Systems = Beauty.

Tom Peters coined the Phrase, systems = beauty and boy, was he right the more I see companies with beautiful systems the more successful, they are.

Companies are known for their systems and yes, customers both know and judge companies by their systems. Oh Yeah, You may say, Just think of bill paying and dealing with the public service, Yes, we really do judge organisations by their systems. So why shouldn't you have Beautiful Systems.

Systems should be a constant work in progress and always open to improvement. If you haven’t changed your entire system in 3 years you are most likely running an obsolete system.

Insurance companies used to have up to 18 steps in lodging a claim and fixing a problem. Today some of them have got it down to one phone call and the magic just happens.

Review the steps in each procedure and task and see if they really need to be there and if there are any consequences if they are removed. In coming years the language will alter and believe it or not you should hear terms like Art, Beauty, Harmony, Clarity, Grace. 

Look at the form on your desk now and procedures that run your present system are they attractive, human, chatty, friendly, graceful artistic? If not scrap them NOW and begin to rework them. The end result should be a system of beauty for your employees customers and the company. The systems and procedures must make buying easy and simple for your customers. Beautiful systems remove buying obstacles from customer pathways.

E.G. A tile retailer has a system that makes the customer write down the details of a tile they like, take it to the counter, line up and wait for a staff member to look up a price. If it's too expensive, you, the customer, repeat the whole procedure. It would be much friendlier for them to mark each display with a price or price range but they claim prices change with each shipment and they'd forever be changing prices. (Obviously they've never seen how a supermarket works)

From a customer’s point of view, this is not a system that has grace, beauty, harmony or clarity, to hell with price, just change the system.