Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Insights

Continuous Improvement Initiatives: How to Drive Success in Your Industry

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 12:20:43 GMT

Discover the essential steps to effectively implement continuous improvement initiatives in your industry and achieve long-term success.

Mastering the Continuous Improvement Strategy: Key Steps for Success

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 12:06:16 GMT

Learn how to effectively implement a continuous improvement strategy to enhance your business performance and stay ahead in the competitive market.

Measuring Success: 3 Ways to Evaluate Continuous Improvement Initiatives

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:54:14 GMT

Discover the key indicators to measure the success of your continuous improvement initiatives and how attending BTOES.com can help you further enhance your knowledge.

Unlocking Success: The Power of Continuous Improvement Programs

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:31:57 GMT

Discover the transformative power of continuous improvement programs and how they can unlock success for businesses. Learn how to identify signs of a failing program and find expert insights at BTOES.com.

Continuous Improvement Strategies: How to Stay Ahead in Your Industry

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:19:28 GMT

Discover the key strategies for continuous improvement in your industry and learn how attending BTOES.com can give you an edge over your competitors.

10 Things You Need to Know About Continuous Improvement

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:05:38 GMT

Discover the key elements of continuous improvement and how it can benefit your business. Learn more about this crucial process by attending BTOES.com and hearing from industry thought-leaders.

The Benefits of Continuous Improvement

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 10:18:28 GMT

Discover the numerous advantages of continuous improvement in this informative blog post. Learn how attending BTOES.com can further enhance your understanding of this crucial business practice.

Continuous Improvement Initiatives: Unlocking Success

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 09:57:06 GMT

In this blog post, we will explore the importance of continuous improvement initiatives and how they can lead to success in various aspects of business. Discover the key factors that contribute to the success of these initiatives and learn how you can implement them effectively in your own organization. Unlock the potential for growth and improvement by embracing the power of continuous improvement initiatives.

Continuous Improvement Initiatives: Strategies for Success

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 09:39:11 GMT

Discover effective strategies for successful continuous improvement initiatives and learn why they are crucial for business growth.

Continuous Improvement Methodologies: Enhancing Efficiency and Quality

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 09:25:53 GMT

Discover how continuous improvement methodologies can revolutionize your business operations by increasing efficiency and quality. Explore the various techniques and strategies to implement continuous improvement practices within your organization.

Unlocking Efficiency and Effectiveness with BTOES

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 08:55:59 GMT

Discover the benefits of utilizing BTOES.com for optimizing your business operations and achieving higher efficiency and effectiveness in your organization.

Continuous Improvement Strategies: How to Optimize Enterprise Performance

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 16:03:23 GMT

Discover powerful strategies to optimize enterprise performance through continuous improvement

Unlocking Success: The Power of Continuous Improvement

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 15:30:21 GMT

Discover the transformative power of Continuous Improvement and how it can help you achieve success in all areas of life.

Continuous Improvement Initiatives: Boosting Efficiency and Effectiveness

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 13:57:09 GMT

Discover how continuous improvement initiatives can enhance efficiency and effectiveness in your organization. Learn about the top strategies and expert tips to drive successful improvements.

Insights From BTOES: What is Continuous Improvement

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 12:46:23 GMT

Insights From BTOES: Achieving Effective Continuous Improvement in a Major Enterprise

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Sun, 22 Oct 2023 11:30:00 GMT

Top 10 Books on Continuous Improvement

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 13:18:19 GMT

Insights From BTOES: Achieving Effective Continuous Improvement in a Major Enterprise

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Insights From BTOES: Achieving Effective Continuous Improvement in a Major Enterprise

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 11:39:45 GMT

Operational Excellence- Time to eat our own dog food

Bart Reijs — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 11:30:00 GMT

Bart Reijs has written an article on his interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

With nearly 1000 respondents, 37 insightful questions, detailed analysis & insights from 40 industry thought leaders, and the BTOES Insights executive team, this 130 page report is recognised as the most comprehensive study of critical challenges and future trends within Operational Excellence, and is considered a key resource for the industry. Areas covered include:

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Operational Excellence- Time to eat our own dog food

Need for Operational Excellence

We are in the age of Customer Delight, according to Vijay Bajaj, CEO, BTOES Insights, in the opening of this BTOES Insights report “The global state of operational excellence”. Customers “now expect every organization to deliver products and services swiftly, with a seamless user experience.”. To meet the higher and constantly increasing customer expectations organizations must perform at highest levels of responsiveness, under cost pressures, while delivering superior quality products. Above that the products need to be upgraded and improved within constantly shortened life cycles. The need for Operational Excellence seems clearer than it ever has been. Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

With this, one would expect that Operational Excellence would be in high demand. That it should be in focus and considered as the key to success. That all organizations are turning to Operational Excellence as a logical response to the quest to enchant steadily more demanding customers. However, when reading the BTOES report, a totally different picture arises. Changing & improving the company culture is listed as the major critical challenge. All, but one, major challenges of Operational Excellence listed are linked to or dominated by internal organizational struggles instead of the outward pull to exceed customer service. The report clearly brings forward that Operational Excellence is not as fully embraced as one would expect. It is not understood as an answer to great challenges most organization, globally, are faced with. Click here to read more Articles on The Global State of Operational Excellence: Critical Challenges & Future Trends - Research Report 2018/19.

So why does operational excellence struggle to get traction, when the circumstances seem so ideal for it to thrive?

In an attempt to answer this, let’s consider Operational Excellence itself as product, or service. Does our product perform along the expectations stated by Vijay. Is our service seamless? Did Opex in 2018 delight our internal customers? Do we succeed to give our colleagues and management an experience 10 times lighter than before? Even when a majority of the surveyed state that the methodologies are growing in popularity the report results sound far from excited and buzzed. 35.6% of respondents cited a top critical challenge is executing sustainable Operational Excellence projects. Not exactly a show of flawless execution and delivery. Then almost a quarter of those responding see a lack of leadership understanding and buy-in. Not a reflection of customer delight.

Out of the BTOES 2018 report speaks little or no customer delight. On the other side, many of the responses sound defensive and not customer oriented. “Lack of Leadership”, “our senior leaders are very hesitant” and the sorts, sounds somewhat like the attitude that drove Borders, Blockbuster and many of those others out of business. The organization and its culture must change, not us!

Basically our major challenge, with 53.5%, translates to the fact that our internal customers don’t like or struggle to understand the importance and the potential of our product. If Opex would feel 10 times lighter than business as usual, why would we need change management programs and need to worry about leadership buy in?

The sentiment of the report reflects an uphill battle, and a tiresome struggle to be recognized.

A struggle that is reflected by the proposed measures of our success such as copQ, coNQ, coGs, turnover, cost savings, synergies realized or even “no injuries”. Delight feels very much different. Instead shouldn’t our success feel like the Associate Director - Video Operations stated: our primary measure of success as “an employee's desire to come to work each day.”. Wouldn’t increased sales, repeat sales or other quoted measurements like STP-rates follow from that, rather than from change management programs learning people to value our work? Or worse, from putting our colleagues through the over-engineered design thinking workshops? These show how little we understand what the organization does and what makes a real difference. Like a delightful product would.

Opex should in these times be a factor that excites and attracts the best talent.

Because it has the potential to make work more enjoyable. It has the ability to give back the belief that our jobs are secure, instead of being just another cost savings program that increases work load and job pressures. The companies, which apply it, should see this reflected in valuation and stock price. An effect Lean Six Sigma during a short period of time was able to establish.

We need to get better in getting across the potential of the operational excellence. Instead of wanting people and cultures to change, we should make our concepts clear, attractive and compelling. Translate it in understandable irresistible concepts. “Leaders know we need it but don't understand what "it" is and how to execute "it".” says way more about OPEX’s lack of getting its value across than the lack of leadership support.

Make OpEx a lighter experience

In order to create this we need to make OPEX this seamless experience. Make it 10% a lighter experience than improvement projects so far. And make sure the OPEX projects are executable and sustainable; that is on us. Let’s make our own product as attractive as the products we are set out to support. The foundation of this is to understand what delight looks like. A deep insight is needed into the reality of our customers and what their needs are. For that we must not only master our methods and techniques but also truly understand what challenges and moves our internal clients.

Therewith let’s ensure that next year’s main challenges in the BTOES survey are client focused on items. Challenges for which OPEX is set up to control. Instead of focusing on perceived stumble blocks from outside players. If 53.6% note as the main challenge that they have more demand and expectation than we can handle, we will be on the right way.

Black belts, step aside

Canice Pinto — Thu, 20 Feb 2020 11:30:00 GMT

Canice Pinto has written an article on his interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Black belts, step aside

Company culture resides in the trenches.

When it comes to company culture, not all companies are created equal. Company culture is different things to different people, even from the same company. Click here to read more Articles on The Global State of Operational Excellence: Critical Challenges & Future Trends - Research Report 2018/19.

Which begs the question – what is company culture?

Is it that nebulous score a company receives on a Forbes survey? Or that fuzzy feeling that a fifteen-year company veteran evokes when asked why he/she stayed that long? Is it because the employee worked at a pet-friendly place? Or, was there a crèche at work? Or are employees’ ideas used to create action-plans?

Companies I have long admired for their spirit of innovation, focus on continuous improvement and employee engagement are BMW, IKEA and LEGO – these companies consistently check all the boxes and feature regularly on ‘best work culture’ lists.

Challenges to changing company culture

When polled by BTOES (Business Transformation and Operational Excellence World Summit), practitioners had this to say:

1)55% listed company culture as a critical challenge

2)49% listed sustaining continuous improvement culture as focus area over the next 12-18 months

Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

Is the Operational excellence structure optimal?

“Mission defines strategy, and strategy defines structure.” - Peter Drucker

Most organizations hire either management consultants or seasoned quality leaders (from companies where continuous improvement is institutionalized) to set up the operational excellence function. The typical set up is:

Current organization structure

a) A quality leader who is the change management expert and the enforcer,

b) A master black belt who’s technically sound and has loads of expertise in implementing projects,

C) And a couple of black belts, some of them certified and others who have potential.

While this approach works great initially and the operational excellence journey gathers momentum, the effort plateaus in a year to 18 months. The black belts typically handle 3-4 projects at a time and each of these takes a minimum of 4-6 months. Realistically, we are looking at 6 to 8 projects in a year per Black Belt. With a team of 2 Black Belts, you do the math – only about 12 to 16 projects a year.

Is top-down approach sustainable?

