5 Ways the Power of Process Propels Business Today

Organizations today should be focused more than ever on improving both top-line and bottom-line results. The next few months or years are going to force companies to examine every area of the business. In many cases, improving business processes can be the key to delivering exceptional results, whether you are in finance, insurance, manufacturing, healthcare, or any other industry. I feel that there are five key areas that companies should focus on today.

Operational Excellence Change is here. It is fast, frequent, and complex. Customers today are ever more demanding, and new market entrants move with speed and scale fast. New technology drives business innovation in every aspect. Operational excellence is not just about efficiency anymore. Customer experience is the new north star. Companies that are not innovating and customer-focused risk being disrupted, losing customers, and they fail to attract and retain talent. Operational excellence today should take on a different look than before. You should focus on the customer by taking an outside-in look to your process landscape and put your customer journeys and experiences first. Capitalize on facts and f feelings by leveraging data and the wisdom of the crowd to understand, improve, and transform your operational reality. Enable rapid and collaborative change by operating and adapting with a shared understanding of your processes to get everyone on board.

Customer Journey Customer experience focused companies are thriving and are the benchmark of success. Amazon has built its business on easy to use search, fast delivery, and simple returns. All of these require a strong focus on process. Imagining an improved customer experience is easy. It can be done in just a couple of days of design thinking. Turning that design to operational reality is very hard and requires years of blood, sweat, and tears. Companies that get this right have a few things in common. One, the entire company is centered around the customer experience. Two, all processes are tuned and managed to deliver on the desired experience. Three, they change and adapt quickly and at scale. Besides the obvious focus on the customer, there are a few keys to making this happen. Successful companies improve and transform, they enable rapid and collaborative change, they leverage facts and feelings when making changes, and they govern change initiatives. 

ERP Transformation SAP has recently informed all ERP customers that they will need to upgrade to S4/HANA by 20205. These will be large IT projects. Like with any large IT project, there likely little to gain and the potential for massive failure from missed delivery deadlines, providing a system unfit for the business, or merely substantial cost overruns. Focusing on process can mitigate many of these risks. First model current processes, ensuring that you capture what's actually happening. This can quickly be done with process mining. Then model the to-be process with a collaborative tool that connects people across departments and geography. Third, simulate the to-be process to identify bottlenecks and ensure the most cost-effective deployment. Fourth, move the completed models into SAP Solution Manager. Finally, monitor the new process to ensure compliance and identify areas for automation. 

Automation at Scale Companies are hiring their digital workforce and robots are becoming the norm. This trend is likely to accelerate as companies attempt to do more with less to survive through the coming downturn. Automating tasks allows them to be completed much faster with few checks and balances. This provides the ability for processes to fail faster and harder than ever before. If the wrong tasks are automated, the business might see no benefit or worse, crash headlong into a wall. When the entire process is considered, and the correct tasks are automated, humans and robots can work in perfect harmony, creating massive efficiency gains. When considering automation opportunities, always keep the end in mind. Model complete processes and simulate what automating each step means to the rest of the process. Improve the process before you automate it. Once the automation is in production, use data to monitor end-to-end performance to detect problems early. Use this framework to drive continuous improvement across the business.

Risk and Compliance Regulatory pressure is not going away, and more rules are added continuously. There is more scrutiny than ever. Policy documents on a shelf are not sufficient anymore. Today's focus has to be on operationalizing all of the requirements. Robust and proactive risk and compliance management has become a must. Organizations that don't take this seriously risk fines and financial damage, their reputation, and even potentially their license operate. In some instances, executives may even have personal liability. There are a few steps that companies can take that ensures that implementing regulatory change is fast and low-cost and provides proof that everything is in order. First, design the framework based on legal or standardized requirements. Then identify, document, and prioritize risks in collaboration with Subject Matter Experts and stakeholders. Third, define and assess controls with supporting processes, procedures, and test activities. Fourth, implement workflow processes to manage risks and controls and test against scenarios. Fifth, document compliance issues across the compliance framework, processes, and procedures. Sixth, monitor and report continual compliance, while mitigating non-compliance and identified risks. Finally, continuously monitor and measure performance, identify and act on areas for improvement

Companies focused in these areas are likely to outperform their peers in the coming months. They will be better situated to face the inevitable challenges ahead. They will be the companies that thrive and disrupt the competition. Over the next few weeks, I'll dive into each area in more detail.

I would be happy to discuss them in more detail at any time.