accesses the company's website.

Step 2: The customer searches for the product you want to purchase, and after finding you click on the product.

Step 3: The customer clicks on "Add to Cart." 

Step 4: The customer clicks on "Go to check out."

Step 5: The customer enters name, delivery, and billing address, chooses the payment method, and other necessary information to complete the order. 

Step 6: The customer places the order by clicking on the "Confirm Order" button.

Process for returning a product and getting a refund.

Step 1: The customer accesses the company's website.

Step 2: The customer logins to the "Client's Portal."

Step 3: The customer clicks in the "Return a product" option on the menu.

Step 4: The customer chooses an order number from a list by clicking on it.

Step 5: The customer selects the product to return and turns on the "Get a refund" checkbox.

Step 6: The customer clicks on "Print Mailing Label." A screen with packaging instructions is displayed, and the printer dialogue opens.

Step 7: The customer prints the label and prepares the package. 

Step 8: On the next day, the courier service collects the package at the customer's home.

Now imagine the following two internal processes.

Process for updating the price of a product

Step 1: You open the ERP

Step 2: You enter your credentials and click on login.

Step 3: You click on the "Product Database."

Step 4: You look up the "product number" by performing a search into the product database.

Step 5: You click on the module for "Price Management."

Step 6: You enter your credentials and click on login.

Step 7: You search for the product using the product number.

Step 8: You click on the product from your results.

Step 9: You click on "Modify Properties."

Step 10: You click on "Price."

Step 11: You click on "Edit Price Properties."

Step 12: You insert the new price and click on "Save."

Process for contacting sales support

Step 1: The customer accesses the company's website.

Step 2: The customer clicks on the small balloon icon on the bottom of the screen.

Step 3: A message asks for the customer to fill in name and email. A note states that an assistant will be with the customer in a few minutes.

Step 4: The customer speaks with the assistant and fixes the issue. A ticket number is generated and displayed at the end of the chat.

This is how the art should look like:

This elegant and resourceful artwork provides a quick and precise point of view of where the processes stand concerning the company's purpose. 

Key Concepts

We need to free our company from unnecessary overhead, only keeping what's essential to achieve our real purpose.

Think about your purpose. Think about what your company can add to others with services and products and how it can help others.

Eliminate overhead. Simplify your processes by removing steps and reducing the use of technology to the least amount necessary to solve the problem.

The goal is to ask more questions that start with WHY and fewer questions that begin with HOW.