Generally, this would mean some lines of business would have no exposure, or limited exposure (projects on some metrics, not all top metrics where there is a need). Expectations are bound to rise – the operational excellence team is always playing catch-up. Added to this potent mix is always a deal-breaker, or fire-drill every month. Prioritization is the name of the game.

Apart from this, natural attrition amongst the operational team, given the small base of the team and the fact that they are sought-after resources, means the team is perpetually in a state of flux, relatively speaking.

A few subject matter experts lead projects right from collecting and analyzing, drilling down to the root cause, and running implementation plans – is this top-down approach sustainable?

Building continuous improvement capabilities

This is what one respondent had to say on the BTOES survey :

“Drive CI down to the floor, everybody solving problems everyday, not putting all improvements in the hands of a few engineers.”

Offering process improvement training on concepts and building a large base is probably the way to go. On an average, in my experience, of 100 employees trained:

1) 40 go on to take up projects

2)10-12 complete projects

By investing 8 hours/day, one can actually train 100 front-line folks in a week.

By investing 2% of annual capacity, one can get as many projects completed as regular Black Belts in four months alongside their regular work. There is also the option of video-recording the training and uploading it on the company training portal, to enable employees to learn at their schedule, even outside regular hours.

I am not comparing projects by impact here – only absolute numbers of projects. Given the skill-set, Black Belts would run more mission-critical projects. The projects run by the front-line could be drilling down on the root cause for a recurring defect, putting in place a standard-operating procedure for a sub-process, building an FAQ list for new joinees on a difficult program, and so on.

However, once there is a steady pipeline of projects run by the frontline, this over-time forms a pool which the operational excellence team can draw from. While a Black Belt’s skills are domain-agnostic, having domain knowledge does not hurt. Having someone rise through the ranks, adding process improvement skills to domain knowledge would help the person field questions on practicalities of solution and execution.

By developing a cadence around training – one week of a Black Belt’s resource on training every 6 months, one is able to make the model scalable and release the Black Belt’s capacity for the bigger projects that the C-suite wants and create a second-level that can move on to do bigger things once they complete the smaller projects assigned to them.

Of course, there is additional capacity required to mentor those projects – if out of 100 trainees, 40 take up projects, 1 hour of coaching per week, would mean 1 FTE of BB resource dedicated to training and coaching projects.

Optimal organization structure

Generating ideas from the front-line

Here’s what some respondents from the BTOES survey had to say:

“When employees execute improvements and bring ideas for improvement forward.”

“Change of culture such that leadership and all employees embrace their role in continuous improvement, daily.”

“Getting buy-in from ground-level staff; seeing sustained change in an organization.”

Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

When I was on the shop-floor, in my first job, more than two decades ago, the quality champion would stop by urging us to share our improvement ideas for the month. The mandate was one idea per employee per month. While management may be loath to enforce such a policy, I think the idea behind this was commendable. I am yet to see an organization that has as big a pipeline of ideas as that organization twenty years ago! Why is this so? Part of the reason is how communication is driven.

How are ideas shortlisted? What are the criteria for selecting ideas? How is credit for ideas shared?

Front-line ideas are a great mode of risk-mitigation be it in prioritization of projects, or what to push further down the automation roadmap.

If only 10%-20% of ideas are selected to be run as projects, we need the front-line to be prolific in providing input in terms of ideas.

I think employee engagement drives sharing of ideas. The fewer ideas , employees share, the weaker the employee engagement. Having lived in data-land all my life you can cut me some anecdotal slack ☺

Measures of success

Company culture maturity scaleDescriptionNudgeIf the number of projects run by front-line is > 4x and <= 5x the number of projects run by Black beltsPushIf the number of projects run by front-line is > 2x and <= 4x the number of projects run by Black beltsShoveIf the number of projects run by front-line is <= 2x the number of projects run by Black belts

1) If the number of projects run by front-line is > 4x and <= 5x the number of projects run by Black belts, the organization needs a nudge.

2)If the number of projects run by front-line is > 2x and <= 4x the number of projects run by Black belts, the organization needs a push.

3) If the number of projects run by front-line is <= 2 x the number of projects run by Black Belts, the organization needs a shove.

4) If the number of projects run by front-line is > 5x , company culture score from a buy-in, employee engagement , would be off the charts.

As borne out by the survey, company culture is paramount – it drives employee behavior and therefore performance. By encouraging front-line to provide ideas, and investing in training, continuous improvement capability is created, changing company culture, one project at a time.

How to implant an Operational Excellence Culture and not die trying

Marta Ventosa — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 11:30:00 GMT

Marta Ventosa has written an article on her interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

How to implant an Operational Excellence Culture and not die trying

For over 10 years I have been helping companies improve their operational processes and the biggest struggle they face is keeping the Cultural Change going. As a teacher I always explain to my students that they must learn how to recognize unnecessary waste in their processes by learning how to put on the “OPEX GLASSES”. So this is how we shall start this Article: first, I will describe the 7 most common mistakes; and second, we will discuss the 10 key factors to a successful change. No matter how big or small your company is, whether you sell products or services, these apply to you. Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

Below are the most common mistakes you can identify in your organization. Once identified, you can work to avoid or correct them.

1. PARADIGMS: you are going to find paradigms throughout your company, no matter how old or how big your company is. They include old ways of working, unquestionable habits, closed minds or just fears for something new.

2. PEOPLE: one of the most common forms of resistance to change is people; they often see OPEX as a way to get rid of people. We need to look carefully at all 3 hierarchical levels:

MANAGEMENT: this is one of the most important barriers, if there is a lack of leadership or support at this level, no change is possible
MIDDLE MANAGEMENT: they are the change motor, without their support and leadership it is difficult to engage the rest of the organization
TEAM: without the right management, the organization looks at the change with fear and distrust, people are key for change, to hear news through office gossip is dangerous

3. COMMUNICATION: lack of communication is a feature in all my projects, top to bottom and from the bottom up. When a team comes up with an improvement idea, I always hear: “I said this many times before and nobody listened”

4. WHERE IS THE PLAN?: most of the time, efficiency comes from trying to implement a LEAN tool: 5S, SMED,…Without a plan, a Kaizen Event or a tool application will be just that, with isolated results, minimal people involved and short-term benefits

Click here to read more Articles on The Global State of Operational Excellence: Critical Challenges & Future Trends - Research Report 2018/19.

5. NO OPEX CULTURE: if there are not maintenance mechanisms, we can initially invest a lot, lots of efforts, lot of time, lots of training hours,… however, it will no be possible to maintain OPEX philosophy

6. WE WANT TO BE TOYOTA: every company, every sector, every team, every country,…is different. OPEX is flexible, it is just a guide, we can get inspired by big companies but they are not our aim

7. LACK OF COSTUMER FOCUS – NOT LISTENING TO THE CLIENT: we forget about getting rid of activities that do not add value to our clients (external and internal ones)

Double packaging when the client is in a hurry to unpack it
Piece by piece quality control when our client has a high tolerance to defects
Launching a new product when there is no demand…

Now you know how to recognise common mistakes, next you need to know what can you do to achieve a permanent OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE CULTURE.

1. MANAGEMENT: the principal pillar is to have active support from MANAGEMENT by being part of the Committees as any other area.

2. PLAN: create a transformation and a deployment plan, always aligned with the Company strategy. Road-map in 2 big levels:

Mid-Long Term, you need to answer the following questions: “Where do we want to be?”, “What do we want to achieve?”, ”What are our objectives?”, “What is the budget for investments?”
Short Term, drawing the path to follow: “Who is leading?”, “What mechanisms, training and marketing campaigns?”, “What is our pilot?”…

3. INTERNAL LEADER: it is important to have an expert who can lead and create motivation and engagement.

4. KPIs & OBJECTIVES: it is essential to establish these. To set achievable goals, to keep them up to date and share them with management boards and at meetings. It is highly important that at least one of these reflects the impact of the improvement on the business results: e.g. ROI, cost reduction, sales, etc.

5. INTERNAL MARKETING: start a campaign with Visual Management including standards, teams, before and after photos,…some examples:

A3 tool is really good to demonstrate a team’s work
Some Merchandising like pens or t-shirts with a catchy motto, e.g. “OPEX GOAL!”
Coffee with the CEO to engage communication from the bottom-up

6. Communication and involvement of the WHOLE organization, PEOPLE must be trained and have the opportunity to be part of a team. We need to create a new MINDSET and organize MULTI-TEAMS

7. TRAINING at every single level according to an established plan, must be part of the Company’s TRAINING plan. Always important to keep in mind LEARNING BY DOING.

8. KAIZEN & MAINTENANCE MECHANISMS must always be taken into account. A well-established Continuous Improvement Culture is key for the success and the sustainability of our competitive advantage. It is important that after any improvement project we create new standards and indicators to follow up and apply PDCA. Effective meetings are a great tool as well as Audits.

9. Never ever forget WHERE THINGS HAPPEN (“the GEMBA”), this is not about the theory based on interviews, we must see the process. In my first day in a job my boss told me to spend at least 1h per day just walking around the production site, warehouse or office just to observe what was going on. How many people in our companies have never stepped into the GEMBA!

10. Now it is time to start with a PILOT, you need to choose it based on the following:

Critical Process: look for it, the one everybody is talking about (in a bad way), I highly recommend the use of a prioritization matrix to be objective.
Quick Wins: focus on visual and quick results, a 5S in Maintenance Dpt., Archives, a long changeover, bureaucracy,…
Inch-wide & Mile-deep: scope must be under something manageable

2019 AWARD FINALIST SPOTLIGHT: Cognizant Technology Solutions - Finalist in the Operational Excellence to deliver an outstanding Value Creation or Innovation Execution Project Category

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:30:00 GMT

Read this article about Cognizant Technology Solutions, one of our finalists, in the category Best Achievement in Operational Excellence to deliver an outstanding Value Creation or Innovation Execution Project, selected by the independent judging panel, for the 2019 Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Industry Awards program. Click here to read articles on other finalists.

Sustaining Operational Excellence: Why so hard?

Sisir Padhy — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 13:00:00 GMT

Making Culture Stick

Jeff Hayes — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 11:00:00 GMT

Jeff Hayes has written an article on his interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Making Culture Stick

When thinking about company culture, many different things come to mind. However culture takes on a completely different meaning when it comes to performance and operations. Having worked for a few different healthcare organizations, culture as varying degrees of what permeates from the top down and bottom up and it’s impact on the overall organization. Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

One of the most critical elements to a successful organizational culture is an understanding of expectations across all levels regardless of role, title, or position.

