The Cost of Waiting: How Approval Delays Stall Business Growth

 Picture this: a product team is ready to launch. The campaign is designed, the materials are approved internally, and the market window is open. But the budget request sits unanswered in someone's inbox. The deadline passes, momentum slips, and the opportunity is gone. These moments don't make front-page news, but they quietly erode competitiveness. Waiting on approvals costs more than time—it costs agility, growth, and trust.

Approvals will never disappear, but the way organizations manage them determines whether they become bottlenecks or accelerators. With Lark, approvals flow through the same system that powers everyday work, keeping decisions in motion instead of stuck in silos.

Lark Base: approvals connected to outcomes

One of the biggest risks with approvals is losing visibility. Teams send a request, but once it leaves their hands, they have no idea where it stands. 

Lark Base fixes this by providing structured views—grid for details, kanban for progress, timeline for sequencing, and dashboards for summaries. Advanced fields capture who owns the decision, what data supports it, and when it's due. Permissions keep sensitive information secure, while automations reduce waiting by triggering reminders or new tasks as soon as a record changes.

This is why many organizations describe Lark as their connected CRM app. By using Base to manage approvals alongside projects and customer deliverables, they ensure that sign-offs are part of the work itself, not detached checkpoints that slow everything down.

Lark Messenger: conversations that accelerate decisions

Most approvals stall not because of rejection, but because someone has a question that goes unanswered. Lark Messenger keeps those clarifications close to the request. With threaded replies, teams can separate discussions by topic, and pinned messages highlight the information that matters most. Buzz notifications help escalate urgent approvals so they don't get lost in the noise.

Take a marketing budget request. Instead of endless back-and-forth over email, the requester drops the details into Messenger. The finance lead replies in the same thread, asks one clarifying question, and gives the green light in minutes. 

By letting decisions happen inside everyday conversations, Messenger shrinks approval cycles from weeks to hours.

Lark Calendar: deadlines that drive accountability

Approvals without timelines create invisible risks. Lark Calendar makes deadlines impossible to ignore by anchoring requests to schedules. Shared calendars reveal availability, recurring events handle routine cycles like monthly expense reports, and tasks appear automatically when an approval is created. Reminders keep approvers aware before deadlines turn into bottlenecks.

Consider a product launch that hinges on regulatory approval by a set date. When that approval is linked to Calendar, everyone involved sees the milestone in their schedule. 

Leaders understand immediately if a delay could derail the launch and can step in to reassign or reprioritize. Calendar turns approvals into commitments, not open-ended tasks.

Lark Approval: processes that scale without friction

Manual routing is one of the most common causes of approval delays. A request bounces from one person to another, waiting for someone to forward it. Lark Approval eliminates that inefficiency with customizable forms, rules, and automated routing. 

Submissions automatically reach the right reviewer, whether it's an HR lead for hiring, a manager for expenses, or a department head for travel requests. Notifications in Messenger keep stakeholders informed, while approved records sync into Base for tracking.

Approval embodies how Lark works as a modern business process management software: simple enough for employees to use every day, but powerful enough to support organizational scale. By standardizing and automating processes, Approval removes the uncertainty of "who needs to sign this?" and ensures requests move forward quickly.

Lark Docs: capturing the reasoning behind decisions

Approvals aren't just about a "yes" or "no." They often need a supporting context. Lark Docs provides a shared space where teams can co-edit proposals, embed live data from Sheets, and add comments in real time. Version history preserves every change, which means the reasoning behind decisions stays visible.

Imagine an investment proposal. The financial model, leadership comments, and final approval all live in the same document. 

Months later, if someone questions why the project was funded, they can revisit the original Doc and see the data and discussion that led to the decision. By embedding context with the decision, Docs prevents second-guessing and accelerates alignment.

Lark OKR: linking approvals to strategy

Approvals shouldn't be isolated actions—they should serve company goals. Lark OKR connects sign-offs to objectives and measurable results. Dashboards show progress toward goals, reminders keep cycles active, and leaders can see whether delays in approvals are threatening outcomes.

For instance, a hiring request may feel like a small decision. But when linked to OKRs, the delay becomes visible: that new role directly supports a sales growth target. Leaders can see the ripple effect of the delay and prioritize accordingly. OKRs ensure that approvals don't just clear tasks—they move strategy forward.

Conclusion

Waiting is expensive. Every stalled approval risks a missed deadline, a frustrated customer, or a delayed launch. The hidden costs compound until they affect the organization's ability to grow. 

Lark addresses this by embedding approvals inside the tools teams already use—structured in Base, clarified in Messenger, scheduled in Calendar, streamlined through Approval, contextualized in Docs, and aligned to goals in OKRs.

When approvals live in motion, they stop being checkpoints that block progress and start becoming levers that accelerate it. 

Teams move faster, decisions align with strategy, and agility becomes the norm. For organizations looking to replace bottlenecks with business momentum, Lark stands among the best project management tools: not because it eliminates approvals, but because it makes them part of the flow of work.