Though it’s disappointing, it’s a fact of life that a company’s high level executives are often highly disconnected from the sale force. We’ve all seen those television programs where the boss secretly steps back onto the shop floor and finds so much he didn’t know – some good, some bad. It isn’t made up for dramatic effect: it really is like this.

By necessity, high level executives need to look at the bigger picture, whilst those at the work face are involved in the day-to-day life and routine of the company.

Though it’s true that high level executives are distanced from the sales force, any change in the sales process is likely to reverberate around the company. Even though the sales force is the target of change, the effects will be seen in finance, operations, customer services, and IT. Throw a stone in a pond, and the ripples will be felt far and wide. When considered in this way, it’s easy to see that making process changes constitutes a substantial shift in how a company conducts business.

For this reason, communication of the process change and commitment to it are the keys to success. I’ve found that a five-step approach will build a strong foundation for process change and lead to its successful implementation.

1                    Executive Sponsorship

Always get a respected executive to sponsor the change. Better still, ensure that the sponsor is willing and able to participate in – or even lead – coaching, motivation, and mentoring of those responsible for implementing and executing the new process.

2                    Have a Clear Vision

Know where you are going to, and where you are coming from. Map out the future, and then communicate it clearly and concisely to the workforce. Ensure that everyone knows what is needed to be done to achieve the ambitions of the process change.

3                    Have a Good Transition Team

Managing the day-to-day details of process change is no easy task. It takes a strong and diverse team to keep sales leadership, and management, on track toward the goal. There should be a good coaching plan in place, and don’t forget that this will need to be managed effectively.

4                    Set Assessable Milestones

Milestones on the way to completion should be achievable. They should also be measurable. Consider what works and what doesn’t, and be flexible in your approach: be prepared to refine, revise, or even ditch, elements of the new process accordingly.

5                    Have a Good Review Regime

Constantly and continuously assess your progress. Address unforeseen problems as they arise, and take the necessary action to put them right as soon as possible. Swift action will allow you to stay on course to meet all your objectives. Be disciplined and ruthless, but don’t be afraid to celebrate success. And don’t forget to communicate problems and successes up and down the line.

If there’s one thing that I’ve learnt, it’s this: change doesn’t happen overnight. It takes planning, commitment, and hard work. The results might take a while to become evident, perhaps months or even years, but it is important to remain focussed. Those businesses that keep their eye on the prize and begin process change as soon as possible, integrating it into the daily life of the business with enthusiasm and commitment, win out.

Most commonly, improvements in business processes are sought to streamline and save costs, and often reduction in headcount occurs as the production cycle evolves. It might be that technological advances allow paper-based systems to be replaced by efficient, and more accurate, computer driven processes. Or, perhaps, specific productivity improvements are achieved by a redesign of the business process.

Whatever improvements are achieved, a business doesn’t have to stop when the goal of meeting service levels and reduction of costs has been hit. I always advocate going that extra mile and turning the process improvements into strategic assets. You’ve built the knowledge, gained the experience, and now have the tools to make a real difference in the sales process.

Pushing all this out a little further in your organisation makes sense on all levels. Most of your costs will already have been incurred, so the bottom line will be further positively impacted. Of course, the real value to the business will depend upon how the process skills are used.

A key principle of process improvement is to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. By getting close to your customer, taking the time to understand how he sees his own business and then looking at your business from his viewpoint, you’ll have a deeper and fresher perspective on what your customer sees as value. And, when all is said and done, the customer buys your products and services because you give him value.

I’ve worked with many companies in the last couple of years where the focus has been on complex, and often complicated, sales environments. Learning to use process tools to analyse the business and understand client needs and core problems – in other words, using the business process tools as diagnostic tools – means that salespersons have been able to deliver purpose built, tailored solutions. This ability gave the sales force a high level advantage in competitive environments, adding value to the client: a further reason for premium pricing. Quality and service become key, driven by the strategic assets of process improvement. The advantages to the client are almost endless, and the benefits to your business are clear to see.

Steve Jobs is one of my heroes, so it’s not surprising that I have just finished reading his biography. What might be a little surprising is that I’ve spotted a few similarities between Apple and Toyota. Two different businesses, in two different industries, but the similarities are definitely there. Perhaps it’s my processing background that helped me spot them.