Many organizations that fail with operational excellence and performance improvement don’t get this right. Usually what happens is a failure based on someone with a higher title or role dictating what he or she thinks should happen based on his or her own experience or bias. This also fails because they may not be the one closest to what needs fixed or might not have the right information as far as what needs to be fixed. That’s not to say that the person closest has the right answer or does the right thing to fix but a combination of the two and all parties between in between is likely necessary.Click here to read more Articles on The Global State of Operational Excellence: Critical Challenges & Future Trends - Research Report 2018/19.

When the culture works the possibilities are endless.

This starts with coming together in agreement on what the goals are for the organization and for individuals with regards to that goal. From there it is very easy to set expectations for every person involved whether it be a small project or a large-scale strategic objective. The nice thing about having the end goal in mind is it makes it easier to troubleshoot throughout the project and over time. This also makes it easier to prioritize what needs done and what can wait. No organization is unique to not wanting to say no, but many times saying no and setting priorities needs done. If it’s not pertinent to the project or goal, it likely can wait. One of the key functions a leader can have in a project is to keep it on track, make sure everyone is on the same page, and keep pushing the project forward. Knowing what the goals and expectations are will help push that along and keep everyone focused. This all starts with a culture that supports the attitudes, behavior, teamwork, and drive that is needed to accomplish goals. Not every company has this, regardless of what they say.

So how can you tell if the culture is the right fit for accomplishing goals?

There is no easy answer, because many companies are very good at giving you a sales pitch or an elevator speech about how they do what they do. A very good way to tell how the culture actually works in an organization is to get out and speak to those people closest to the processes in an organization. As a leader, most of the time you’re going to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done. An employee who is close to the process, likely will tell you how things actually work. You will get honesty whether you want it or not, based on how things are working and how everyone is trying to reach their individual, team, and corporate goals.

In healthcare, a big complaint that is often heard revolves around doing what’s best for the patient. If we can’t deliver care that is appropriate, timely, safe, etc., due to things like the budget, patient experience, or any other goal, this will be something that frustrates all levels of employees and you will hear about it. But where you see this actually work is when there is a shared vision around what needs done for the patient and how it could be accomplished regardless of all those things.

This again starts with the culture and the expectations for every employee of an organization. While many people will say it starts with the CEO, many times it doesn’t. You definitely need buy-in from all parties involved, but you also need to make sure that the culture is set every day in all of the actions that go on in the organization, not jut projects. When this happens, you start to see traction and things move in the direction you are pushing. You start to see every employee regardless of what their role is act and work the way the culture is going.

The other thing a high performing culture shows is employees who are not bought in and not doing what is necessary for the organization.

These employees stand out like a sore thumb. These employees are the ones the rest of the team will quickly point out and (as a leader) you know who those employees are! However having a shared goal and expectations makes those crucial conversations much easier with these types of team members and employees.

In closing, culture is one of the hardest things to change and one of the hardest things to get right in an organization.

But with a shared vision around what do you want to accomplish and sticking with that shared vision over time, you can get it right. It takes dedication from all parties to make sure that the culture sticks. Culture should not shift drastically based on the players, it should stick with the organization and what you are trying to accomplish as a company. That’s what people remember your organization for, not for the people who made the culture. Look at Apple; Steve Jobs is credited with much of the success of Apple. But look what happened after Steve Jobs passed away - Tim Cook came in and kept the company moving in the direction of his predecessors. He was dedicated to the culture and the organization and he had support from all levels across the organization.

BTOES ARTICLE - Executive Summary - Research Report 2018/19

vb@proqis.com (Vijay Bajaj) — Sat, 08 Feb 2020 13:00:00 GMT

Making Culture Stick

Jeff Hayes — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 10:30:00 GMT

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Making Culture Stick

One of the most critical elements to a successful organizational culture is an understanding of expectations across all levels regardless of role, title, or position.

When the culture works the possibilities are endless.

So how can you tell if the culture is the right fit for accomplishing goals?

The other thing a high performing culture shows is employees who are not bought in and not doing what is necessary for the organization.

In closing, culture is one of the hardest things to change and one of the hardest things to get right in an organization.

Improving the Reliability of Care and the Healthcare Culture

Twila Burdick — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 10:30:00 GMT

Twila Burdick has written an article on her interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Improving the Reliability of Care and the Healthcare Culture

As in the past, this year’s “The Global State of Operational Excellence” report provides an insightful snapshot of the issues facing organizations committed to reliably executing business strategy in pursuit of delighting their customers better than their competitors. It is no surprise that changing company culture is at the top of the list, with 53.1% of the respondents identifying it as their most critical challenge. Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

While changing culture is a problem for all industries, healthcare faces some unique challenges.

Clinical care delivery is labor intensive with many people involved in performing different interdependent functions with a key role being that of the physician. Click here to read more Articles on The Global State of Operational Excellence: Critical Challenges & Future Trends - Research Report 2018/19.

Physicians are highly trained professionals who make diagnostic and treatment decisions, exercising individual professional judgement. This dependence on individual autonomy and performance, a deep cultural assumption, makes care reliability--doing the right things right—very difficult.

Healthcare has a profound effect on individual pain and suffering and because of that and its cost, there is significant interest in understanding how healthcare can be transformed. Researchers have been studying change efforts that have worked and what has made them successful.

Health care researchers in 2016*presented a conceptual framework for analyzing the adoption of innovations in healthcare based on emerging implementation science identified four attributes that influence the adoption of innovations:

external environment
characteristics of the organization
characteristics of the innovation such as the quality of evidence
implementation process

In 2017**, social scientists reviewed a large-scale healthcare delivery improvement, the Michigan project to reduce central line infections, and concluded that the results could be attributed to implementing an evidence-based checklist along with cultural change as described by Dr. Peter Pronovost, “creating clinical communities and influencing peer norms”. He said that changing clinical practice required both technical and adaptive factors, “the science must be robust, yet it must address values, beliefs, and attributes of the groups involved”, underscoring the importance of culture.

Banner Health

Banner Health, a regional healthcare provider consisting of more than 25 hospitals and other services with corporate offices in Phoenix, Arizona, assessed the healthcare environment and made a strategic decision to improve clinical care reliability. Recognizing the pivotal role of physicians in clinical decision making, it asked doctors to apply “evidence” from clinical research to care practices. An improvement process referred to as “Define-Design-Implement” (as shown below) provided a framework for the implementation.

Physicians were asked to join and lead multi-disciplinary Clinical Consensus Groups (CCGs) organized by medical specialty (e.g., obstetrics, emergency care). Members of CCGs met regularly and identified “evidence-based practices”. Drawing on their training as scientists, CCG members read journal articles, consulted with professional societies, and met with colleagues to “define” the clinical conditions and their appropriate treatment. This part of the process focused on doing the right thing.

"Design", simulation and implementation

Following agreement, clinical practices went through a “design” step to be sure that the details of what needed to be done could be put in place, including supplies, clinical automation, staff training, and more. Whenever possible, computerized decision support aids were developed to assist physicians with their diagnosis and treatment decisions, rather than asking them to rely solely on memory. The design process was led by engineers with expertise in how processes can best be efficient and effective. After design was completed, it was tested in a simulated environment or onsite to ensure that the design made it possible to do things right.

After the design was tested, it was “implemented” according to a detailed plan that allowed for time to train people at the front lines and communicate the changes broadly.

Metrics for performance

To close the loop, metrics for performance were monitored by the CCGs. This included leading and lagging indicators, that were automatically generated by clinical technology systems whenever possible. Issues identified could then be addressed whether they were related to individual performance or the system design.

Physician autonomy

This effort was led by the organization’s Chief Medical Officer, a senior officer who was part of the senior management team. His involvement in the work demonstrated the organization’s commitment to physicians. He also ensured that resources to support the CCGs were put in place, adding skills related to process engineering, project management, data analysis, and informatics.

Because physician autonomy has been such an important part of the clinical care delivery culture, the development and implementation of consistent clinical practices across the organization was a significant, tangible change. Physicians in the CCGs demonstrated that they wanted to improve care for all patients by applying the best science available even when it meant changing their own practice, a powerful example for their colleagues as well as for other clinical disciplines. Clinical automation enabled evidence-based care delivery. This new way of “acting” led to a different way of “thinking” about clinical decision making, changing the culture of clinical care.

Banner’s success in reducing clinical variation with this approach took place over several years with documented improvement results in a number of areas. More than 20 CCGs with more than 200 clinicians as members were formed and structures and resources to support the work were put in place.

Clinical Research

The clinical improvement research cited earlier provided a lens to review Banner’s experience with clinical reliability. Banner’s technical approach included defining clinical standards based on clinical research, designing delivery processes according to engineering principles, and implementing and monitoring progress on an ongoing basis. It addressed cultural factors by engaging clinical decision makers in the process, honoring their clinical expertise, and supporting their ongoing work. The importance of the external environment that is pushing for improvement along with the internal structures and resources was recognized. The integrity of changes based on clinical research was key as well-trained clinicians found it hard to argue against the evidence and the engagement of the physicians in the overall implementation was vital.

Changing culture in every industry will continue to be challenging, but the Banner experience demonstrated that in healthcare, improvement in clinical care is possible and barriers to change created by the culture can be addressed, an important lesson learned.

Operational Excellence- from a Craft to a Profession

Paul Docherty — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 10:30:00 GMT

Paul Docherty has written an article on his interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Operational Excellence- from a Craft to a Profession

Operational Excellence

It’s almost two decades to the day since I presented at one of first Operational Excellence conferences in London. Back then, the focus was very much on tools, training of “belts”, best practice methodologies (particularly DMAIC) deployed in the style of Motorola or GE. Much has changed since then. From the recognition that improvement needs an integrated approach – bringing together the whole operational excellence toolset to attack waste and complexity not just variation, to recognition of that to improvement needs to be driven by the line to be sustainable, we have collectively been on a journey that has turned Operational Excellence from a craft into a profession with over a million practitioners worldwide. Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

Competitive bar is constantly rising

Even with this tremendous resource, organisations are under pressure like never before. Innovation cycles continue to shorten, making agility increasingly important and the risk of irrelevance from digital disruption ever greater. As highlighted by the challenges described in this report no organisation is immune from evermore-demanding customer expectations, evermore-agile competitors and evermore-disruptive digital technologies.

Witness the rise of Amazon, as major retailers reel from consumers no longer thinking with their feet but by the click of a button. Technology that was blue sky five years ago is now here and becoming more widely adopted. Robotic agents are taking over repetitive (and increasingly less repetitive) work, organisations are mining big data to enable them to provide ever better consumer experience and industry 4.0 technologies are helping factories become smarter the world over.

