Most of the organizations around the world are trying to improve efficiency by deploying new operations-oriented solutions. How come more than half of them fail to provide the expected results? More importantly, what can you do to be on the upside of this critical opportunity? Read on to get a few hints on how to swim in this shark infested waters.
According to statistics published by Panorama Consulting, more than 59% of corporate IT investments are targeted to improve operational efficiency. Oddly enough, roughly 53% of them deliver less than half of the expected benefits and, of these, 62% fail due to operational and process issues.
I’m guessing you get the picture. Deploying an operational solution is certainly no walk in the park and it does entail a few complications that, if not properly understood and mitigated, will drain your resources and still make you come up short on expectations.
So, what are the common problems in deploying an operational-grade solution?
- Complex, costly and low value activities: Most organizations tend to focus on business and silo-oriented requirement definition. This leads to gaps in overall process design and integration issues that just transform your operation in a nightmare.
- Cumbersome end-to-end processes: As the standard module oriented solution construction kicks in, you completely miss the ability to pinpoint bottlenecks and optimization opportunities that derive from a complete, end-to-end process overview. The result is a staggering amount of additional overhead and redundant activities.
- Lower productivity: Any change takes time to set in and details do make the difference in high tension environments. Most companies either are forced to or believe they can increase efficiency by using out of the box, standardized solutions, which inevitably translates into redundant activities, lower effectiveness and loss of productivity.
- Spreadsheet rampage: As processes are not effectively mapped and existing information does not fit the reporting needs, because it does not reflect the actual process, spreadsheets start flying around and actual knowledge starts to be propagated and lost in the multiple translations and email hops. The result: nobody actually knows what’s going on.
Does this sound familiar? The bad news is that it’s not easy to prevent these problems from appearing. The good news is that it’s possible. Here are a few hints we’ve picked up over the years that have help us and our customers to escape the missed expectations trap:
- Focus on operations-oriented process design, not requirement mapping. Requirement mapping is just one of the activities of process design. Process design must take into consideration critical aspects as stakeholder integration, activity execution and control, process visibility, information flow and KPI’s. By truly mapping an end-to-end, operations oriented process you are assuring that bottlenecks are avoided, activities are properly aligned with reality and that optimization opportunities are tackled as early as possible;
- Pilot solutions in real life conditions. Operations can’t be understood from a desk, you need to be on the ground. Go there, try it out as the process was designed and collect vital information to improve each activity and the process as a whole. The net result is a consistently effective landscape, that maps the actual operation and delivers better efficiency;
- Consider real time your best friend, because it will give you the ability to know, not guess, what’s going on. Focus on building process dashboards that have the important information and make sure they’re accurate and reliable. If you want to escape the spreadsheets, you must give people the information they need, when they need it and they must trust it;
- Get on with change management, don’t expect that it will happen on its own. Start early on, identify stakeholders, involve them from the kick off and make sure responsibilities and authority for transforming the landscape and the organization are understood and in place. Make sure there is global visibility of the change management process, especially regarding status and target completion. Responsibility works best when it’s published, not hidden;
- Please, do it incrementally. Yes, I know, people love a big bang. More often than not it’s just that, a bang, no results. Design a go live plan that brings on change on pieces that make sense, that provide enough return to be justifiable and are manageable. Risk mitigation starts by reducing the amount of change that you’re bringing on to manageable amounts. Only then you can be sure you’ll be successful.
It may seem as common sense, but you’d be surprised how many times these simple principles are overlooked to favor unrealistically easy implementations, quick wins or politically correct, ERP oriented mega projects.
Focus on the bottom line and make sure you bring on results based on what actually drives your organization: fluid, flexible, smart, connected processes that help you do more with less.
