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Much has been written and talked about transformation, digitalization, automation, hyper-automation and other related topics that seek in one way or another the same thing: to make companies more efficient, more effective, more agile, less risky, with a better service or simply make changes that make them better in one or more of these aspects within its operation and market and that's fine. However, so much information, concepts and theories of what is the best way to follow (and perhaps there are many) ends up complicating us more than necessary and we don't translate this desire into concrete actions.
In my experience, there are five very concrete steps that we must take at least to achieve results quickly and not just ramble on about concepts:
1. Identify the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) of the business: these are those issues that the company prioritizes according to its strategic objectives (examples: growth, cost reduction, customer service, others).
2. Establish the critical business processes: create a matrix of the company's processes against the SCFs (which may have a different specific weight each) and rate on a scale of 1 to 5 (Likert scale or similar) the impact that each process has on each factor. Once this has been done, score each process by weighted average and, as a result of the analysis of the results, select the processes with the highest score and therefore the most critical ones in a sustained manner and aligned with the business strategy.
3. To survey in detail the prioritized processes: to survey in detail the activities with attributes of function, type, frequency and time and identifying the main business or decision rules involved and all the indicator and quantitative information associated with them.
4. Review the process objective and redesign it: eliminate non-value-added activities, question the best sequence to achieve it, automate flows, business rules and controls, robotize repetitive operational tasks and improve the support of the underutilized transactional system.
5. Action Plan: With the information from step 3 quantify the improvements identified in step 4 and make an effort vs. impact analysis to define an action plan starting with those changes that have a greater impact and require less effort for the company.
Obviously this improvement process is facilitated if the company's team is accompanied by an adequate Change Management, with Leadership from the Management, with Specialized Advisors that can bring benchmark or good practices and with the appropriate tools that give governance, sustainability and continuous improvement to what is already advanced, however even without that it is possible to advance.....
And you, are you still thinking about where to start.....?