These technologies mean that the competitive bar is constantly rising and to survive organisations need a systemic way of not just improving todays operations but also consistently betting on and rapidly executing on the technical innovations and business model disruptions that enable them to stay ahead of the game.

Operational excellence as the basis for how organisations execute their strategy

In response to this ever more competitive environment, it’s clear that the most consistently successful organisations – such as those listed in this report as thought leaders - see operational excellence not just as a tool for increased efficiency but as the basis for how they execute their strategy. In my assessment, this shift from thinking as Operational Excellence as an initiative to thinking of is being the basis of a lean business (perhaps better called a strategy execution) system is one of the most fundamental and important trends that will impact Operational Excellence practitioners in the next three to five years.

The good news is not only can we learn a lot from these high-performance organisations, but also that there is clear evidence that what they are doing can be replicated. Lift the lid on the legendary Business Systems of Toyota, Danaher and more recently healthcare leaders like Thedacare and Virgina Mason, and it’s clear that they have built on the lean production system inherited from Toyota, by adding Hoshin Planning (sometimes called Strategy Deployment or Policy Deployment) to provide the systematic approach to implementing the breakthroughs needed to thrive in an ever changing, and increasingly disruptive, environment.

Operational Excellence as part of a systemic approach to strategy execution

In these organisations, Operational Excellence is not seen as an initiative led by a central OpEx function rather as part of a systemic approach to strategy execution. On-going continuous improvement is squarely the responsibility of the front-line teams who strive each day to standardise work and find and address the root causes of unexpected outcomes (often referred to as Daily Management). In these organisations, the role of the OpEx function has transitioned from mostly doing to mostly facilitating. Typically the custodian of the standards for continuous improvement and strategy deployment, what becomes a small but strategic staff function, primarily concentrates on helping leaders identify and implement cross-value stream improvements (often called Cross-functional Management) as well as helping leaders to define, deploy and implement the breakthrough objectives (Breakthrough Management).

Anecdotally, the leaders we spoken to in these leading organisations attribute the success of the execution system to the degree to which the leaders reinforce daily management through standard leader work and the degree to which leaders take direct responsibility for breakthrough implementation by owning and driving the strategy deployment process. This shift from the OpEx team pushing improvement actions to the operational leaders pulling improvement techniques is the key they say to the sustainability of the system.

It’s clear this transition - from Operational Excellence as an initiative to Operational Excellence as the foundation of the organisation’s strategy execution system – has the potential to address the majority of the challenges identified in this report. From increasing the buy-in of leaders (Hoshin Planning directly connects the operational excellence activity to the business priorities), to increasing the sustainability of improvement (a key goal of every breakthrough projects is the creation of new standard work and ensure that daily management is in place to sustain the gains), the Lean Business System approach helps priorities be maintained and organisations adapt more quickly to business trends.

How and where to start this transition

I am often asked by OpEx leaders how and where to start this transition. The answer is it depends on your starting point. That said, its clear there are implementation approaches that are more successful than others and many lessons that can be learned. To get you started on the journey, visit www.i-nexus.com and download ‘How the Best Out-execute the Rest’. To help you formulate your approach you can also visit www.stratexhub.com, where you will find over 200 free resources assembled by a community of the most trusted experts designed specifically to help you build your own Strategy Execution system.

Three execution design rules to succeed

Kasper Uhd Jepsen — Sun, 02 Feb 2020 13:00:00 GMT

Kasper Uhd Jepsen has written an article on his interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Three execution design rules to succeed

According to the recent report “Global State of Operational Excellence, page 18”, top three challenges in execution are;

Change and improve Culture
Sustain execution
Need for end-to-end (E2E) focus

It is a paradox, since all these challenges should be core components of your execution design. As you know, it is always about the execution - of course with a clear vision and understanding of your customer journey as a starting point. Life has also shown us, that you should have an agile mindset, where you aim for a minimum viable product (MVP) within 3-6 months. Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

What does “challenge based execution design mean”? It means that you lay out your execution to build upon the challenges instead of trying to solve or mitigate them afterwards. Click here to read more Articles on The Global State of Operational Excellence: Critical Challenges & Future Trends - Research Report 2018/19.

Challenge 1: Change and improve Culture

Culture can only be changed by changing values and behaviour. To foster an improvement culture, people need a positive experience of improving, e.g. a process or IT system. In order to do that they need to experience it themselves. You cannot feel change through a nice article on the intranet or a success story, which lead us to the first rule…

Rule #1: Ensure that those who need to change are part of formulating and executing the change

Of course, you also need to deal with your executive sponsors to support the change of the culture. They are becoming increasingly short term minded so you need to construct your change so pilot go-live is within 3-6 month. That will reduce risk and validate direction.

Challenge 2: Sustain execution

In my opinion, that is the hardest part, since many companies think it is great to rotate leadership every 12-18 months.

It is probably the greatest challenge of execution. We know from agile that if you set a new team you often start all over. The loss of knowledge is a growing challenge as research tells us that tacit knowledge is becoming increasingly important to win. There are two ways to mitigate this issue.

Firstly, as part of executing you should evaluate leadership’s willingness to change in the beginning and replace them if needed.

Secondly, you should commit core change team for at least 24 months. Finally, you should have a fast go-live as mentioned above, despite the fact that major changes take time.

Rule#2: Replace leadership if needed at the beginning and commit your core team for at least 24 months

Challenge 3: Need for end-to-end (E2E) focus

Most companies are organized (HR reports wise) in functional silos and not according to customer journeys or value chains. That makes sense from an efficiency view, but not from an effectiveness perspective. The biggest part of improvement potential lies in the E2E process and/or customer journey.

This E2E challenge should be mitigated in two ways. First, through the right overall E2E governance. There are multiple models here. In my current company of Danske Bank, we have implemented a process governance for key value chains. In this setup, the customer responsible, delivery responsible and IT responsible, align strategy and targets for harvesting E2E potential. This governance is replicated down to employee level so it covers E2E continuous improvements as well. The framework provides a strong counterbalance to the financial targets, which are given in the functional silos.

If you do not have the luxury of such a governance, the next best thing is to commit leaders in the value chain yourselves. Most leaders understand the importance of collaboration across functional silos.

The second way to mitigate the E2E challenge is to deploy leaders and employees from the whole value chain to the core change team. You should do it even though their productivity within project work skills might be lower than professional operational excellence consultants. You will get the investment back tenfold when you have to implement and sustain change. This leads to the third rule…

Rule#3: Build E2E governance. Deploy leaders and employees from the full value chain to your core change team.

Thank you for listening and please be aware that the rules above are only based on 17 years of experience within operational excellence and strategy execution. Despite many rules, there can never be a one-size fit all when you execute. If your followers understand this, you will have a very powerful tribe.

Good luck in your execution, and please reach out, if you want to share thoughts or learning.

Operations Excellence means change excellence

Dr. Joachim Wolbersen — Sat, 01 Feb 2020 13:00:00 GMT

Dr. Joachim Wolbersen has written an article on his interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Operations Excellence means change excellence

Based on our experience from various international projects and again shown in BTOES survey report 2018, Operational Excellence projects are still suffering from a lack of leadership. They are focused mainly on short term results. So, it might not come as a surprise that 23,2% of all respondents cited that their main challenge was a lack of buy-in and leadership understanding. For 35,6% of the respondents it does not seem to be easy to execute sustainable Operational Excellence projects. So, why do we act so short-sighted?

One hint might be that upper management is maybe not that much interested in sustainable Operational Excellence efforts. 27% of the respondents came from Operations or were members of Quality or CI Teams. Operational Excellence Projects seem to be dominated by day to day operations and Customer Service. Is that good enough? I don´t think so.

Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

Speed of changing jobs on a management level

In 2018, digitization was our “buzz word of the year”. Everything was said to be “disruptive” and digitization was the “one size fits all” explanation for it. From our perspective the only real change was the speed of changing jobs on a management level. Maturity levels of Operational Excellence Teams and their projects are clearly depending on the quality of the leadership team. The successful implementation of sustainable results within any organization needs time and focused effort.

How can that be achieved if the members of the management team change jobs regularly? Who takes responsibility to implement not only some new processes and procedures but to manage the change process which is needed to change company culture? BTOES gives some insights: 26% of the respondents named the “Strategy Team at HQ” to be in charge, or alternatively “Center of Excellence – Leadership Team at HQ”. From my experience these teams might be excellent in using certain methods and frameworks. But they are – at least in big companies – too departed from the workforce to instill a real change in company culture or a real business transformation.

Achieve Operational Excellence

If we really want to achieve Operational Excellence and if we really want to embark a sustainable course to achieve outstanding results, Change Excellence is a must. And it starts with leadership, clarity and good communication:

So, let´s start with terms like “digitization” and “disruptive”: Digitization might be a game changer in the way how we use technology to achieve business results. But will it end the world as we know it? I don´t think so. The only achievement in our current digitization hype is to produce fear and anxiety on all levels of the company. Let´s stay focused: Digitisation is a development process, which currently takes place and will stay for the next years. No need for a hurry. We will certainly implement changes in processes. We will notice changes in our way of cooperation and collaboration. But all this takes time. If we want to make sure that we will achieve Operational Excellence in our company, we will have to focus on our Change Management Expertise. We will have to focus on our communication skills. We will have to focus on leadership to get our people moving. And we will have to get rid of silo thinking and short-sighted business results.

We are in dear need of decision makers and leaders.

As one of the respondents so truly put it: “Culture: No matter how good your CI program is, if the company is not ready to adopt and transform, it will not fly.”

Let it be digitization or something else which will shake up the corporate world in the upcoming years – it is always a matter of making people move. If we are talking about company culture, we should talk about a company culture which embraces change and does not need to work with fear or end-of-world-scenarios. What we need is leaders who are able to show empathy with the fear of their employees. Leaders who are able to show options and possibilities instead of potential losses and problems. Leaders who are willing to go the extra mile and take responsibility for a sustainable change of the company culture, knowing that this will take time and focused effort. We need Leaders who understand that the sign off of a project plan doesn´t say anything about change in the heads of employees and customers.

So, what could be a measure of success for your next Operations Excellence Program?

Maybe it could be “Number of employees who decided to stay with the company through difficult times”. Maybe it could be “Average number of years, a C-Level-Manager stayed in his position”. Maybe it could be “Level of employee satisfaction, especially in matters of feeling to be a part of something bigger”.

You want sustainable results? Develop people who are focused on sustainable change. Get managers with good communication skills. And do accept that change takes time!

