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Gain a Competitive Advantage with New Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Development

When SOPs are working as they should, a manager doesn’t need to give them a second thought. They are a proven way to bring consistency to every aspect of your organization — product quality, employee behavior, or other areas. Such consistency can ensure routine execution across the enterprise, helping to strengthen the brand, year in and year out.

In 2020, many organizations had to implement additional shifts, re-engineer processes to allow for social distancing among workers, and even accommodate employees working from home. At least for the short term, managers and line workers alike may be wrestling with unfamiliar functions, tasks, or equipment — and are often struggling to stay focused and productive. In the midst of all this disruption, new or updated SOPs are needed to ensure daily consistency and long-term competitiveness.

This kind of consistency has a strategic impact in any market, but especially in times like we’re going through now. For example, because volume is down in many industries, “getting it right” at every opportunity is more critical to retaining customers. Likewise, for those companies that are pivoting to develop new products, consistency in execution can help them get to market faster and more efficiently. In each of these scenarios, using SOPs to standardize execution can make all the difference.

Effective SOP development can also help you take advantage of emerging opportunities. For instance, although the pandemic has affected your operations, it’s also impacting your competitors as well. This is an opportunity: by developing new SOPs to reflect your updated workflows and executing according to your SOPs, you could win market share from competitors who are still struggling to work out a consistent process. Similarly, an effective SOP development approach can help your team move quickly to get a new or temporary location or facility into production … letting you get out ahead while the competition is essentially dead in the water.

SOPs provide an organization with a variety of highly strategic and competitive advantages — advantages that are especially critical right now:

This is a great time to revisit your SOPs

SOPs are definitely worth another look — now more than ever. It may not seem like the highest priority or the most cutting-edge business practice, but having a sound process for developing, updating, and disseminating SOPs can truly be a game-changer in any market. And it’s especially important in the current environment, when there is so much chaos and uncertainty. Employees are craving predictability, and companies need to pay extra attention to critical business drivers in order to remain competitive, whether in terms of production time, quality, scrap, cash, or other factors.

Updating a comprehensive set of SOPs can be daunting for a business. But when you consider the many strategic and competitive benefits that SOP development can provide across your organization, it’s worth the effort and resources — even if your internal team lacks the specialized skills or bandwidth.