BPM Implementation - Necessary and Overlooked

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By John T. Wilson

In the ultra-competitive and global marketplace companies are searching for new ways to differentiate themselves and propel their organizations past their competition. To achieve these goals, many companies are initiating optimization programs aimed at process improvement, operational efficiency and general cost reduction. Whether the improvement strategy focuses on BPM, BPMS, Six Sigma or a combination thereof, the key aspect companies find most challenging is implementation. In order to drive meaningful change, companies must focus energy on successful implementation.

Once the optimal solution has been identified, it is critical from a process improvement perspective to get it implemented, because without implementation nothing will change. If companies were all great operational visionaries and implementers, all would be highly efficient and well oiled machines providing great service and profitable returns. The reality is that many companies struggle to fit this category.

Why Is Implementation a Problem?

Why do so many companies have trouble with implementation? Many companies focus too much attention on the wrong activities, do not clearly understand their fundamental operating issues and focus more on talk than action. Often an organization will devote too much energy to formalities such as what methodology they will follow, what tool they will use to document their processes and an over-abundance of meetings and discussion. As a result, these organizations are unable to achieve traction and generate results. Other organizations are stuck in bureaucratic red tape due to differing political agendas or inflexible governance models. In other cases, executive leaders are so far removed from how their organizations really work they do not understand what is wrong and have difficultly in strategically leading their team. Without the needed vision to identify key issues and the ability to develop and implement long-term strategies, executives and their respective companies will seriously limit their future potential.

Keys to Successful Implementation

How can companies correct these issues and get on to the path leading to implementation and achieve the promises of a process improvement program? The answer to this question lies in three key areas – leadership, quick and early wins, and communication of results.

Leadership

Senior executive leadership must assume responsibility and fully embrace process improvement as it aims to transform the future of their companies. To aid the executives they should leverage process improvement teams to jointly develop a long-term improvement strategy. Process specialists typically understand better than anyone else how the core processes and systems within a company interact and how they impact each cross functional team. As a result, the process specialists know where the fundamental operational weaknesses or strengths exist and how they should be addressed or exploited to enable a competitive advantage. One company’s senior executives directly teamed with the process specialists to help them design a multi-year roadmap and implement improvements that transformed their claims processes and netted them several million in annual savings.

Senior leaders must also establish mechanisms that tie key personnel accountable for leading, executing, and delivering successful change. Without accountability, the issue of implementation and the delivery of results will continue to persist. Senior leadership should also be willing to step in (when required) to squash any opposition to ensure positive change occurs. At a large telecommunications company several million dollars in recommendations were not implemented due to differing political agendas. If executives had been involved and viewed the recommendations from an enterprise perspective they could have intervened and mandated the recommended changes.

Leadership in a process improvement organization must focus on becoming inspiring leaders who drive their teams to new innovative ideas. These same individuals also need to develop great communication and evangelism skills. No business organization likes change, so this leader needs to leverage their sales skills to present compelling business cases and aid in strategic planning for senior executives to ensure the approval of new processes, technology and direction. Being able to promote understanding of new concepts and related benefits to the business will be crucial in obtaining the necessary acceptance to push the improvement platform forward. These leaders must understand the big picture and communicate the complete story cross functionally to win over the majority, if not all, of the key enterprise players. Once key cross functional players support the plan, it will become easier to implement.

Quick, Early Wins

Once operational issues are identified and statistically quantified, leadership should mandate action to resolve the known problems. It is imperative when starting a process improvement program to have a process leader who has previously successfully executed implementations. All companies want to implement successful change, but often do not know where to start.

When initially focusing on implementation, companies should start small – ensure the first implementation projects are low-risk and relatively quick to achieve (60-90 day implementation timeline). Starting small and limiting the scope will allow for expedited implementation and the delivery of near-immediate results. This quick-win strategy will begin to generate needed momentum and credibility with business leaders and their teams. From this point, a successful track record and level of trust will begin to be established which will allow future engagements to be accepted and approved much easier by the cross functional teams. One company beginning a process improvement organization was resistant to having their processes, systems, data, etc. examined. The first project was met with much opposition. But after a successful quick hit implementation, the business embraced the team and openly invited them to help with additional projects.

Although the first projects should be geared toward quick wins, it is vital that the business problem being addressed should be visible and a key point of pain for the organization in question. The solution should solve a visible and serious issue that the business will be able to witness. Without this, much process improvement work could be for naught as few people will see it or know about it.

Communication of Results

Following each successful implementation, process improvement teams need to communicate their hard work and results – they need to develop a marketing flair. To ensure senior executives and all operational teams fully comprehend and appreciate the impacts from implemented changes, a thorough before and after snapshot should be produced. This formal information should fully describe what changed, pre- and post-processes, work steps that were executed by the team during the implementation, and hard metrics such as annualized financial impacts, reduced cycle times, decreased head count, etc. The communications should also lay out how this effort fits within the overall improvement strategy and what the next phase or projects will be. Disseminating this summary information to cross functional executives and key process owners provides good mileage and team acknowledgment. Again, using this summary document and riding the wave of momentum will many times open additional opportunities to get involved and help with other internal organizations. This document should be used to communicate the team’s commitment to implementation and driving results.

Summary

As focus is placed on process improvement, the need to deliver strong results will rely fully on implementation. Without implementation nothing will change; as a result this skill will help determine many future winners and losers. Companies that are innovative and can implement meaningful change will be the winners in the new global economy; companies that cannot, will be left behind.

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