2019 AWARD FINALIST SPOTLIGHT: Mastercard - Finalist in the Technology Enabled Process Automation Category

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 10:30:00 GMT

Read this article about Mastercard, one of our finalists, in the category Best Achievement in Technology Enabled Process Automation, selected by the independent judging panel, for the 2019 Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Industry Awards program. Click here to read articles on other finalists.

Business Transformation in the P&C insurance industry

Parag Gupta — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 10:30:00 GMT

Parag Gupta has written an article on his interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Business Transformation in the P&C insurance industry

The age of “customer delight”

The Insurance industry is faced with a challenge of delivering its products and services promptly, and with a seamless user experience. The customer experience bar has been set high by B2C companies like Uber, Amazon, Shopify, and Airbnb, to name a few. Insurance companies need to transform, keeping in mind that we are in the age of Customer Delight, and to be a leader in the insurance industry, customer experience with your company should be much better than with any competitor. Click here to read more Articles on The Global State of Operational Excellence: Critical Challenges & Future Trends - Research Report 2018/19.

The insurance industry

Insurance industry is in dire need of end to end business transformation. It however, faces multiple challenges such as multiple legacy systems, unintegrated / partially integrated vendor systems, as well as difficulty with cultural transformation. The transformation strategy further complicated by multiple options available such as Internet of Things (IoT), Autonomous vehicles, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotic process automation, Blockchain technology, Virtual reality and Big data.

The pressure to transform is compounded by InsureTech disruptors entering into the marketplace like Lemonade, Friendsurance, Huddle Insurance, and Amazon. Insurance companies have recognized that partnering with InsureTechs / FinTechs is a way to achieve transformational initiatives and move the organization from its legacy practices to the future state that more and more customers are wanting. This mutualism is key for the survival of the InsureTech startup, as well as, provides the Insurers a medium to slowly move over their business from a legacy platform to something more futuristic. Insurance companies have set up innovation labs to harness the potential of start-ups for developing new ideas and capabilities and driving insurance innovation for their customers and brokers. Insurance companies are also partnering with business accelerators and incubators to provide help to their InsureTech partners.

For a successful end to end business transformation, Insurance companies need to build a transformation roadmap using this three-pronged approach –

1. Transform Internal Systems and Processes

The first step towards transformation / automation is to streamline and lean the existing processes and understand value added steps, regulatory or compliance requirements, risks associated, information required, and decisions that are made within a process.

Once there is a thorough understanding of the processes and systems, streamlining decision making with the use of tools and calculators and system built validations, such as Claim reserving calculators for different lines of business, triaging tools for getting the policy / claim in the hands of the right underwriter or adjuster, reinsurance calculator, duplicate payment check, fraud checks, etc. help set the stage for automation. These business rules used in the legacy system, calculators, and validators, can be applied to build decision trees and achieve process automation. Business rules are intellectual property of the insurance company that gives it its edge in the competitive landscape.

It is important to take this approach as it will help develop an automated process that is robust. It will also make it easy to identify outliers and exceptions that may require to be pulled out from the automated process for manual intervention. Once automated correctly, these will provide a huge competitive advantage.

Companies that embark on an automation journey by following a happy path and not going through the systematic approach run into roadblocks at every stage an exception is encountered. The cost of transactions that go through the happy path, that should have been exceptions or should not have been allowed to go through automation, also pose a huge risk as they may drain money much quicker than if the process was not automated.

2. Integrate with external partners

Along with the automation within the company’s own system, the organization should look at building capabilities using API’s that could connect quickly with external partners and service providers. API’s could be used to bring in information that is used for underwriting or claims settlement. Insurance companies should build their API strategy considering both public and private API’s. This approach helps insurance companies with their strategy on ease of doing business. Data and information can be quickly transferred out to customers or could be bought in based on what customers / brokers / service providers send using the company’s web, mobile apps, or portals. This would help speed the end to end business transformation program. Some of the API’s that can be used are for bringing in information about the license information, VIN number decoding, Property Data validators, credit scores, and transportation ministry records. Some software companies have developed products that integrate with the legacy system and create custom AI and automation workflows. BAAR from Allied Media is one such product.

3. Strengthening Broker / Agent Sales Channels

Brokers and Agents are losing business to the direct channels. This problem is also amplified by new brokers that are coming in with new technology solutions, better online presence, and processes that provide a much better user experience with their app/ website. Helping brokers and agents develop their digitization strategy and technology roadmap would go a long way in strengthening the broker relationships. Facilitating brokers and agents to works with companies like Kumaran Systems with its Submitto product, would help align processes right from the point of contact of the customer with the broker, right through to the lifecycle of the customer with the insurer. This will provide better opportunity for the insurance company to provide customer delight. Insurance companies should think beyond their short-term interests to gain long term benefits from this strengthened relationship.

Companies that focus on building the end to end transformation roadmap of streamlining internal processes, providing a seamless customer experience, and strengthening their partnerships with brokers and vendors will emerge winners in this dynamic environment. The cultural transformation of the organization will be much easier as the staff will see the benefits of the transformation along the way, with minimal disruption to their work. In fact, the staff will benefit from the added efficiencies due to streamlined processes, quicker access to information, and reduced customer touchpoints, while still providing the customer with a great experience.

So, how do we grow OE in light of change drivers?

Pranay Butala — Tue, 28 Jan 2020 10:30:00 GMT

Pranay Butala has written an article on his interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

So, how do we grow OE in light of change drivers?

The traditional OE methods are no longer valid. The days of using only a singular project based approach on leveraging OE methodologies for process improvement are gone at the way-side, in favor of a better, quicker, and more integrated holistic approach. And this to be expected, considering how silos between departments are quickly breaking down, how companies are leaning towards the agile approach to have a Minimally Viable Product (MVP) out the door, and how skills across the board are expanding from simply training to effectively leveraging trainings. Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

So, how do we grow OE in light of these change drivers?

Graph 1: OE Evolutionary Curve

Let’s take a step back…Graph 1 depicts what I believe OE strives to drive strategically. We need to take our company from a basic concept of OE to the top end of the evolutionary curve where we’re using OE as a competitive advantage. In light of the current environment of quicker, more agile, and more integrated approaches, I believe we need to maintain this mantra on graph 1, and ascertain how we take and amend utilization, approach, and reach as we go up the evolutionary curve at each level. Click here to read more Articles on The Global State of Operational Excellence: Critical Challenges & Future Trends - Research Report 2018/19.

How do we go from Level 1 to 2?

Let’s take the first state, Level 1, for example. How do we go from Level 1 to 2? This goes beyond the once and done trainings to now a more cultural change. Can we work with HR to promote OE as a skill one must have in career growth? For example, to go from a line employee to a team leader in Operations, one skillset must be LSS GB (or LSS BB). Should this be part of the HR matrix in career ladder growth within a function? Also, can we work with senior business leaders to have an OE goal in their departments ( this is usually easily done…cost reductions, customer satisfaction improvements, etc), and then identify personnel in their departments that would use OE to help drive those goals?

How do we go from Level 2 to 3?

Naturally, at this point, we transition from Level 2 to Level 3. This now goes outside just training colleagues on Lean Sigma, which is for all practical purposes, just Level 1, and setting OE goals, which is just level 2. Now, what if we work with senior leadership in each department to understand their metrics, and then trickle those down to the level of each colleague taking LSS trainings, where he/she would need to have those trickled-down metrics as part of their performance goals, and demonstrate leveraging OE to achieve it? Can we then have him/her provide evidence on a regular basis, maybe quarterly, which showcases how they’re effectively using OE to help drive those metrics bottom up?

Case and point: if a call center’s goal is to reduce costs, can that be trickled down to a metric like abandon rates (which are the number of calls not picked up, or dropped)? Then the colleagues in that call center that have taken LSS training need to have as part of their performance goal a metric tied to that abandon rate. He/she would need to demonstrate regularly what was done to reduce that number. How did he/she change a process, or find efficiencies, to help drive that goal? Can we then take that reduction in abandon rates, and tie it back to cost reduction? What we’ve done now is to effectively have colleagues take LSS and use it for their day-to-day work, all the while tying their outputs back to a department goal. Another example---going to the concept of MVP earlier:

An example would be the LSS trained colleagues in the Product department. Can they use OE to help do VoC for each MVP, or a customer journey map, that helps quickly gather inputs, drive those functional requirements, and place out a product iteration quickly? The tools and techniques they’ve learned as LSS trained colleagues can be now leveraged for a more dynamic environment, where the concepts of VoC are used at the front end of product development.

How do we go from Level 3 to 4?

Let’s now move to Level 4. These are transformative changes that drastically move the needle for the company. How do we leverage OE in these instances? For example: if our product is designed to be sold through intermediaries, for example mutual funds through RIAs (registered investment advisors) or insurance through brokers, what if we decide to sell also directly to individuals? Can OE help? A value stream map would quickly point out that there’s a gap in capabilities which we need to fill by either updating our technology user interfaces to make it easier to navigate, or that we need to change our sales approach by adding a marketing channel upfront that targets a B2C approach.

Go beyond Operational Excellence

In summary, business is now changing, and as OE professionals, we need to work with other departments and senior leaders to go beyond OE just in a project to a more flexible approach that can be used across the board, taking us through an evolutionary journey.

2019 AWARD FINALIST SPOTLIGHT: HP - Finalist in the Technology Enabled Process Automation Category

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 10:30:00 GMT

Read this article about HP, one of our finalists, in the category Best Achievement in Technology Enabled Process Automation, selected by the independent judging panel, for the 2019 Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Industry Awards program. Click here to read articles on other finalists.

2019 AWARD FINALIST SPOTLIGHT: IBM - Finalist in the Technology Enabled Process Automation Category

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 13:00:00 GMT

Read this article about IBM, one of our finalists, in the category Best Achievement in Technology Enabled Process Automation, selected by the independent judging panel, for the 2019 Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Industry Awards program. Click here to read articles on other finalists.

Culture, culture, culture - Do we need to change and improve it or help it evolve?

Steve Waszak — Sat, 25 Jan 2020 13:00:00 GMT

Steve Waszak has written an article on his interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Culture, culture, culture - Do we need to change and improve it or help it evolve?

With 53.1% of respondents citing changing and improving company culture as their top critical challenge, I want to open a up a bit of a semantics debate. Should we be looking to change and improve the company culture, or should we be working to help it evolve? Is changing and improving it the same as helping it evolve? If so, then the debate ends. However, if not, then we need to decide what we are trying to do. Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

“Change and Improve” or Evolve

Let’s start with the question, “Are they the same?” Without Googling what other people think, pause and clarify what you think we are trying to do when we say “change and improve” culture. When we talk about cultural transformation are we talking about change or evolution? I would like to say that we are talking about evolution, not change. Change can lead to improvement, or not. Evolution infers improvement.

