Traditionally,
process excellence has focused on improving productivity, efficiency and
effectiveness. Methods and approaches have evolved over time to help
organisations streamline, remove waste and standardise processes, driving
economic success in many countries around the world.
But
times have changed. And we must change with them. The rise of digital and
changing customer expectations is changing the very nature of business
improvement. Organisations must now look for new approaches and strategies
which place the customer at the centre of processes, to remain relevant and
competitive in a dynamic market.
Ahead
of Process
Excellence Week Australia 2015, Steve
Towers, Lead Coach and Co-Founder of the BP Group (UK) interviewed by the PEX team reviews the biggest factors
currently transforming the process excellence landscape and the steps
Australian organisations can take to successfully link process to customer
outcomes.
What types of new approaches and techniques are changing the way companies
approach business improvement?
Steve: We need to ask ourselves the question –
what is driving change? And at a fundamental level we are seeing the ascendance
of what I like to call the digital native. These are folks who have little
patience for assembly line factory thinking with its rigid rules and
structures. In fact as customers the digital native demands immediacy and
attention.
Swinging
back to the original question organisations now need to embrace approaches that
meet the high expectations and promiscuity of this digital native. Otherwise
they will not survive the decade – witness the demise of companies such as
Nokia, Kodak, Blockbuster, and Blackberry. The new approaches and techniques
emphasize the customer, front and centre. And I don’t mean in an arbitrary
‘voice of the customer’ way. I mean as a central focus for everything –
strategy, operations, technology and process.
The
book I wrote in 2010 referred to the overall concept of Outside-In, shifting
the way work gets done by understanding needs and aligning everything an
organisation does to achieving successful customer outcomes. In the five years
since we reviewed the pioneers such as Virgin, Amazon and Zara the customer
centric philosophy has become mainstream and accessible to all. So business
improvement itself has shifted from getting better at what we do to redefining
what it is we do and ensuring the delivery works for the new order.
How might companies go about linking process improvement with their
customer centric strategy? What are the benefits?
Steve: Connecting the dots between process and
customer is a critical challenge. It is only in the last 10-15 years that
people have realised that all work is a result of customer interactions and
can, with the appropriate approach, be connected to every single task and
activity.
The
resulting Process Performance Landscape demonstrates where costs occur, how
revenue is created and what levels of performance can be achieved. Once we have
that picture we can make informed decisions that touch everything the
organisation does. The benefit is completely tangible, something I refer to as
winning the triple crown, simultaneously driving out costs, growing revenues
and enhancing service.
What types of techniques can be used to achieve cost reductions, revenue
improvement and customer satisfaction?
Steve: It is
sometimes thought that cost, revenue and customer satisfaction are mutually
exclusive. Not so and in fact they should be approached together. Firstly if we
understand the causes of work and its effects (our processes) we can set about
either removing the causes by putting in place actions to eliminate them.
Secondly
if we cannot manage the causes away we must improve them. A couple of useful
techniques in this context, which complement process excellence approaches, are
the Outside-In Strategic Matrix and Successful Customer Outcome Model.
Australia appears to be a little behind the rest of the world when it
comes to business improvement – what steps do you think we need to take in
order to catch up?
Steve: A lot
of the difference comes down to economic cycles. Australia really didn’t feel
the severe impact of the last downturn and as such business was pretty much as
usual. Other countries witnessed the implosion of long established industries
and you either went under with them or reached out for ways, beyond industrial
age thinking, to survive and subsequently thrive. Until recently, Australia
hasn’t had the same worries so there has been a degree of misplaced
complacency. Catching up is going to require great effort and simply put some
won’t make it. That will affect not just the high street brands but the careers
and future for many. So listen and observe the next practices emerging and make
them Australia’s own. The Aussie ability to assimilate and improve at the same
time will get you there.
What key trends or factors will drive change in the process
excellence arena in the next 12-18 months?
Steve: A
biggy here is the professionalization of process excellence. And then isn’t
about belts and titles. It is about equipping our people to live and work with
the digital native in all of its forms. We have already discussed the emergence
of customer centricity and Outside-In thinking and that is the key. Those folks
who can harness that thinking and apply it to their organisations will
undoubtedly succeed; at the expense of others still practicing outmoded
approaches from the industrial era.
To be
blunt the top team demand results like never before. Getting there isn’t about
trying harder, it is about working smarter and that involves reframing process
excellence to performance excellence. Reaching out beyond the linear production
line straightjacket to Outside-In agile structures able to change and evolve
rapidly. That is a capability thing and requires folks to get up-skilled as
quickly as possible.
What is the value of attending Process Excellence Week Australia 2015?
Steve: At a personal
level it is about self improvement. It is about understanding and learning what
others are doing so you can take that learning and turn it to your success. At
an organisation level it is about the insights of the speakers, vendors and
workshop leaders. As a forum to ask the sticky question amongst fellow
professionals it is a great place for fast track learning. And on that score
the networking opportunity is massive. It is great to know you are not alone in
the improvement quest, there are others here to help, share and advise. From my
point of view no other conference in the southern hemisphere comes close.
Period.
Steve will be further exploring the common ingredients
of sustained success and how using the power of process linked with a customer
centric strategy can produce a winning and repeatable process excellence
formula at Process Excellence Week Australia 2015.
Everyday brings a new challenge. There are however a only few fundamental truths when it comes to working and being with others. 
