Businesses develop and mature over time. As a business matures, it is able to achieve new heights in productivity; the people in the business gain additional experience and find new ways to leverage their time. Businesses use the Nine Phases of Productivity as a Maturity Model to determine which phase operations have achieved, and which phase is the current state.

We find the following to be true… but which is you?

• Most small businesses are in Phases 1, 2, and 5.
• Many medium and larger businesses are in Phases 3 and 5.
• Businesses actively engaged in world-class practices and businesses with a culture of ongoing improvement tend to be in Phases 4, 6, and 7.

Whether you continue to target more gains in a phase or though additional phases largely revolve around where the cost of the improvement stops being offset by the returns obtained (the economics law of diminishing returns applies).

But the Maturity Model also gives you an extra dimension to focus improvements on, such that the common sense of a diminishing Returns on Investment (ROI) that managers experience, is avoided. Do we…

1. Continue to improve that current phase?
2. Advance to the next phase category to leverage business information further?
3. Advance to the next category to leverage business process further?

Businesses chase aspects of each option, but what the Nine Phases of Productivity do is create a decision-making structure that maximises your business’s return on investment.

With the Maturity Model, you will focus on where the best return on investment is, thus:

• You may find you should move to the next phase rather than extend the current phase.
• You may find you should go up a category rather than extend the current category.

Data handling and data availability

Initially, businesses increase leverage by buying/hiring and delegating to obtain more capacity. To increase leverage, businesses seek to automate, eliminate, and reduce the time taken to complete tasks. Processes are established and then codified into standard operating procedures. A step change occurs…

Phases One to Four are a focus on data (data handling and data availability)

• Phase One - Manual, “Everything is printed and filed”
• Phase Two - Computerised, “It’s all in the system”
• Phase Three - Enterprise Integration, “If data is anywhere in your system, it’s everywhere in your system”
• Phase Four – Supply Chain Integration, “Sharing data with customers and other businesses in the supply chain”