• Steve Jobs knew that quality drove sales. So, he wanted to create great quality products. So did Toyota. Both are product driven companies.
• What Jobs wasn’t great at was controlling the supply chain and so he hired Tim Cook, an advocate of the TOC concepts of supply chain productivity: He kept the supply side lean and mean, which is exactly how Toyota played their business.
• Jobs wanted total control over his company. He didn’t want any part of his products being held to ransom by others. He knew his products were great, and to keep that quality he insisted on Apple being the master of its destiny. Even though licensing its products would have increased revenue, Jobs knew that to do so would have trashed the user experience so they didn’t license them.  Though Toyota wasn’t a vertically integrated company like Apple was under Jobs, it was one of the first to ensure its suppliers were close to the business. Toyota made certain that the quality of its supplies were A1 by consultation and training help given to its suppliers.

Then there is the main difference between the two companies:

• Jobs employed ‘A players’, believing that the best people would deliver the best products. Toyota believed that the best processes could be employed by average people to drive (no pun intended) great products.

Both companies lost focus at some point. Apple drifted in the mid-nineties, though it has since more than recovered its poise. Toyota fell down more recently. Perhaps they’ll recover like Apple has, who knows? Both events had the same root cause: both companies chased profits rather than great products. They took their eye of the manufacturing ball, product quality drifted and so did profitability.

The moral of the story is that, whatever the product, whatever the driving force that pushes you forward, that part must take priority. It is from this perspective that profits will come.

Process Improvement Isn’t just about meeting service levels and cost savings.

The initial intent of organisations embarking on process improvement is often ensure they are meeting service levels for their clients, delivering quality products and services while reducing headcount by replacing paper based systems, specific productivity improvements, information retrieval, and business process modelling.

This in itself is a success and more often than not we stop there. But these are fairly standard outcomes of such an initiative, and there are opportunities to go a step further and turn these tools into strategic assets. By reusing these knowledge and skills in the sales and marketing processes.

How to use process skills to create new value

A core tenant of process improvement is to understand the Voice of the Customer. Looking at their own business from the customers perspective can give an organisation new insights into what constitutes value for their clients.

Further, process tools can be used as diagnostic tools in complex sales environments. Much of the process work I have been doing in the last couple of years has focused on just that. A salesperson, using these tools, can better understand the clients core problems and design tailored solutions. With full confidence the fulfilment processes are there to deliver.

These companies now uses the Process Models and Workflow models as a demonstration and diagnostic tools for their sales people. From the models, they can audit where a client is, perform gap analysis on where the client wants to get to, and then illustrate how they can assist them in getting there.

Use these tools for leverage.

This success story highlights what I have believed for some time. The fact that the perceived overhead in capturing and documenting Business Processes only exists when companies don’t look to find ways of leveraging their efforts.

Business Process Management: A Customer-Centric Process Model

The concept of Business Process can become very complex due to excessive use of confusing buzzwords and acronyms. A customer-centric process model enables modern executives to focus on the principles of business process management without taking their eye off the needs of the client and what makes a happy customer.

Managers and executives should never lose sight of the fact that business process concepts should be used to make money. Businesses make money by keeping their customers happy, and if they focus more on keeping shareholders happy than their customers, then they may be at the top of a slippery slope that will spiral them down into a situation from which it will be difficult to recover.

Avoid Focusing on Buzz Words and Acronyms

TQM is a good buzz word, and if use properly the philosophy of total quality management can help a form to offer a more consistent standard of product to their customers.  So too are business process reengineering and improvement (BPR and BPI).  However, if too much focus is placed on these concepts at the expense of the common-sense tenet of keeping the customer happy with on-time deliveries of low cost products that meet their needs, then the new concepts and buzz words will have a negative effect. . .

. . . a negative effect on the entire purpose of a business:  to make money. That is because, by ignoring the needs of customers in order to follow the Business Process to the letter, a company may ultimately have no customers. A good process model should start with what customers expect, and work back from there.

Statistics indicate that the customer annual attrition rate for most firms equates to a 100% loss of customers in 7-10 years. Why? Has this rate increased to such a level due to the buzz business process management tools that have become so popular? Or perhaps it is because they have failed to consider the impact of their business model on their customers, focusing instead on keeping shareholders happy rather than those that actually generate wealth?

Conflict of Wishes

Executives tend to want more for less; they want to spend less money but get better quality and a smoother business process.  By focusing on cutting costs while demanding more while doing so, they are at odds with technologists that want more investment to embrace modern technological advances. Such technology might well result in a better ROI than a business model designed on cost-cutting and downtime reduction – perhaps at the expense of quality.

