Process Excellence for sustained outperformance
Increasing
competition, dealing with uncertainty and chaotic business cycles and an insane
customer promiscuity are putting a never before pressure on business
performance to reduce costs, improve revenues and enhance service. Very often, CEO's of
Airlines say that their industry is no longer profitable. But what makes South
West Airlines deliver profits quarter after quarter for over 60 quarters now?
What makes
such companies so different to stand out? Well, Process Excellence to say the
least. Over time, approaches to business improvement has also undergone
substantial evolution. In the 70's and 80's the buzzword was Total Quality
Management and Business Process Improvement which focussed on service. The
90's saw the growing popularity of Six Sigma and Lean based approaches which
added a cost element to service. As we are now galloping in the 21st century,
Business Process management came into being which added the third dimension of
revenue. And the last 2 years, to embrace the current business challenges, we
have seen the emergence of Customer Experience management. The current focus
has clearly shifted from managing processes for outperformance to managing
outcomes for the customer through use of technology as differentiators
70's & 80's
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90's
|
First
10 years of 21st Century
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Last 2 yrs
|
|
Service
|
TQM & BPI
|
Six
Sigma & Lean Methods
|
Business
Excellence Management
|
Customer
Experience Management
|
Cost
|
||||
Revenue
|
||||
Technology
|
Which of these is best
for the business ?
Pressure to perform has never been greater at both
personal and professional levels than it is today. Each of the approaches have
clear merits and are a step more complex than the previous approach. Depending
on the stage of the life cycle of the company and the challenge faced and
complexity of operations, you can choose the right mix of tools for your
business. The recent researches are however increasingly pointing to players
who dominate their markets and industry and those achieving what I would say a hat
trick plus in terms of Service, cost and revenue excellence are increasingly
utilizing methods and approaches which fall into the Customer Experience
management domain. It is for this very reason that when you look around at say
the original pioneers of earlier successful approaches like Toyota and Lean,
General Electric and Six Sigma, you find that they have been on a continuous
process journey and are amongst the first to imbibe and internalize concepts of
Customer Experience Management ( CEM) along with companies like Amazon, Best Buy, Flip
kart, Virgin Group, FedEx, Citibank, Ryan Air etc.
As the economic storm battering confidence across the globe looks set
to continue into 2013, business leaders who focused primarily on short-term
exigencies can no longer afford to be disengaged from longer-term strategic
issues and process excellence is therefore a must part of the survival kit
While there are unknown elements in the future, many of which will be
challenging, the trick today lies in look at the exciting opportunities from factors
such as: 'the Cloud'; new enabling technologies; new working patterns; new
contact channels; capabilities being developed around "Big Data" all
of which are enablers to laying strong foundations to business in the evolution
towards Customer Experience management
How can I get on the
Process Excellence Path ?
Process Excellence is a journey. A fine blend of
certifications and best process methods need to be created to lay the
foundations of process excellence in an organization. Process Excellence Governance
Model is the backbone to align to strategic objectives. It starts with
incremental innovations through methods impacting one of the business
deliverables of service, cost or revenue and then adding to the list through
methods like TQM, Kaizen, Six Sigma and then as the organization matures moves
over to quantum leaps through business analytics, business excellence
management to ultimately winning hearts through innovative and long lasting
Customer Experience Delivery. Process Excellence is a journey. Loyalty is a
destination.
CEM - What are the
common themes and current challenges ?
The
philosphy of CEM stresses on identifying parameters that are most valued by
customers, emphasizes on implementing an approach that is customer centred and
all processes developed around the core customer expectation. Employees play
the biggest role in delivery and delivering experiences starts at home,
focussing first with own employees. Common themes are an "outside in"
perspective, alignment to exceeding employee and then customer expectations,
knowledge management through best experience sharing and replication across
employees, constant stretch to delivering innovative and successful customer
experience outcomes and relentless focus on business success through reduced
costs, enhanced revenue and enhanced service
The skills needed to successfully run a multi-channel, multi-site,
multi-partner operation is becoming more and more challenging. With customers increasingly
use intuitive technologies such as smart phones, tablets etc and getting more
and more interactive and freely expressing views on social media like facebook
and twitter, the challenges are becoming more and more complex with every
passing day. Mixed-model operations are hugely important and are becoming
increasing recognised by boards globally, particularly where mergers and
acquisitions are becoming the norm. Big Data is the emerging new trend in
Process Excellence implementation which has the potential to outstrip
competition for sustained performance just like six sigma did a few years back
for companies like Motorola and General Electric. Harvard Business Review
reported that companies have collected more information from customers since
2007 than was ever collected prior to that date
Process Excellence is quite simply, a better way to do work and stay ahead in the minds for the 21st century's successful corporations!
Send in your comments to me at rupak.agarwal@gmail.com
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