So, if we think of facilitating and guiding the evolution of a company culture, does this give us a better perspective on what we should be doing? Think about it, when Darwin describes evolution, he talks about survival of the fittest. Is the concept of “survival of the fittest” not the same for a business? The difference is that in the business world we have some control over the evolution.

Now that your paradigm is contemplating shifting from culture change to evolution, let me add the concept of mutation to the thought process. Mutation is part of evolution, but it is in fact change. It is a permanent change (at least until the next mutation). So, for the 35.6% of respondents that cite their critical challenge being executing sustainable Operational Excellence projects, may I suggest that you use your hindsight to determine if you were trying to “change and improve” or were you trying to facilitate and guide evolution by predisposing the organization to a desired mutation (sustainable).

This is not just a play on words, it is a critical thought process when it comes to guiding the culture where it needs to go. You need to accept that the culture is real and that based on the facilitation and guidance of Operational Excellence professionals, it will mutate and evolve. During this evolution, the culture will always bring with it part of what it was before and go forward with something new and relevant to the vision and strategy of leadership.

Again, for those 35.6% that have a sustainability challenge, challenge your project’s intent. Is it “change and improve” or “mutate and evolve”? For the 23.2% that cite their critical challenge as lack of leadership understanding and buy-in, you may want to challenge your message to leadership. Is it “change and improve” or “mutate and evolve”?

Alignment is Key to Leading Cultural Evolution

Facilitation and guidance of the cultural evolution is guided by the vision and strategy of leadership. I see a strong correlation between the 53.1% of respondents citing changing and improving company culture as their top critical challenge and the 23.2% of respondents noting that their top critical challenge is a lack of leadership understanding and buy-in. I cannot help but wonder if the lack of understanding and buy-in goes both ways, making positive culture evolution difficult, if not impossible.

When sensing a lack of understanding or buy-in from leadership, it is helpful to pause and challenge your alignment to leadership’s direction. And, when efforts to evolve the culture to improve competitive advantage are stalling, it is helpful to pause to challenge the organization’s alignment to leadership’s direction.

Alignment is critical when cultural evolution is needed to sustain or gain competitive advantage. Organizational culture has deep roots and any mutations will have long term effects. How aligned you are at the start determines how aligned you will be down the road. If alignment is off just a little, all may look good at the beginning, but the future state can wind up way off course as the two paths diverge. Continuously challenge your alignment when guiding a cultural evolution.

May your company culture mutate, evolve and repeat.

Black belts, step aside

Canice Pinto — Fri, 24 Jan 2020 13:00:00 GMT

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Black belts, step aside

Company culture resides in the trenches.

Which begs the question – what is company culture?

Challenges to changing company culture

When polled by BTOES (Business Transformation and Operational Excellence World Summit), practitioners had this to say:

1)55% listed company culture as a critical challenge

2)49% listed sustaining continuous improvement culture as focus area over the next 12-18 months

Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

Is the Operational excellence structure optimal?

“Mission defines strategy, and strategy defines structure.” - Peter Drucker

Current organization structure

a) A quality leader who is the change management expert and the enforcer,

b) A master black belt who’s technically sound and has loads of expertise in implementing projects,

C) And a couple of black belts, some of them certified and others who have potential.

Is top-down approach sustainable?

A few subject matter experts lead projects right from collecting and analyzing, drilling down to the root cause, and running implementation plans – is this top-down approach sustainable?

Building continuous improvement capabilities

This is what one respondent had to say on the BTOES survey :

“Drive CI down to the floor, everybody solving problems everyday, not putting all improvements in the hands of a few engineers.”

Offering process improvement training on concepts and building a large base is probably the way to go. On an average, in my experience, of 100 employees trained:

1) 40 go on to take up projects

2)10-12 complete projects

By investing 8 hours/day, one can actually train 100 front-line folks in a week.

Optimal organization structure

Generating ideas from the front-line

Here’s what some respondents from the BTOES survey had to say:

“When employees execute improvements and bring ideas for improvement forward.”

“Change of culture such that leadership and all employees embrace their role in continuous improvement, daily.”

“Getting buy-in from ground-level staff; seeing sustained change in an organization.”

Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

How are ideas shortlisted? What are the criteria for selecting ideas? How is credit for ideas shared?

Front-line ideas are a great mode of risk-mitigation be it in prioritization of projects, or what to push further down the automation roadmap.

If only 10%-20% of ideas are selected to be run as projects, we need the front-line to be prolific in providing input in terms of ideas.

Measures of success

1) If the number of projects run by front-line is > 4x and <= 5x the number of projects run by Black belts, the organization needs a nudge.

2)If the number of projects run by front-line is > 2x and <= 4x the number of projects run by Black belts, the organization needs a push.

3) If the number of projects run by front-line is <= 2 x the number of projects run by Black Belts, the organization needs a shove.

4) If the number of projects run by front-line is > 5x , company culture score from a buy-in, employee engagement , would be off the charts.

Sustainability of Operational Excellence in the Age of Disruption and Change

Rebecca H Mott — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 10:30:00 GMT

Rebecca H Mott has written an article on her interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Sustainability of Operational Excellence in the Age of Disruption and Change

Sustainability is consistently mentioned (about 70 times) throughout this year’s report. Sustaining the momentum of operational excellence can help organizations improve engagement which leads to higher levels of leadership buy-in and ultimately has a positive impact on cultural change. But with all of the mentions of sustainability, there were some notable gaps in relating it to leadership support and the key performance indicators used for operational excellence initiatives. There is also a real gap in how current frameworks and models are supporting the need for businesses to deal with change. Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

Sustainability of Operational Excellence in the Age of Disruption and Change

Three challenges for operational excellence leaders to improve success rate

There are three challenges that operational excellence leaders must face to improve upon their success rate. The first area deals with creating key performance indicators that show how we are doing with sustainability and engagement. Additionally, there are strong implications that our failure to develop the right success indicators may be due to a gap in the skill set of certified Lean Six Sigma professionals. And the frameworks and models established by lean six sigma practitioners more than 30 years ago may not be adequately supporting organizations' ability to adapt to change.Here are additional thoughts on each of those topics:

Key performance indicators don’t point to the sustainability of efforts or cultural engagement.

How do we know that an initiative from 2015 is being sustained? Will it necessarily show in the balanced scorecard? Or will it show up in the ROI quickly enough to prevent management from aborting efforts before gains are seen? And with cultural aspects of engagement typically being measured separately from business outcomes, are we missing opportunities to identify supportive strategies for effective engagement? Operational Excellence leaders need to integrate measures of sustainability and engagement into their metrics. We need to understand that our efforts are part of a complex ecosystem that cannot be narrowly defined by a single metric. We need to create better ways to measure sustainability and pull what we know about the current state of engagement into our view. This can be a challenge for Lean Six Sigma belts that have a limited understanding of organizational theory or who experience difficulties in translating operational excellence indicators into the language commonly spoken in the C-Suite. Click here to read more Articles on The Global State of Operational Excellence: Critical Challenges & Future Trends - Research Report 2018/19.

Lean Six Sigma belts are not traditionally equipped with the knowledge required to tie operational excellence performance to the needs of the business, specifically the need to innovate and adapt to a rapidly changing environment.

While we must improve our ability to measure sustainability and engagement, the language of metrics cannot be divorced from the measures that organizational leaders see as valuable indicators of success. Learning to talk the language of the C-suite is an imperative if Lean Six Sigma leaders want to influence corporate leaders. Our operational excellence leaders need to add business acumen and a deep knowledge of organizational theory to the suite of skills required to support the deployment of programs within an organization.

Could this be the reason behind the success of programs that have operational excellence leaders in the C-suite? Operational excellence leaders need to understand how to use the tools and strategies of Lean to help organizations innovate and adapt to a rapidly changing environment. They must become C-suite influencers with the answers to the question “How do we prepare for the future right now?” Operational excellence leaders should concentrate on developing effective influencing strategies that go beyond the typical approach of “let’s use our tools and methods to improve upon the status quo.”

Again, it is necessary to think systematically and understand the complex ecosystem that is driving organizational behavior and culture. A key component would be the development of a robust framework that drives the behaviors that will build organizational flexibility. The focus of the operational excellence leader must become helping the organization deal with external pressures and keep pace with a rapidly changing environment prone to disruption and shorter cycles of technology innovation.

External pressures to keep pace with a rapidly changing environment prone to disruption and adaption to new technologies present real threats to the sustainability of improvements.

Operational Excellence Leaders must become the experts of enabling the organization to develop the capacity and flexibility to deal with change. This can be tricky because flexible sustainability generally competes with the framework learned by Lean Six Sigma experts which emphasizes “control” as a sustainment tool. We must get better at understanding how to control sustainment of improvements in a way that allows us to flex and adapt as things change.

How can Operational Excellence Leaders create frameworks that increase the organization’s capacity to absorb change and respond to disruption? There is a real need to revamp our models and frameworks to the reality of today’s environment. We can no longer afford to divide our views on continuous improvement, organizational excellence, and innovation. Our models must become integrated, and our frameworks must become holistic, flexible, and robust.

We will know we are on the right road when we begin seeing:

• Composite metrics that have a balanced view of success that includes sustainability and engagement measures

• Lean Six Sigma training that incorporates an understanding of organizational theory as a core competency

• And the development of more robust and flexible models and frameworks that enable organizations to respond rapidly to change

2019 AWARD FINALIST SPOTLIGHT: Cognizant Technology Solutions - Finalist in the Technology Enabled Process Automation Category

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 10:30:00 GMT

Read this article about Cognizant Technology Solutions, one of our finalists, in the category Best Achievement in Technology Enabled Process Automation, selected by the independent judging panel, for the 2019 Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Industry Awards program. Click here to read articles on other finalists.

Our industry is full of buzzword bingo and acronyms

Stefan Schmidt — Sun, 19 Jan 2020 13:00:00 GMT

Stefan Schmidt has written an article on his interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Our industry is full of buzzword bingo and acronyms

Our industry is full of buzzword bingo and acronyms. And I can’t stand it. Sometimes, I wonder if my industry’s obsession with buzzwords and acronyms to some extend confuses the client or simply covers up a consultants’ lack of customer understanding.