Concepts such as JIT, SMED and OEE work well if they are fully understood by company executives, but should be employed only if they avoid providing customers with a poorer level of service and quality simply to achieve paper improvements in profitability, but not perhaps overall profits. Short term gain for long term loss is not a good business model by any standards. 50% profit from 10 customers is worth less than 5.1% profit from 100 customers.

Value Stream Assessment: Focus on the Customer

A value stream is a stream of activities that combine to provide a positive result for the customer. These may be internal customers, such as one department supplying another, or those that purchase the product:  the ultimate source of income for manufacturing industry. A typical value stream consists of people, tools, technology, concepts, communication systems, business process and the process model used.

By focusing on each of these components, a firm can keep their customers happy and maintain the income of cash needed for the business to be successful. By utilizing a business model that keeps the value stream as lean as possible without affecting its final outcome, then it is possible to keep the customer happy and avoid losing this valuable asset. A business is nothing without a customer – a fact that many a business process tends to ignore.

Profit or Customer Satisfaction?

It is easier to develop a profitable process model by keeping everything simple: avoid complexity in your business and adopt simplicity, and your value stream will run smoothly. By focusing only on profit you are taking your eyes off the entity that generates that profit: the customer.

One example is banks, building societies and even some stores that closed branches as a means of cutting costs and centralizing many of their processes, such as lending policies, mortgage allotment and customer service. Customer services were outsourced, often offshore, leading to customer dissatisfaction due to language problems and differences in social and cultural attitudes.

American and UK businesses are now pulling back from this, and instead tending to adopt individual customer service employees working from home rather than from offices based in call centers abroad. These are good examples of business process management decisions that keep customers happy.  Ignore the customer in favor of the bottom line, and you may end up with none of either, customers or a bottom line.
Share this:

One of the qualities of great leadership is personal communication with those they lead and the process of input and feedback to improve as a leader. This process of leadership development through continuous improvement can enable good business leaders to become great ones. 

Leadership development is about knowing how to improve as a leader, and one quality shared by most great leaders has been their ability to maintain personal contact with those they led and to learn through continuous feedback from them.

Those that manage from afar and fail to communicate with their workforce will find it difficult to get any meaningful degree of feedback, and business managers can learn a great deal from the great leaders of the past who had the full support of those they commanded and were very successful in what they achieved.

Napoleon Bonaparte was well known for personally talking with his troops, irrespective of rank: not just talking TO them, but WITH them, which is why he was able to raise an army so quickly after his return from Elba.  Genghis Khan and Julius Caesar lived with their troops and spoke to them regularly, which is one reason for them following their leaders to the death if necessary.

Without that trust and respect for a fellow human being, these great leaders could never have achieved what they did. So what was their secret, and can you apply it in your business?

Of course you can – and there is no great secret. They recognized the importance of personal contact with the ordinary people upon whom they relied for their success, and upon the importance of learning from the feedback they received from them. They did not think their armies beneath them, just as great captains of industry do not look upon their employees as inferiors, but as business partners and people who can help them to improve the performance of the business.

Leadership development involves knowing how to improve as a leader, and personal contact is likely the most important factor involved. Various studies such as 360 degree surveys have shown personal contact to be a major quality of a great business leader, and that leadership is a relationship between the leader and those he leads.

The best leaders seek input and feedback from others, and use that information in their leadership development to improve as a leader.

360-degree feedback is a way of assessing a leader’s performance from the perspectives of supervisors, peers, and subordinates within the organization, and also of clients. If used correctly as a leadership improvement technique, and not for criticism of performance, 360-degree feedback can help leaders, managers and supervisors to develop their leadership skills and attain their full potential.

However, it is not always necessary to utilize the concept of 360-degree feedback in the form of a formal survey. A good leader will not require such formality to receive feedback on the effects of their decisions, and will regard any negative feedback as a positive result subject to analysis and potential improvement rather than that as a personal criticism. It is important that feedback is not taken as personal criticism because that is not the purpose of 360 analysis.

Great leadership is a continuous process of input and feedback on actions, and then on the effect of modifications to these actions based upon the feedback. That is continuous development in anybody’s language, and a process that enables an individual to improve as a leader. It is this communication with those they lead that enables good business leaders to become great ones.

Share this:

The use of negotiation tactics is a good basis for a business process model designed to give your business the upper hand over vendors. There are several tactics that can be used in such a model, and individuals can learn by observing expert negotiators at work. 

