The Process Ninja

The Straw Point: How Process Can Win or Lose Customers

In every process we have customer interaction points - how well we manage these "moments of truth" with our customers influences their levels of loyalty towards the firm. Loyal customers spend more and are more likely to recommend the firm to friends or collegues so making customers more loyal should be a major focus - and to do this we need to look at process from a customer experience perspective. How should we do this?

When we look at processes we must take an outside-in view. The process does not start and end at the front door of the organisation. Take, for example, my recent experience with travelling with virgin on holiday. The flight is a small part of the customer experience - it's up to organisations to influence and manage as much of the process as they can outside of their traditional view of the process.

Managing moments of truth is critical. Each interaction with a customer has a different level of impact on customer dissatisfaction and consequently loyalty. Example: for the last couple of years I have been ordering my groceries through Woolworths online and in the last couple of years woolworths online have made a mistake with every single order I have received. Usually it's only a couple of items which is a minor dissatisfaction and not enough to make me either switch to a competitor or to trudge to the supermarket myself. However, minor dissatisfactions have a cumulative effect which can break a relationship with the firm.

Conversely, positive moments of truth can help to reduce the dissatisfaction that builds up. After I complained and said I was going to stop ordering with them Woolworths gave me a credit and refunded my delivery fee - which like pouring water on a fire, died it down for some time until the next event to trigger dissatisfaction...which wasn't far off...

I then received a delivery where all of the frozen foods were missing. I contacted Woolworths and received a cut and paste email saying that they'd refund the missing items - this only inflamed my dissatisfaction before a couple of weeks later I received none of my fruit and veg (half of the order). Cue the straw point.

The straw point is the final incident of dissatisfaction that leads to the termination of the relationship with the company - it is "the straw that breaks the camels back". All loyalty is broken. For me the straw point was when I called the Woolworths call centre 10 minutes after receiving my delivery to see if my fruit and veg was in the truck and I received a message saying that "due to unforseen circumstances the call centre is now closed". After which I sent the following terse email:

"Hi - please refund the items marked with a cross which we did not receive. You will note this includes all of the fruit and veg. I called your call centre but you are strangely closed.

We will be shopping with Coles online from this point forward (if only you cared about losing a customer!)"

I did receive a response the next day - yet another cut and paste saying that the missing items would be refunded. And I was right, they didn't care to lose me as a customer - a family of 6 who spend in the region of $20k a year in their supermarket.

So what lessons can organisations learn to avoid the straw point?

1. Look at the process from the outside-in - look at the customer experience
2. Identify all of your customer interaction points in the process
3. Identify the dissatisfaction impact level in the event that the interaction goes wrong
4. Reduce the number of customer interaction points to reduce the probability of things going wrong
5. Optimise the customer interaction points that are left - focus on reducing the customer's level of effort.

We are all customers, so do unto them as you would expect yourself.

Cheers,

TPN

P.S. My first shop with Coles online was last week - and I am pleased to advise that not a single item was missing.

Process Glue - Explaining the Benefits of a BPMS

With so many different software products available today it's often a hard ask to fully explain the benefits of a particular piece of software. But this is where a BPMS (business process management system) is truely unique.

Whilst many pieces of software try to package themselves up to service a particular need - an ERP for example fitting the bill for many support processes - a BPMS succeeds because it doesn't wedge itself into a box. BPMS tools focus on having the fluidity to design processes the way the business needs them without compromise. But more than that they are built to expect that change will happen, and as a result are designed to have flexible and adaptive business rules that can be altered faster than regular "off the shelf" systems.

Another strenth of BPMS is their ability to interface and pass data to and from disparate systems. It's often hideously expensive to replace legacy systems - so why do so when you can wrap a BPMS around the system as an integration layer? It adds the functionality, without the pain.

I like to think of a BPMS as process glue. Organisations will always have manual processes and disparate systems. These are the areas where work slips through the cracks, where time is lost, where customers are forgotten. A BPMS helps glue the process together. It provides process visibility, it stops the errors, it speeds the process up, it kills manual work, it provides meaningful data, it gives the customers what they need...(if the process is optimised first!)