Keep it simple

The truth is – and most consultants should agree on that – that the oldest philosophies, with the simplest solutions, and coincidentally with the fewest buzzwords, are in general the most impactful ones. Understanding customers, and putting them at the heart of the organization, should be the first priority for every business.This rather simple strategy has caught out a number of European utilities. Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

A lack of ability to quickly adjust to customers’ demands and needs, ultimately had a profound impact on utilities’ business models. Whether it has been misjudging the market for residential solar PV, or being agile enough to grapple with the flood of small, highly tailored, digital suppliers, the utility industry has struggled lately.

In the past, utilities have focused on well-known tools, such as classical lean management and cost efficiency, but they have done little to prepare the business for the unknown unknowns of innovation and customer demands. It wasn’t promising for an asset heavy business – but simply, it was also not necessary to cultivate an innovative company culture and concentrate on the customer experience.

This all changed in the 2010s.

The energy revolution – moving away from conventional power such as coal and nuclear towards renewable energy – became a game changer for many large utilities. For more than hundred years, they have successfully delivered products and services across the entire value chain: exploration, conventional power generation, grid & infrastructure and retail business.

The paradigm change caused by the energy revolution and digitalization requires a new modus operandi. Traditional industries often wonder when they will have their kodak moment and will no longer be relevant to customers – for utilities this has become clear over the last ten years.

Building on more than a decade of fostering operational excellence and lean principles within the energy industry, I have seen many classical lean or efficiency improvement programs and methodologies that didn’t succeed.

That has been especially obvious when I look back at the turbulent and dramatic changes that we experienced during the last few years in the European energy industry. It challenged us to develop a new way of working, and here is our story…

How innogy responded to the energy revolution

Today we can proudly say that innogy, one of Europe’s largest utilities, has transformed from a traditional, fully integrated utility to a multi-sided, innovative company, focusing on customer needs, operational excellence and lean principles. We have established a culture of continuous improvement and enabling employees. And most importantly, we developed a leadership style that is focusing on sustainability and systemic change.

Based on our experience, a combination of operational excellence and systemic perceiving was crucial to successfully shape our company and the entire energy industry and to get closer to the customer. There is empirical evidence that large transformations are only successful if two factors have been considered: the “what” and the “how”. “What” means having the right strategy in place to achieve the financial goals that have been set. “How” relates to systemic perceiving, values of customer orientation, outward orientation, performance culture and people enablement. Systemic perceiving is having a sense for what is going on in your team and in the organization on a deeper level.

Combining “what“ and “how“ is the key to success

At innogy we established a program called “New Way of Working” that combines operational excellence and lean philosophies, with systemic change management and the ability of systemic perceiving. It aims to put customers at the heart of the business, drive financial performance and give employees at all levels a greater voice. It contains of four main principles that are closely linked:

Customers: improve customer satisfaction
Financials: increase operating cash flow and reduce costs
Leadership: enable and support leaders
Employees: enable employees and improve employee satisfaction

Whereas classical lean methods are focusing on shop floor performance and E2E process improvements, we think of this approach as too narrow for today’s complex and interlinked value chains. To provide sustainable solutions for our value chain, including administrative and cross-functional departments, other qualities and abilities were crucial. A shift from traditional lead excellence performance to a new value proposition towards customers was necessary. We focused on a philosophy rather than only on tools. Keeping it simple, making it happen and focusing on the customers was always of utmost importance to us.

innogy’s Operational Excellence Program is driven by our philosophy of “measure, learn and improve”. It aims to continuously increase performance:

Our program aims at performance targets which are challenging and ambitious. They are designed to be achievable by teams and to motivate them. innogy’s transformation program changed daily work and the relationship between leadership and employees, continuously promoting and improving practices.

Our main levers for success

In my opinion, the success factors for are:

Standardizing our way of working and building-up capabilities that lead to a changed mindset and transform customer experience into quick, high impact and lowcost operations
Prioritizing speed and execution over perfection – which requires agility in delivering products to customers and quickly learning from them
Driving the management system, advancing lean leadership – focusing on results, being supportive, seeking different perspectives and solving problems effectively
Bringing out the best in people, capability building at scale; increasing the value employees can contribute

What we achieved with our new way of working

The implementation of this philosophy and approach helped to generate more business across Europe with continuous improvements. More than 70 projects have been conducted following our new approach, covering generation, grid, infrastructure, renewables, administration and x-function businesses in Central and Eastern Europe. More than 26,000 employees along the entire value chain have been enabled. With 300 directly trained experts and a developed central academy to ensure sustained and continues learning, projects are handed over to the clients once they reach a self-sustaining state.

Today, innogy is the world’s 3^rd largest offshore operator; Germany’s 2^nd largest grid operator and a leading integrator of renewable energy and EV charging. innogy is also the top energy retailer in four core markets with a total of 23 million customers across Europe. Our partner RWE, is an international leader in conventional power generation and energy trading.

There is still room for improvement and we are not tired of the challenge. We enjoy the opportunity to challenge the status-quo, to further improve customer satisfaction, and in turn our business, our teams and ourselves.

So next time you are in a board room, with another round of buzzword bingo from your favorite strategy consultancy, just remember: you really can’t go wrong by focusing on the customer to drive the change you need in your organization. It has worked for innogy, and it could work for you, too.

Today even other businesses come and talk to us to find out more about our journey and how to adopt ideas for themselves.

Inspired how to shape your industry with operational excellence and systemic change? Do not hesitate to reach out and get in touch.

2019 AWARD FINALIST SPOTLIGHT: AECOM - Finalist in the Operational Excellence to deliver Digital Transformation Category

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 10:30:00 GMT

Read this article about AECOM, one of our finalists, in the category Best Achievement in Operational Excellence to deliver Digital Transformation, selected by the independent judging panel, for the 2019 Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Industry Awards program. Click here to read articles on other finalists.

Culture- A competitive differentiator in the digital age

Dushyanth Sekhar — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 10:30:00 GMT

Dushyanth Sekhar has written an article on his interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Culture- A competitive differentiator in the digital age

As rapid advancements in technology are making customer interactions more seamless, there is a race to digitize. Organizations are investing billions of dollars in new-age technologies. Machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotics have become the buzz words in board rooms across the world, and the battle rages on for acquiring and retaining top digital talent. Traditional process improvements tools like Lean and Six Sigma are making a comeback as more and more companies realize the need to optimize before unleashing the power of the algorithms.

Customer delight is no longer the exception – it is the norm. Organizations have to be agile and break away from traditional operating models in order to deliver a customer experience, which not only meets the explicit customer needs, but also the implicit ones, within every customer interaction.

As these paradigms shift rapidly, it is very interesting to see that more than half (53%) of the respondents have stated that the biggest challenge they face is “Changing & improving the company culture.” This number is even more startling, when you note only 29% see “Keeping up with new technologies” as a challenge, and only about 1 in 7 (13%) say it’s “Lack of/Need for skilled workers.” While the talk is all about AI and robotics, why do so many leaders think, culture is the key ingredient for operational excellence?

Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

Culture drives Innovation

Here are two quotes from the report that succinctly summarize the correlation between innovation / operational excellence and culture

“Your best assets are your people: You need everyone rowing in the same direction to drive this type of change”
“As a 50 years + company we have to adjust to the new, more competitive environment and need to get everybody on board to increase productivity and accountability of employees”

Innovation programs can be significantly derailed if people are not aligned. Even technology giants will lose out in the modern data economy if they do not understand the need to build the right culture. Click here to read more Articles on The Global State of Operational Excellence: Critical Challenges & Future Trends - Research Report 2018/19.

Apple analyst Gene Munster explained that the relative failure of Siri compared to rivals such as Amazon’s Alexa is fundamentally because "artificial intelligence is not in Apple’s DNA." Apple’s corporate culture has been built around commercializing physical products and the software applications that support them, whereas succeeding today requires a culture built around thinking "AI first." Apple also has a culture of privacy which clashes with the need to harvest and exploit the industrial quantities of data.

So it’s important for C–level executives to not get subsumed by the hyperbole of the technologies but to focus and invest time and resources in building the right culture and ecosystem before they double down on investments in robotics, machine learning or AI. It is clear from the survey, the respondents recognize this.

What can organizations do?

Democratize Innovation – A few people innovating and driving operational excellence in a back room never scales. It’s important to be inclusive, demystify modern day technologies for all employees and create new career paths where everyone can contribute toward this transformation. This will help create an ecosystem which augments learning agility and a growth mind set. Eventually, this is about amplifying human ingenuity, and this can only happen if leaders are invested to upskill employees and help people to work through this changing landscape.

Promote Experimentation & Reward Failure – Traditional business models value being right and knowing all the answers. Organizational cultures have to make a shift here and value dissent, promote rapid iterations and reward failures in some cases. Employees have to be empowered to tease out ideas and learn in the process. “I know everything” is obsolete – “I am ready to learn everything” and “I can fail as I learn” should be accepted and rewarded.

Breakdown Hierarchical Barriers – The role of leader has to change – the future leaders will have a vision, help remove road blocks and get out of the way. Situational leadership will replace titles – where anyone can step in and play a leadership role as the situation demands and then step back. Small, self-sustained, agile teams will need to replace vertical structures.

To summarize – the true differentiator in the future will be an organization’s culture. The winners won’t be the ones with the best black belts or engineers but those who can coalesce their human capital with the modern technologies, empower and upskill their workforce and embrace diversity and inclusion.

Culture - the result of shared values

Steven Hodlin — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 10:30:00 GMT

Steven Hodlin has written an article on his interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Culture - the result of shared values

The primary result from the Global State of Operational Excellence report indicates that changing and improving culture is the top challenge, followed by leadership buy-in and understanding. These two issues are linked in practice. Culture is the result of shared values and how people think, believe, act, and feel. This belief system leads to the action taken and the results attained.

Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

Experiences create the belief system

The way you change culture is through experiences. According to Schein (1992), experiences create the belief system, which leads to the action taken and the decisions made, which produce the result and outcomes. If you want a different result, the belief system must be changed, and that is influenced by the experiences. Click here to read more Articles on The Global State of Operational Excellence: Critical Challenges & Future Trends - Research Report 2018/19.

Leadership needs to be role models in providing the experiences that will drive the beliefs of the organization. Without this influence and these experiences, the culture will be far different than what leadership intended. Any successful operational excellence endeavor requires the leadership buy-in and understanding of the operational excellence approaches in order to influence the culture in a meaningful way.