It is possible to use negotiating tactics as part of a business process model on how to get ahead in business negotiations between vendor and client. This is not only about haggling price, but on contract details or even the entire business strategy and the model can also be applied to any business negotiation, not just negotiating prices or conditions of sale.

While general business and market factors will play a large part in the outcome of any negotiation, there will also be psychological factors in play that can swing this more in your favour than that of the seller. These factors and others can be built into a process model that can be used as the basis for future negotiations.

One of the benefits of a process model is it can be modified to improve results, and the use of negotiation tactics in business is one form of preparation that can be fluid according the negotiation and the desired result. A significant psychological factor is in persuading the seller that you know what you are talking about.

Preparation is Important

By showing that are you are properly prepared, and have a good understanding of the topic in hand, you will find it easier to achieve the result you are aiming for.  If you try to impress the other party with little true knowledge, you will soon begin to fail to communicate authoritatively and start to lose the discussion.  That’s when you will begin to fail to achieve your objectives.

For example, in a negotiation between web services providers and web services clients to negotiate and find a mutually acceptable solution, it important that the client displays a sound knowledge, both of what they are seeking in the service and of what is technically possible.

As the buyer or potential client, you should have researched the services that other web service providers are able to offer and at what price.  You should also be aware of the need for systems that are adaptable to projected new developments in the field. If you do not display that depth of knowledge, then you give the advantage to the web service provider or seller of the system you may ultimately purchase.

Making sure you do your homework before entering into any negotiation would be the first factor in any business model designed to ensure that those responsible for negotiation in your business use the correct negotiation tactics to give them the upper hand and achieve the best possible results to get ahead in business negotiations.

Drawing Out Information and the Planned Silence

Another good tactic is to persuade the other party to provide you will information you need from them to strengthen your own case.  By asking relevant questions from a number of different angles you can often get them to divulge information important to the negotiation without them becoming suspicious and clamming up.

A good tactic to use when you want the other party to divulge more is to keep silent. Many people dislike silence in negotiations and feel it necessary to say something -anything to break the silence, and you can frequently get some very revealing information at these times. The ‘planned silence’ is a good tactic for a negotiation process model.

What Motivates the Seller?

Establishing the motivation of the seller is a good tactic in gaining the upper hand in business transactions of any nature, and the seller in your business process model could be a contractor or service provider.  It should even be possible to switch the roles in your model so that the same process can be used with you as the seller or provider trying to gain the business advantage over a client.

It is not always easy to establish the other party’s motivation, but doing so successfully can help your business in a number of ways.  You can find out if there are available options you are not being offered, and even if the seller is truly motivated and committed or simply testing the water – perhaps trying to establish the prices that potential clients are prepared to pay.  This is not unusual, but it does not help your business, and establishing this will be an important factor in your early negotiations.

Practice Negotiating and Learn from Experts

You can practice negotiating in a number of situations, including when speaking with your family.  Negotiate bed time with the kids, or watch others negotiating. You can learn a great deal by visiting antiques markets, for example, and observing how people negotiate prices. You can likely think of other situations where negotiating is commonplace – some children are brilliant negotiators as their parents well know.

Negotiation tactics can be used as part of a business model designed to act as a blueprint for the negotiation carried out in your business. By projecting confidence and expertise, negotiators can start off on a good footing, and help get ahead in business negotiations between client and vendor immediately. By drawing required facts out of the other party they can strengthen their own positions and capability of coming out ahead. A good process model can set these standards.

Share this:

Process methodologies have been shown to offer no significant information, and the old methods of process improvement are still the best. 

If there is one process improvement tip I would give to everybody, it would be to ignore process methodologies. At one time, to say I was a big fan of ‘lean six sigma’ would be something of an understatement. To me, it was so powerful that I could never understand why everybody else did not think the same as me!

“How on earth could anybody ever dream of not applying this stuff?” I thought. I would eventually find out, and not become disillusioned so much as taught never again to accept any process methodology at face value.

I read a study titled “What Really Works” in the Harvard Business Review in 2003, where several methodologies were compared to find which, if any, worked the best. The conclusion was that there was no improvement at all – at least none that were statistically significant. This surprised the authors, and also surprised me. These great new ways to reduce costs and improve profit margins turned out to do nothing.

The old ways are still the best so here are some tips for you in case you are inclined to believe what I once believed.