In my experience the best approach is to optimise the process then implement a BPMS. Benefits can be staggering if you do it properly - not just in efficiency savings, but in aligning the process with the customer need...

Look forward to the vision you need to make real - find all the pieces, remove what you don't need, arrange them in order and glue the process together!

Cheers,

TPN

P.S. Please share your experiences of implementing a BPMS to improve your organisation's processes...

Is ERP a Ready Made Meal in the Supermarket of Process?

There's still a great appetite for ERP tools despite the fact that they've been around for quite some time. To me an ERP system is like a ready made meal - packaged, pre-processed and on the outside quite a nice idea. The idea behind ERP is that you have a bunch of processes that support key organisational capabilities built into an integrated software system. It's a fix, but it doesn't fix everything - there are always processes that need to be changed and gaps that need to be filled.

A BPMS on the other hand is like picking your ingredients and making a meal - it's more time consuming and costly, but ultimately you get something that is a lot more satisfying. Some BPMS have ready made modules that mimic ERP systems but in my experience they aren't quite there yet.

Ultimately, like a ready-made meal - you buy an ERP system it and it may not be quite as tasty as you expect. You might have to add a bit of salt or some sauce. But going back to the factory to ask them to change the recipe is somewhat expensive!

I don't think ready meals are the answer, and I don't think cooking from scratch is the answer either. I think the future lies in BPMS having libraries of standard, re-usable processes that can be picked up and altered to suit the organisation - but I still see organisations spending huge amounts of effort building processes from scratch. I believe the lines between ERP and BPMS will blur to the point where ERP will cease to exist as a concept.

The future is still cooking from scratch, but the ingredients will be all prepared for you - simply season to taste.

Cheers,

TPN

Pain on the Plane Again - Why Air Travel is Still The Worst Customer Experience

You may remember my post Pains, Planes & Automobiles from 2009 where I lambasted the customer experience of Air Travel. Three years on is it any better?

I book online and it's a breeze, but I do notice that they now charge per item of baggage. This actually suits us as with 4 young children we don't need to pay for six items of luggage - so I book 4 which cuts the price down. We get up to 23kg per item of luggage. Our toddler is free but he has to sit on a lap. I suggest to my wife that should be her, which earns me a look that could turn milk.

Well since 2009, Sydney Airport hasn't moved - nor has a much discussed 2nd Sydney Airport been built. This means that we still have to make the 15km drive to the airport on the other side of Sydney. Doesn't sound far, does it? But this is Sydney we are talking about - with it's hideous traffic and 3rd world road network). We are so terrified that we'll get stuck in traffic we set off 3 hours before our flight. That's a domestic flight where we have to be there 45 mins prior to the flight departure time.

One improvement is that I book the parking online this time - and it's considerably cheaper for twice the duration. 

I take a different route from 3 years ago - it costs me more but we arrive at the airport in plenty of time (thanks to my GPS and my e-tag which speeds me through the toll roads). I drop off the wife and kids at the front door and go to long-term parking. Somehow I manage to drive past the entrance to the parking and have to double back. That annoys me as I was looking for a road sign which I couldn't see - but I later notice that the car park (named "Blue Emu") is festooned with giant banners of Blue Emus all over it so I blame my "man vision" for that one. The car park has been improved by the addition of animal names so you can remember where you have parked. I park in section C - "Craig the Koala" so I can't possibly forget where I have to return 2 weeks later. I can't help but think that it should be "Craig the Crocodile", but "crocodile" is hard to fit on a sign...

So far so good and I am whisked away from the bus stop to the airport within 5 minutes so I am back with my waiting hoard in just 15 minutes.

We have already checked in and picked our seats and as we are 2 hours early the bag drop queue is only 5 minutes long. This time we can take our baby buggy to the gate (last time we couldn't) but the bad news is that despite us having 2 tiny cases and one medium sized case our large case is over 23kg's and we are charged $40. Previously Virgin would simply add up the luggage total and divide by the number of bags - not so, anymore. Any bag over 23kg's is charged an excess. I ask the check-in lady if this has changed recently and she says it changed about a year ago. Nice of them to make that obvious. I'm seriously pissed off. Customer experience dissatisfaction #1.

