Process Excellence - what is it and why is it important to your business?

Let’s state some obvious truths. We live in a dynamic world where change is the only constant and innovation or disruption are essential to maintain competitiveness. Digitalization and enabling technologies are the vanguard of change which are re-writing economic rules. The speed of change and ever-evolving business models as well as ensuring a seamless end to end customer experience has created huge pressure on organizations to adapt.

But before I stoop into the depths of business clichés about “low hanging fruit” and “win-win situations”, there is data to back this up. According to a report last year from APQC 75% of organizations have begun their digital transformation journey to keep up with the pace of the digital economy and achieve (or at least maintain) business success. 

I’ve talked before about the impact of automation and it’s potential to reduce cost and improve the employee experience, it further compounds those organisations that are behind the curve with margin pressures.

As business’ and organisations’ digital ambitions are rapidly growing, it is crucial to control and improve their business processes – particularly those that support your customer’s journey – as well as leveraging data and obtaining greater agility in adopting new technologies.

In our view, it is business processes which bind everything together, to ensure that all elements of a successful business work together to achieve the strategic vision. This was the kernel of an idea that led us to hold a business breakfast recently in Leeds under the title of “Process Excellence – A Strategy for Success”.

Process Excellence (or PEX as the “yet to be fully adopted even by management consultancies” acronym is sometimes cited) can be a game changer for a business. And it is a subject that many are passionate about. We invited two leaders in this field to share their experiences and insights with selected guests in Leeds.

Georgina Turton is a Master Black Belt and has built a career helping organisations achieve Process Excellence. However, the key message that she offered was that there is “no one way to achieve process excellence” – there are many methodologies, tools and techniques out there, but you must chose one that suits your organization. Scale, culture, maturity all impact on the way forward, but it is essential to remember that “process excellence is a journey, not a destination”. With the support from the leadership in an organization and clear visibilioty of goals, so much can be achieved.

Barry Spenceley has worked across industry segments – technology, retail, manufacturing, professional services – but has always focused on driving efficiencies in operations and shared services. Culture, believes Barry, lies at the heart of success. Developing the right environment, collaborating, innovating, and embedding a continuous improvement attitude within the teams’ DNA is critical.

Both Barry and Georgina extolled the virtues of talent development and cross-training resources – sharing what you have learned from dedicated Process Excellence and/or Continuous Improvements teams with the wider business. People lie at the heart of this; this is not an abstract domain.

And our view expands on this. “Human Centred Design” is fundamental to success in any digital transformation. There is often too much focus and attention on technology – whilst technology is clearly important, don’t succumb to the Magpie Syndrome (NB - this is a great blog, read it: https://www.alivewithideas.com/blog/magpie-syndrome/)  and miss the key ingredient in the mix: People. 

Your customers are people. This is fundamental in a B2C context but it’s also true for B2B companies too. People buy from people. Your business and your propositions serve to meet the needs of individuals or individuals who represent their companies. If we don’t place people at the heart of our thinking, then we are missing the point and missing huge opportunities to redesign our businesses to better meet the needs of the individuals they serve.

When redesigning and automating your business processes we need to put people at the centre of our thinking. How will customers interact with us? How will they feel when they do? How will our people participate in our processes and add value to customers in ways which can’t be automated or are difficult to replicate?

Understanding what people are good at, what they are poor at, what their wants, needs and emotions are likely to be as they interact with our business and our business processes is an important aspect of designing business processes which are both efficient and which add value.

So, as is often the way of the world, it’s all about people.

But it’s also about DATA. It’s inescapable. You need the data to understand the processes at the front end, let alone automating at the back end.

And it’s also about TIME. That and tide wait for no man, and it can’t be bought, but finding the TIME to begin to understand your business processes seemed to be main challenge from a number of businesses represented by guests at our event. As business’ have got leaner, there is less bandwidth to take the step back and begin a process excellence programme. A challenge to be overcome.

I am sorry if you missed our seminar, but we will be hosting similar events across our other UK offices – please follow Protiviti UK for announcements. However, what are your views? How have you achieved “PEX”? Or how are you mobilising your organisation to begin the journey?

Please comment, share and like!

Thanks again to Georgina and Barry for speaking and internal thanks to Derek, Denise, Lucina, Jared, Nicola and Vikki for making the event a success.