Business is the result of organisation, people, process, information and technology.
It’s the culmination of the configuration and execution around things like structure, competency, procedures, decision making, and tools. And it’s shaped over time as things like policies, habits, systems and behaviours become ingrained—the way we do things around here.
Success factors for supply chain, product performance, service levels, technology availability, company culture and even recruitment processes can all be considered to find areas for improvement.
We can start by analysing the outcome needed and spend time understanding what it would take to achieve. So as just one example—what is the volume of transactions needed per person, per day to deal with demand, and how close is each consultant to being capable of making that target? For this and other metrics, examine your processes and identify the gap between where you are and where you need to be.
This isn’t about the bells and whistles of marginal gains, yes there needs to be an eye on the periphery—in optimising supporting activities—but the focus must be on the core—on the primary activities—to build competitive advantage.
Everyone in the organisation has ideas about how things can be better. Everyone can be encouraged to try something new.