So with time to kill we grab a coffee and some breakfast. The airport chiche of bad, overpriced food unfortunately still holds true. Customer experience dissatisfaction #2.

After breakfast we make our way to the gate - when we arrive there are no seats left so we have to stand. I don't really mind as there is a large space where our kids can run around in circles annoying other passengers, but I feel sorry for others who stand looking at screens with thousand yard stares, waiting for the golden moment when "boarding" appears. Customer experience dissatisfaction #3.

We board the plane and hand our buggy over - all is good and we take our seats. I'm impressed that the aircraft is new and that all of the seats have entertainment devices which have games, TV and movies. The kids are very excited by this. Big. Improvement. Pity none of the headsets work properly so we sit with buzzing in our ears for 5 hours. Customer experience dissatisfaction #4.

Drinks arrive fairly promptly after take-off, but as the tray tables slope downwards my son's drink slides off the table and into my lap. Nothing like having a giant orange juice stain to make you look like a seasoned traveller. I ask the steward why the tray tables slope and he says that "people keep leaning on them". Funny that, people actually using the tray tables. Food arrives a short time later and the quality is reasonable but I have to hold my son's food tray while he eats as it keeps sliding off the table. This is not fun when you consider how long children can take to eat food.  Customer experience dissatisfaction #5.

After 5 hours of swapping a squirming, tired toddler between our laps we finally arrive at our destination. We pick up our suitcases and buggy promptly (marvelling at how tiny and pleasant Perth airport is). I do have to pay $4 for a trolley to take me the 200m across the road to the car rental pickup, however. I am old enough to still remember the porters who would cheerfully collect your luggage at Glasgow airport and take it to check-in for you in the 1970's. For Free!Customer experience dissatisfaction #6.

I follow the instructions on the hire car company email to go to the meeting point and to call the number to arrange to meet the rep. I am told on the phone where the car is and given a code to collect the key inside the glove box (there is no rep!). I like this system but it could have been improved if they'd have emailed or sent me an SMS of the details. The instructions could have been updated thereby eliminating a breakpoint and requiring minimal human intervention (reduced cost for the hire car company). I collect the car and all is good except that they haven't marked any of the damage on the report form. It looks like the car has been used for dodgem practice so I spend 10 minutes writing down the 300 dents and scratches. I also find it strange that they provide cash to pay for the car park. As they've dropped off the car too early I have to pay more for the car park than the cash they have left. Customer experience dissatisfaction #7.

We have a great two week holiday but the real pain starts on the return leg. I receive a handy email advising that I can check-in 48 hours prior - even using their new mobile service! So I try to check in via my iphone and receive and error. I try on an ipad and a PC and still receive an error. Check in at the airport it tells me. I check my mother in via mobile with no problem. I must be special. Customer experience dissatisfaction #8.

I call Virgin customer service. I can't understand the girl as she's speaking pigeon English and have to ask her to slow down. She tells me she doesn't know why I can't check in. I tell her I don't care as long as she can check me in. She says she can't check me in but she can reserve seats for me. Yes, that's right. She can't check me in. Customer experience dissatisfaction #9. I decide that I'll check us in at the web kiosk at the airport then use the bag drop.

1 day prior to our flight I receive both an email and a text to say that our flight is delayed (I don't mind as it means extra sleep!) I appreciate the notification.

We arrive at the airport, drop the car off (following the easy instructions), pay for another trolley (urgh!) and make our way inside. As I had feared the check-in queue was hideous so I made my way to the kiosk to check in. Ahhh...the kiosk - so devoid of the inadequacies of inert customer service staff.

"Check-in for this flight has closed" it tells me. Noooooooooooooo. It appears that the virgin system hasn't accounted for the flight change so has closed the check-in an hour earler than it needed to. Either that or the flight is on time and check-in really is closed. Now I'm in a panic. Customer experience dissatisfaction #10.