1. Process methodologies such as lean six sigma, BPR, BMP, Re-engineering and TOC are fads that are no better than the proven method of investigating and analysing processes all the way through with the objective of improving their effectiveness, saving money and saving time and effort.
2. Methodology no longer means anything: leave it and stick to empirical means of process improvement. Statistical analysis may offer data but makes no difference to the processes themselves.
3. Evaluate your quality standards and redefine them. Then apply the new standards to your products and services and to your processes. Tighten up your process specs, and observe the results. Process improvement can be achieved, and no matter how good the performance is there is nothing that cannot be improved. Process methodologies will not achieve that.

The continuous improvement process should involve problem solving on the front line, resolving issues as they arise and putting procedures in place to prevent recurrence. There is insufficient communication and exchange of continuous improvement information in many businesses, each department working for itself

There comes a time when the continuous improvement process is so ingrained in a business that many of the problems it was originally intended to solve are regarded as the norm. The improvement process has been more one of working around problems than actually solving them. Rather than being accepted, they should be identified and eradicated, and the process should become one of resolving problems as they arise, rather than searching for old ones.

Here are three other fundamental aspects of the continuous improvement process:

1. Immediate Action

Problems should be dealt with immediately rather than reported back for others to solve. Without immediate action, the continuous improvement process is more difficult to apply and information available at the time is frequently lost.

This means empowering people to tackle problems when they arise, when issues are easier to resolve and immediate preventive action can prevent escalation. By taking immediate remedial action it is often possible to prevent recurrence of certain problems. Problems crossing two or more organisational areas can be effectively dealt with by personnel of each organisation or department.

2.  Exchange of Information

Improvements implemented by one department in an organisation should be shared with others in the same organisation. By doing this, process improvements can be shared throughout the company. Ask yourself if this is happening in your business.

Unless you have regular networking or training programs where problem solvers involved in implementing the continuous improvement process can share information, then it will not be so.  If your various departments have teams that protect their own achievements, then you have a problem: regular cross-functional meetings and training is an essential part of a company-wide continuous improvement policy, and active dissemination of remedial information as it becomes available is also advised

3.  Training Leaders to be Able to Coach Others

The leaders at all levels of an organisation should have enough knowledge to be able to communicate effectively with those carrying out the work. If they lack sufficient knowledge of the detail of the work done by the company, then they should state the areas in which they lack knowledge and be willing to be trained in these areas.

They should then be able to coach others in the skills needed and also in the principles of concepts such as continuous improvement programs.  Leadership training itself is a form of continuous improvement.

Share this:

Marketing and innovation are essential during recessionary periods of you are to maintain sales and turnover.  By focusing their marketing and innovation on the design features their customers wanted, Apple was able to increase their turnover and profits during the adverse financial climate of the first quarter of 2009.    

We’re not in a recession, and things are picking up in the US, though by the hysterics in the media you wouldn’t know it.

While marketing and innovation are both necessary in a product, with design running a close third, most believe that during recession, marketing is king. A study carried out on 600 businesses during the 1981-82 recession by McGraw Hill showed that those that made advertising their main focus during the period increased their sales by an average of 256% up to 1985, and experienced a growth in sales of 132% over those that focused on holding their capital rather than sales.

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to ignore innovation altogether.  Businesses may well benefit by finding innovative ways of manufacturing and running the business at reduced costs, and also by offering customers new types of product and ways of achieving their own results during financially difficult periods.

In fact, it would be a mistake to equate advertising and marketing, the latter of which is a combination of innovation and advertising. Innovation, marketing, design and advertising are all interlinked, and by focusing on all four, a business might benefit over those that do not when money is tight. However, if your innovation and design is good enough, marketing becomes easier and advertising easier still.

Apple, for example, find marketing relatively easy because their products are well innovated and designed. According to the late Steve Jobs, design may appear to be about how things work, but in fact when you get down to it, it is really about the way things work.

Apple products work the way their customers want them to work. It’s a simple as that.

During the first quarter of 2009, and deep into a recession, Apple in recorded record profits 6% up on the same period of 2008 when the financial climate was brighter. In doing so, Apple recorded quarterly revenue of over $10 billion “for the first time ever.” (Steve Jobs). This was due to their marketing strategy for brilliant innovated products.

Marketing is understanding what your customers are looking for then focusing on producing that exactly. Meet your customers’ needs with laser accuracy and you have little left to do except open the tills and count the proceeds.

Do as Apple does, and target your marketing and innovation efforts on design features that meet the needs and desires of your customers so well that all these customers have to decide is how they are going to pay – not if, and not when.

Share this: