Bill Baley believes a company’s success depends on its people. But he also realizes you have to have the systems in place to enable people to succeed. Baley is president and owner of C.I. Services Inc., a commercial roofing, waterproofing and solar contractor based in Mission Viejo, Calif. The company has grown quite a bit since it was founded in 1992, but the focus on processes and procedures aimed at satisfying customers has remained the same. “Everything goes back to the same question: What does the customer want?” Baley said. “That’s how you build your processes — you build your processes around what your customer base is requiring.”
You’ve also got to think big. “We always thought that you should set processes up as if you were a big company, even when you’re small,” he said. “If you do that — if you look at it that way — you force yourself to think like a big company. You make the right decisions that way.”