I join the hideous queue which take 20 minutes to get through to us being checked in. Customer experience dissatisfaction #11. But we do check in - with no excesses this time due to careful packing.

We are late so rush to the gate (which now looks like some sort of war zone) with people queueing everywhere. Customer experience dissatisfaction #12. We board and pass our buggy to a helpful virgin member of staff who says "I'll take care of that for you".

We have an uneventful flight other than the usual sloping trays and spilling drinks. The kids are well behaved apart from our toddler who persists in throwing himself in front of the drinks trolley like a lemming. The staff smile politely. I was delighted to see that they changed the headphones to a new brand - unfortunately they no longer fit in children's ears so my three kids have to hold the earplugs in their ears the entire 5 hour flight. Cue whingeathon. Customer experience dissatisfaction #13

We land and depart to the horror that is Sydney Airport on a Saturday afternoon. We pick up our bags - well we try to - one of them isn't there. We wait, and wait. Suspiciously there is a bag with a similar tag as ours hypnotically doing laps of the carousel until it is the only one left. The painful realisation that some numbnut has taken our bag slowly sinks in. I panic knowing that the suitcase contains my twin boys' favourite stuffed animals, which they love more than me. I rush to the virgin bagage desk only to find my wife there reporting that our buggy is also lost not having turned up at excess baggage. Customer experience dissatisfaction #14.

We wait 1 hour until a rugby shirt wearing Mr Potato head lookalike turns up with our case. My eyes glaze over as he tells me his reasons for picking up a case which is neither the same make, brand, size, shape or colour. Apology accepted, now please leave me alone as I want to die having been at baggage collection for an hour and a half with 4 grumpy, hungry children fighting over a stale cookie scraped from the bottom of my wife's handbag. It still seems strange to me that anyone can walk up and take a bag full of thousands of dollars worth of goods so easily. Customer experience dissatisfaction #15.

Our buggy is still lost and the virgin staff tell us "we have tons of them - we can give you another one if you like". Nice to know they are so regularly lost! She wheels out what looks like a brand new super deluxe buggy which we dash out of the airport with before someone finds it. Bonus. It almost makes up for the pain.

Finally I go to the car park - well I try but I can't find the bus stop. I hunt up and down. There are plenty of signs but none of them have a "you are here" dot on them so it's impossible to know where I am. I see the bus sailing past. I want to cry! I eventually find a security guard who points me in the right direction.  Customer experience dissatisfaction #16.

There is no pick up at the terminal so we have to walk hundreds of metres to a pick-up area before I finally get on the bus and return to pick them up.

9 hours of travel (only 4 of which were on a plane) and we are finally home.

It's good that we had 3 years between flights - it allowed us time to forget what was and still is a hideous customer experience from start to finish.

Cheers,

TPN

Videos - Outside-in Thinking Meets BPM

These videos from BPM Guru Steve Towers provide a great introduction to some of the key elements of the CEM Method.

 

Cheers, TPN

An Overview of Business Process Improvement Methods

This article was originally published at www.idatix.com

Over the last hundred years there have been great strides made in the advancement of methods to improve our processes. Whilst there are a multitude of different methods and hybrid methods , in this article I look at 3 of the most popular ways of analysing and improving business processes: Six Sigma, Lean and CEM Method.

1. Six Sigma

Like many of today’s process improvement methods, Six Sigma originated in manufacturing in the nineteen eighties; in fact Six Sigma was invented by Motorola as a means to improve the quality of their products. Its focus is on the elimination of defects and variance. Six Sigma focusses strongly on measurement and statistical methods which can result in a great deal of complex calculations. Indeed the meaning of Six Sigma is a measurement of defects that equals one defect in 3.4 million. But beyond measurement Six Sigma has achieved waves of popularity over the last thirty years and its structure of certification including Yellow, Green and Black Belts has become almost as famous as the method itself.

