Roundtable participants: Tom Atkins (moderator), President, The Tramore Group; Maria Aiello, CIO, Morguard Investments; Steve Hatami, VP, Information Services, Nestlé Canada; Barry Hillier, CIO, Pinty’s Delicious Foods; William Ip, CTO, Wardrop; Andrew Wood, CIO, Aon Reed Stenhouse
ATKINS: In what manner are business process improvements initiated in your enterprise?
WOOD: Globally we have an objective that’s defined as operational excellence – any initiative that can improve the operational efficiency of the organisation is recognised, put forward, and measured based on potential impact. Within the Canadian organisation we initiate through a newly created post of Executive Vice President, National Operations. This is an individual from out of industry and the intent is to challenge the traditional way in which things are performed within the organisation, to take an external best practice view. All major projects are being identified and/or ratified by this individual, looking at the overall goals and objectives we have as an organisation, both from a growth and a cost-management perspective. We’ve also taken on process specialists and we are mapping all key processes, breaking activities down to the constituent level. From an overall BPM viewpoint, we’re building a national repository so that components can be reused across the company. We are then aligning our IT strategy, which is services based, to these components.
IP: Improving business processes is a fairly new initiative at Wardrop. A key issue for us has been to understand what our business processes are in the first place, and then getting our business lines to understand the difference between their micro-processes and the macro-processes that drive the company. We have identified owners of business processes and it’s incumbent on them to identify those micro- versus the macro-processes. These business process owners are responsible for overseeing the macro-process for the company and it’s incumbent on them to drive down to the business lines, drive down to the smaller areas, to define what the micro-processes are and how they match up to the macro-process.
ATKINS: How important is collaboration between the business and IM/IT in implementing a new or revised business process, and what does that collaboration look like?
HATAMI: Initiatives that involve significant business process change require an appropriate level of business sponsorship and ownership. Often, such changes may require even greater dependencies on the enabling technologies. As such, it is critical to keep the business process and corresponding technology changes as aligned and harmonized as possible. There’s a significant degree of co-dependency, and recognition of this fact is critical to a successful and lasting business change. In my experience those initiatives that have been successful were those that realized the need for a unified set of objectives/plans and effectively mobilized business and technical resources in a collaborative fashion.
AIELLO: I firmly believe that a collaborative relationship between IT and the business must exist in order to effect change positively and enable it to be successful in the longer term. The model that looks best in my mind is IT or the CIO playing a role in all the key strategic relationships of an organisation’s hierarchy. There are a lot of people who look at IT and think, “Oh no, we need to spend more money on technology”, so you really have to take that technology hat off in those meetings and present the opportunities for process improvement that may be leveraged with existing tools.
ATKINS: What would you describe as the best example of a successful business process change initiative in your organisation, and what were the keys to its successful implementation?
HILLIER: Our biggest success this year has been our “Inventory Accuracy” project. Strong support from the executive group and the dedication of the project team were key factors in the initiative’s success. Early on the executive committed to the board to improve the organisation’s inventory control practices. This increased visibility helped garner support from the entire management team. The project team really bought into the vision and dedicated themselves to making the process changes happen. Of course there were obstacles, but support from the top enabled the team to overcome them and actually exceed original expectations of the initiative.
AIELLO: Talent Management is a major initiative that came out of our Operational Efficiencies Initiatives committee and was implemented last year. One of the areas where the company has focused is the human capital within the organisation. With the acceleration in the company’s growth, Morguard has realized that in order to adequately grow and mentor our internal staff, we need to manage the talent pool. Talent Management was designed to address these issues. There were several key success factors that supported the initiative. First, the senior management support of the process changes was imperative. Second, the emphasis and reinforcement of accountability, because without reinforcement there is no compliance and no adoption. Third, a structured follow up to measure compliance and capture feedback and suggestions for improvement.
ATKINS: How important is it to take a holistic view – people, process, and technology – in planning business process improvements?
WOOD: In one word, fundamental. I don’t think it’s possible to have a successful implementation unless you look at it holistically. Interaction nowadays between people, process, and technology is so intertwined; if you look at them independently or separately you’re not going to optimise the solution that you come up with. At Aon, we’re taking an integrated approach and looking at all three of those aspects – looking at the process, looking at the impact, ensuring that the systems are truly aligned with the process, that the roles are appropriately aligned with the process, that the individuals are performing the right task at the right time, and that that they have the tools available to enable them to do that effectively. So from our perspective, for this type of initiative to be successful it must be undertaken as a holistic exercise.
IP: It’s important to understand that it should not be technology that drives business process but people that drive it. One of Wardrop’s initiatives right now is the concept of getting the right people in the right role. In the past we’ve had people driving processes and projects incorrectly because they were in the wrong role for what their skill sets were. So getting the right people in the right role is critical. The next step is identifying what the processes are and understanding the distinction between macro- and micro-processes, and how they link. Then you find the right technology for the people and the processes to go forward.
HILLIER: We’d asked IT staff to lead process changes in the other areas of the organisation, and they had to be aware of and compensate for their biases. Ask a carpenter to build a house and he’ll build you a wooden house. Ask an IT guy to solve a problem and he’s going to come up with a technical solution. We had to move away from that and really come to grips with understanding that the IT portion of the projects we’re working on is sometimes very small. The role we had to play was more one of facilitator, understanding and working with people; getting everyone involved in the project and letting IT take the back seat.
ATKINS: Have your process initiatives extended beyond the boundary of your own enterprise?