End-to-end Business Transformation

The report also highlighted the need for end-to-end Business Transformation. The importance of end-to-end is a reflection that all steps in the process are a part of a system, and in order to optimize the system, process re-engineering needs to view the value stream of the system in its entirety. The system needs to be viewed in order to prioritize the re-engineering according to the greatest constraints. Otherwise processes being transformed in the system may have little impact if the bottleneck is downstream, thus resulting in lack of systemic improvement.

Once improvements have been achieved, the gains can be sustained through the development of control plans that build in a metric system to monitor the key performances associated with the gains. Based upon the formula f(x) = y, by understanding the variables that drive the outcomes and controlling them, sustainment of the gains can be maintained and it is possible to move on to another challenge confidently.

The emotional side to change

As improvements are initiated, change management becomes critical. It is important to realize that there is an emotional side to change and that people need a bridge from the current state to the future state resulting from the change. This is often under-estimated or discounted.

A good change management model is that proposed by Kotter (1996). His eight stages of change are broken up into three major categories. Establishing a sense of urgency, creating the guiding coalition, and developing a vision and strategy serve to create a climate for change. Communicating the vision, empowering action, and creating quick wins results in engaging and enabling the organization. By building on the change and anchoring new approaches in the culture, the change is implemented and sustained.This cycle can be summarized as plan, engage, and implement and sustain the change. There are some key deliverables in each area.

For creating a climate for change, stakeholder analysis should be conducted. This helps to identify the stakeholders and enables understanding of how to get them bought in and engaged. Communication is a key to any change. The communications should be planned and targeted for the audience. The vision should be communicated, along with providing transparency to the pathways for achieving the vision. Celebrations and recognitions should be developed to keep everyone motivated and energized as small wins are achieved along the way. Training and support need to be considered to assist in the change initiative execution and sustainment.

Work on improvements that are critical to the strategic goal

In the report, maintaining key priorities consistently was highlighted as a challenge. This can be mitigated by ensuring all initiatives are linked to strategic objectives. Many times, organizations develop “scope creep” in their operational excellence objectives, and find employees working on improvements that are not critical to the strategic goal, thus diluting the operational excellence resources in the organization.

Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

One way to address this is to develop a cascading metric system such as OKR’s (Objectives and Key Results). The objectives are linked to the high-level strategic vision. They are qualitative, inspirational, attainable, controllable, provide business value, and are doable in a quarter. The objectives are then supported by key results that are quantitative, aspirational, specific, owed by someone, vertically and horizontally aligned, and drive the right behaviors (Niven & Lamorte, 2016).

Operational Excellence is Cultural Transformation- (or the other way around?)

Edgard Graterol — Thu, 09 Jan 2020 10:30:00 GMT

Edgard Graterol has written an article on his interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Operational Excellence is Cultural Transformation- (or the other way around?)

Create your own operational excellence journey

Operational Excellence is usually seen as the result of the application of a series of tools or methodologies that, in turn create a new culture. For years, companies have tried different approaches following various methodologies and consulting advise in order to try to achieve a mythical state of excellence. Today, the smarter companies have taken pieces of these programs and developed a system of their own (some would call it their production system) in an attempt to use the pieces they need to design a roadmap to follow on their operational excellence journey. Together with the Operational Excellence movement, and sometimes in parallel, we also find the movement for Digital Transformation many times competing for management attention and resources. Click here to read more Articles on The Global State of Operational Excellence: Critical Challenges & Future Trends - Research Report 2018/19.

The application of methods and/or technology on its own, is never a complete solution unless it is accompanied by a heavy dose of change management, a clear behavioral change in the leadership and a true conversion of the shop floor masses into a mindset of continuous improvement. All of these aspects are more difficult to measure and often confused with outputs of the implementation of an operational excellence program rather than an integral part of the program.

Mind the cultural gap!

Companies spend a lot of efforts in implementing a certain toolkit (or pieces of different ones) sometimes without minding the cultural gap that precedes these changes and assuming that because the solutions look good and have been “proven successful” somewhere else, they will be adopted almost without question by those that have to implement and sustainably live with the new processes.

The same happens with the omnipresent move for digitalization and automation vying for resources and expected to be successful at once given the uncontested “fact” that processes will be easier and, therefore, will be adopted almost without contest. From what transpires in the report on the Global State of Operational Excellence¹, it is clear that the bigger concerns of the interviewed senior leadership around the world continue to be related to cultural transformation needs and, therefore, a “change management problem” rather than a “technical problem”.

Attack the problem of cultural transformation

One interesting finding in this report, is that although the biggest challenges are cited to be on the culture side, the measures to be taken in the near future are mostly citing operational success rather than cultural transformation as the goal to be achieved. Most of the next 12-18 months are worded in terms of things like “roll out”, “Driving innovation” “reducing variation” rather than attacking the much more important (and also more complex) problem of cultural transformation. Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

Focus on mindset change

In order to confront this paradox, Operational Excellence must be perceived and marketed as a cultural transformation program as opposed to a set of tools to “make the machine move faster, better, cheaper”. The subtle difference in marketing, together with a conscious review of the change management component of the program will certainly yield better engagement and also likely better results.

The sustainability of these results will also improve considerably when the focus shifts towards working with people, creating the right messages and living those messages day in and day out. This way, the organization is “allowed” and empowered to then deliver on the lagging indicators by way of applying their understanding of excellence and leveraging the personal commitment that comes with said mindset change.

Rethink how to reach Operational Excellence

Maybe the time of focusing almost exclusively in tools, technology and program deployment has passed and we should engage in twisting one of the quintessential paradoxes of the OPEX world: Can we continue to try delivering excellence and, then, engaging people? Or should we rather look at it the other way around and focus on finding better ways to engage people and THEN give them the tools and methodologies to deliver on their vision of excellence?

Operational Excellence- Time to eat our own dog food

Bart Reijs — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 13:00:00 GMT

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Operational Excellence- Time to eat our own dog food

Need for Operational Excellence

So why does operational excellence struggle to get traction, when the circumstances seem so ideal for it to thrive?

The sentiment of the report reflects an uphill battle, and a tiresome struggle to be recognized.

Opex should in these times be a factor that excites and attracts the best talent.

Make OpEx a lighter experience

2019 AWARD FINALIST SPOTLIGHT: Cognizant Technology Solutions - Finalist in the Operational Excellence to deliver Digital Transformation Category

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Mon, 30 Dec 2019 10:30:00 GMT

Read this article about Cognizant Technology Solutions, one of our finalists, in the category Best Achievement in Operational Excellence to deliver Digital Transformation, selected by the independent judging panel, for the 2019 Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Industry Awards program. Click here to read articles on other finalists.

2019 AWARD FINALIST SPOTLIGHT: Cognizant Technology Solutions - Finalist in the Operational Excellence to deliver Digital Transformation Category

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Sat, 28 Dec 2019 13:00:00 GMT

2019 AWARD FINALIST SPOTLIGHT: Cognizant Technology Solutions - Finalist in the Operational Excellence to deliver Digital Transformation Category

charlotte.kelly@proqis.com (BTOES Insights Official) — Wed, 25 Dec 2019 13:00:00 GMT

Increasing demand for operational excellence methodologies even in non-mandated companies

Byron Tatsumi — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 10:30:00 GMT

Byron Tatsumi has written an article on his interpretation of the Global State of Operational Excellence Survey Report - Critical Challenges & Future Trends - 2018/2019. Click here to download the full Survey Report 2018/19.

The Most Comprehensive Study of Critical Challenges and Future Trends within Operational Excellence

The Critical Operational Excellence Challenges faced by executives.
The Current Scope of Operational Excellence.
How is Operational Excellence success measured?
Key Findings & Roadblocks.
What are executives focusing on over the next 12-18 months?
What have been the greatest developments?
What are the key drivers pushing change in Operational Excellence?
Industry Perspectives.
Small, Medium & Large Corporation Perspectives.
Detail Analysis & Insights from BTOES Insights Executive Team.
Detailed Analysis & Insights from 40 Industry Thought Leaders.
Analysis of key themes, including Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding.

Complete form to access Report now

Increasing demand for operational excellence methodologies even in non-mandated companies

One of the key findings from the Business Transformation & Operational Excellence World Summit’s 2018/2019 research report, “The Global State of Operational Excellence,” was that nearly 60 percent of respondents cited operational excellence methodologies as growing in popularity. The report mentions that “this supports the demand for process re-engineering and business transformation to adapt to new advanced technologies and customer demands.” Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.

Need and demand for methodologies

Based on my recent experience in leading the creation and launch of our company-wide Process Innovation program, I have seen first-hand the need and demand by leadership and employees for methodologies. While the company I work for, Salesforce (the global CRM leader), does not have a top-down mandate for employees to complete process re-engineering training and certification, I have worked in large companies in various industries outside of technology that had mandates directly from the CEO. In those instances demand for operational excellence methodologies were a forcing function due to the mandate. Click here to read more Articles on The Global State of Operational Excellence: Critical Challenges & Future Trends - Research Report 2018/19.

Working in a cloud company means needing to continually innovate and provide the latest advanced technologies to support our external customers. This in turn impacts many of our processes as we continue to scale to support more customers and products globally. As a result, the operational excellence methodologies we apply need to be flexible and leveraged quickly.

Introducing and educating on process methodologies

The way we have addressed this has been by introducing process methodologies that support process management, improvement and design. As part of educating on methodologies, we have leveraged our company’s gamified online learning platform, Trailhead. This online platform provides guided modules that anyone, at any time, can take to learn more about why process is important, the definitions of methodologies, and discover additional process resources. In fact hundreds of employees globally took advantage of Trailhead within the first month of its launch. We have also implemented a cloud-based knowledge management system so that all employees can access and share methodology tools, templates and examples.

A key part of our program has been implementing a three-day process bootcamp where individuals who drive operational improvements across the company learn about methodologies and tools for process management, improvement and design. Participants then complete a process project post bootcamp, and are supported by an expert coach so they learn by applying the appropriate methodology based on their problem and goal.

Here are some example quotes from previous individuals (representing the demand) who have gone through bootcamp and then led and completed their process project:

“Combining structured methodologies, process tools and expert coaching, the program provided the foundation for me to succeed and deliver improvements.”

“Standardized process training through the program has already begun benefiting our team. It is paying off in staff productivity, program focus, and sustainable process assets.”

“It is another connection among our company to be able to use the same language and approach in understanding the current processes and designing future ones. I believe it will help us get to the essence of the work quicker and increase our velocity in innovation.”

So, if you are in a non-mandated company like mine, talk with various stakeholders (e.g. leadership, employees, etc.) as there may be demand and opportunity to implement operational excellence methodologies.