2. Lean

Lean also emerged from manufacturing – this time from Toyota (although its origins are a hybrid of many process improvement techniques developed by Toyota staff and other leaders in manufacturing). The ethos of Lean is the elimination of waste – in particular the elimination of non-value add activities – non-value add meaning that it does not contribute to the value to the customer. An ideal Lean process is one which provides “perfect value” to the customer via a process that has zero waste. This is achieved via the continual optimisation of “value streams” (processes). Proponents of Lean advocate its usage not as a short term way of reducing waste, increasing efficiency and eliminating non-value add activities but as a transformational change that is continuous.

3. CEM Method

The CEM (Customer Experience Management) Method is a means of improving existing business processes or designing new business processes to align with customer needs. It was created by a group of consultants working with Richard Branson’s Virgin group in the 1990’s and has rapidly gained in popularity over the last 10 years. The method works by focusing each process on a successful customer outcome to be achieved, and by designing the process from the outside of the organization to the inside of the organization, hence the commonly used term “outside-in”. CEM Method thereby is said to achieve greater customer alignment by focusing the process on its reason for existing – or indeed by questioning whether the process should exist at all. Through greater alignment, the experience is improved for the customer and operational costs are decreased by the elimination of redundant activities. Rather than just “doing things right” the focus of the CEM Method is on “doing the right things”.

In my next article Iwill be taking a closer look at the origins, benefits and criticisms of our old friend, Six Sigma.

Cheers,

TPN

Six Ways To Process Improvement Success

This post was originally published on the Idatix Insider's Blog.

So you’ve been given the go-ahead on your shiny new business process improvement initiative. The champagne corks have been popped, you given yourself a big pat on the back then suddenly the eyes of the business are on you – asking how you are going to make it a success!

Here are six ways to improve your chances of Process Improvement Success:

1.    Get The Project Team Right

Getting the interpersonal dynamics and skills of the project team right is absolutely critical.

• Hire doers, not delegators.
• Hire people who have the same attitude to work.
• Don’t hire bureaucrats or people who think having meetings equates to getting things done.
• Hire people who are passionate.
• Hire great communicators.
• Hire people who are sociable.
• Hire great writers (who are great thinkers).
• Hire people with flexible attitudes.
• Hire people who are down to earth.
• Hire experts.

2.    Pick The Right Technology

Just because it’s in the Gartner Magic Quadrant doesn’t mean it’s the right solution to your business problem. It’s also likely to also be the most costly solution to your business problem. There is an almost overwhelming range of software on the market to suit every business need so selecting a vendor should be more about fit with needs rather than who is winning the most deals and who is the less risky. Big software companies often have the same painful process issues you are trying to fix, so why should you try to fix your problems with the same kind of thinking that created them?

3.    Start with The Customer

Too many organisations have a myopic view which focuses firstly on internal processes prior to looking at the customer. Focussing on what the customer needs and looking at end-to-end process from a customer experience perspective stops wasted time and effort improving processes and tasks which shouldn’t actually exist in the first place.

Start with the customer, define what they need and align your organisational processes to that need and you can’t go far wrong.

4.    Implement Change Management (Properly!)

Change Management. That’s that warm and fuzzy feel-good stuff, puffed up with words like "engagement” and “actualisation”, right?

Wrong. It’s time everyone started to take Change Management more seriously - studies have shown that projects are six times more likely to succeed if they have good change management. Get a change manager on board and on-board early. A good change manager is worth their weight in gold – it’s a specialised skill that requires experience, expertise and a structured approach.   

5.    Bring The Business into the Project (Fully!)

Part-time business commitment is the first sure-fire sign of a delivery disconnect. If the business are unwilling to commit at least one full-time resource to a process improvement project then stop the bus and let everyone off. Not only is the business’s expertise essential to progressing the project, but a lack of commitment on a project that is designed to improve the business itself shows that they either do not adequately understand or appreciate the benefits that the initiative will bring or have no faith in your ability to deliver! Either way, business commitment is another critical step on the path to success.

6.    Prove The Concept

Start small. Never go “big bang”. Prove the concept. It’s far too risky in this day and age to start with a huge transformational implementation of software if you have never implemented the software before. Start with a small project that can prove the benefits of your business case
and ramp it up from there. It will also help you to confirm that you have the right project team skills and that your cost estimates are correct before you sign a big cheque that may have you throwing yourself on your own sword come the end of financial year.

There are many other ways to improve the success of a process improvement initiative but getting these six right at the start will take you a long way towards the goal of a happy business, and most importantly, happy customers.

Cheers,

TPN

A Guide to Running Process Improvement Workshops

I run a lot of workshops these days – I find that they are the most efficient way of getting to the heart of processes and improving them. I’ve seen people spend months doing depth interviews with staff only to have projects shut down before they’ve even get near to identifying improvements. That’s tragic and very avoidable. What can be accomplished in a well structured workshop can eliminate weeks or even months of unnecessary activity. Here’s how to get it right.

Before You Start

Don’t waste time planning too much. Against my will I was once made to write a 25 page document on how to run some workshops – it delayed the project by 3 months. Workshops aren’t complicated so don’t make them so. Create a spreadsheet with all your workshops, times, rooms booked and attendees. That’s all you need – don’t overbake the cake.

Pick your workshop room carefully. Find the biggest room with the longest walls – you’ll need them!

Identify all staff involved with the
process. It’s really important to get a cross section of staff that are involved end-to-end (that’s the customer experience of the process). You want staff that do the actual work – not managers or
supervisors.

Create a slide pack to guide you through the workshop. It will help you focus on the key stages and will avoid you missing anything and looking like a plumb.

Buy materials. You’ll need lots of 3M super stickies and a big roll of good quality brown paper, some blu-tak and some market pens. A whiteboard and whiteboard pens can also be handy.

Pick the right attendees. It may sound warm and fuzzy to ask the business who they want to attend but chances are they’ll send you people who aren’t busy rather than the staff you really want. What you want are people who know the process but who want to make things better.

Explain to staff what process you are looking at and what you want to achieve. It will make them feel more comfortable. Let them know they’ll be needed as early as possible.

Have a spreadsheet ready to capture the process details and a scribe there to capture them. Your job is to focus on facilitation not typing!

The Day Before

Set up the room by sticking up 3 sheets of brown paper as long as you can along the wall.

Set up chairs so that they all face the brown paper rather than behind desks. This helps to make the session less formal and more interactive. Ensure that your projector screen is set up in a manner which makes it easy for them to pivot around and see.

DO NOT put any processes up on the wall! This limits their thinking!

On the day

Set the scene by talking about the scope of the process. Identify what outcomes the process has (from a customer point of view).

Identify the current process. Give each person a pack of sticky notes and individually ask them to write down their own interpretation of the process (no collaboration!) Merge all the individual processes together to create one agreed end-to-end process.

Probe, ask questions, identify missing tasks until you are comfortable that everything has been identified. Check that nothing has been missed. Get the scribe to document all the steps in the process. Gather task timings so that you can calculate cost per process before and after.

Tear it to shreds – encourage them to question everything and to rework the process with the focus on eliminating activities. If it can’t be eliminated, improve it. Get the scribe to document all potential improvements in an action plan. Coax, cajole, prod, suggest – but never tell them what they should do.

Take plenty of breaks, have a laugh, give them plenty of sugar, make jokes, do a silly dance – push them beyond their current scope of thinking – for that way the land of process innovation
lies.

Cheers,

TPN

The Secret Life of Garbage

I was recently sent a fantastic infographic called "The Secret Life of Garbage" which explains what happens in the end to end process of garbage collection, recycling and disposal. I've embedded the infographic below.

Co-incidentally I've just finished an assignment with a waste management client so I thought I'd share a few insights into the process.

1. Recycling does happen (and it's big business). I had a feeling that recycling was a myth and that everything got tipped into a big hole in the ground, but as landfill is so expensive it's in the best interests of the waste management company to recycle as much as they can.
2. Although there is some automation the recycling process still remains highly manual with staff required to sort recyclables into categories. How manual? One of the staff members had no fingerprints as they had been worn away...
3. Almost anything can be recycled. Plastics, glass, paper, cars, scrap metal, plastic bags, commercial food waste, liquid waste, hazardous waste, oily rags! It's recycled and sold.
4. The next big push is to recycle domestic food waste (combining with domestic green waste). This will be big business as it makes for lovely fertiliser. If it hasn't come your way already it will soon. So if you can't be bothered separating your food scraps it's time to buy a waste disposal unit!
5. Garbage trucks really go through the wringer - a lot of the expense is in truck maintenance, repairs and tyres (which need replacing every 6 weeks @ $1,000 a tyre!)
6. Paper, plastics and glass are recycled by companies like Visy and Amcor and become products on the supermarket shelves again. Plastic bags are also recycled contrary to poular myth.
7. Even "contaminated" (dirty) items gan be recycled, but it's a more costly process.
8. Garbage trucks have sophisticated data capture - every bin lift is captured on video and timings measured. Truck speed down to every bin lift is captured. This gives a huge amount of data for analysis purposes.
9. Costing new routes requires experience - the terrain, street layouts and distances all define the profitability of routes.

As a "process person" recycling makes perfect sense to me and since I've worked in the industry I've become a recycling zealot! The one main lesson I've learned from my experiences is that nothing is garbage - if we think enough about it we can find a way to re-use or recycle anything.

Cheers,

TPN

The Top Six Reasons for Process Improvement Initiatives

The following article was originally published on the iDatix Insiders Blog.

“From little things, good things grow” they say – but when execs sign off on expensive process improvement initiatives (let’s face it few of them are cheap!) what are the top reasons for them giving the go ahead?

6. Me Too

“Hey everyone else is doing it, so why not us!”

No-one’s going to admit it but the persuasive voices of business publications and software vendors have made process a popular initiative. The fact that a trickle of improvement projects has turned into a Tsunami of BPM and transformation initiatives has placed a level of peer pressure on execs who are being asked by their CEO’s why they aren’t keeping up with the joneses. Take the example of two global insurance companies who invested heavily in top secret process improvement projects only to find out that they were both doing exactly the same thing…

5. Innovation

The forgotten man of process improvement. By adopting systematic methods a few sharp tools in the shed have realized that process can lead to “out of the box” thinking. These can be fantastic for “white space” initiatives which are designed to take the business outside of its operational core in order to break into new products and services.

4. Customer Centricity

You’ll never find anyone disagreeing with the need for customer centricity, but you will find many businesses that either can’t get to it or pay lip service to it. Those that do make the investment find that customer centricity isn’t as easy as it sounds. Organisations are complex beasts and to tame them you need an enterprise wide approach to process that ties together strategy, business services, processes and technology.

3. Transformation

Rather than being just a complex beast, transformation is a scary beast. This is because transformation encompasses more than just improving processes – it represents a fundamental change in the business from top to bottom. Transformations can make or break organisations and as a result they require huge effort in terms of process improvement, change management, organisational design, marketing and technology. There is typically a critical business reason for transformation projects, but that doesn’t seem to deter many organisations from taking the plunge.

2. Disaster

Nothing spells “fix the process” like a major issue. One can only imagine the frenzy of process improvement that went on at BP after the deepwater horizon incident. When companies face imminent business death or financial punishment by regulators you can be sure that a shiney new project will spring up to face the music.

1.  Cost 

Time is money. We’ve been improving process efficiencies for hundreds of years and it’s not going to stop anytime soon. Show an exec a saving in process costs and a tidy business case that quantifies the payback period and they’ll typically bite your arm off to implement it. Businesses love saving money as saving money equals more profit, and more profit equals happy CEO’s and shareholders. It’s hard to increase revenues and even harder to increase profits – but it’s often not so hard to save money when process initiatives can clearly highlight how to do it.

These are just a few examples of reasons for starting a process improvement initiative – the true challenge is in achieving the business benefits that the initiative set out to achieve in the first place. But that’s another story altogether…