HATAMI: We are making sure that the foundations are in place for us to be able to work more collaboratively with our suppliers and customers. We have been spending more time with our customers to see how we can collaborate with them better, in terms of ensuring that we can provide fresher products and at the same time respond to their dynamic demands in a timely manner. On the supplier side, we’ve been doing the same thing. We have been initiating discussions with many of our suppliers to make sure that we have a better understanding of where some of the challenges and issues might be. In essence, the vision is to work toward creating an extended value chain rather than having a series of individual enterprises.
ATKINS: How do you decide whether or not IM/IT is required to enable a new or improved process? How do you ensure that IT is not being used for IT’s sake?
AIELLO: I don’t believe that any process change in today’s business environment could be satisfactorily accomplished without being accompanied by technology improvements. However, the technology must be introduced in collaboration, with business value attached to the process improvement, supported by the appropriate stakeholders. There needs to be a plan that says process must be stabilised before you introduce any degree of automation – understanding that automation will only be done to improve the process; we’re not going to introduce bells and whistles without business justification. So through improving a process, you’re leveraging the investment in technology. I believe that a lot of us don’t take advantage of the technology that’s in place to improve processes. I think it’s a balance between understanding the opportunities provided by the technology, and working with the business to identify what usage of that technology provides the most value. We, as technology leaders, need to sell innovation that can be leveraged by technology, which in turn can enhance the business process.
HILLIER: Because the IT group is typically the facilitator in our business process improvement initiatives there was a fear in the organisation that these initiatives would turn into IT projects and we were going to implement all kinds of new systems. So we really look at the processes first and map them out and then see where IT could improve efficiencies after the fact – IT doesn’t lead the cause. When we develop our implementation budget, we clearly define IT’s role in the project and we reach consensus with the stakeholders and then get sign-off from the project sponsors. In some cases we might elect to do something that perhaps isn’t as efficient as it could be, and we run with it manually first for a while, just to prove it out or prototype it; then once we’ve got the kinks ironed out, we automate it. We use that approach a lot, and also it saves us money.
ATKINS: What people- or culture-shaping levers are important in successfully introducing process change?
IP: A big lever is complete acceptance of the process from the top down and across the corporation. It also helps the adoption when the process applies to both the executives as well as the business lines and the plant floor. Having champions on the plant floor is also important. Many processes are viewed as coming from corporate but if there are champions among the staff on the plant floor, and the staff understand why the change is being made, they will help the adoption process from the ground up. The new processes also have to have value to users individually, as well as to the company. Those processes that have a challenge in being adopted are the ones that the general staff population don’t see as being of personal value to them; they don’t see an immediate improvement to the way they work, or anything hitting their bottom line. And finally, you must not police and punish as part of the enforcement process; you must train and gain acceptance.
HATAMI: Change management is critical, and by this I mean helping people through the change. At various levels of the organisation, people must understand the reasoning behind the significant change that is about to happen. Even more importantly, it’s necessary for them to feel that they are part of that change. Rather than seeing the change as something being done to them, they need to see that they are part of the process. This is something that needs to be reinforced on an ongoing basis. The people engaged in these processes often don’t have a view of the bigger picture, and they may not see the value in the changes they are being made to adopt. So reinforcing that bigger picture is critical.
ATKINS: How do you deal with employees that can’t adapt to the new process, or are no longer required in the new process?
WOOD: From our standpoint it’s a very early engagement of HR in the process to understand exactly who is going to be impacted and what the nature of the impact is; and coming up with, as far as we can, a fair and equitable policy in terms of how we’re going to treat those people. Sometimes we know we have certain key individuals who will not adapt, and at some point there has to be a tough line adopted for people to recognise that this is something we’re serious about doing. This sounds cold, but unless something is done of that magnitude, people will go back to the old way of doing things. They’ll think that it’s something that can be bypassed – that if they ignore it, it too shall pass. And a really strong message needs to be sent out and supported by the executive. But within that, as far as possible, you must have a fair, humane and equitable policy for ensuring that staff are dealt with fairly.
ATKINS: It often requires communication, training, and ongoing assistance for the change to take hold and gain acceptance. How important are these soft skills to the success of the project?
HILLIER: It’s essential not to underestimate the amount of effort and support that’s going to be required when you cut over and go live. It’s when you actually go live and really begin “living” the new processes that you find additional problems – like scenarios that you haven’t figured out how to deal with. It’s also then that the people who aren’t really supportive of the initiative will come out of the woodwork, and they need to be managed. You also have to really let people know that adoption is not optional; it’s a requirement of performing business efficiently. What hasn’t worked is when we don’t go back and measure things after the fact. Everyone would agree to it and then over time they’d drift back to doing it the way they were before. So you have to manage the change all the way through to the end, and make sure it’s adopted.
WOOD: You need to fully communicate to everyone and continue to have frequent and regular communications on progress, on the state of any of the aspects of change, so that everyone can be included. But you also need to be cognisant of the types of media that are used for communication because you can over-communicate to the point that people ignore regular blasts that go out to all employees. It’s also important to never underestimate the effort once you go live. The early part of the project – coming up with the design, the documentation, the materials for training, education, ongoing support – is really quite straightforward if you know what you’re doing. The challenge comes in ensuring that you can support that product once it’s live, and that you’ve got the necessary resources available to you post go-live. And to be honest, in one of our implementations we didn’t allocate sufficient resources to that and we suffered the consequences. That’s when projects succeed or fail.
ATKINS: What is one of your key pain points when it comes to business process change?
AIELLO: In our case, process is owned by the business. Where I believe I struggle most is when the initiatives aren’t developed in alignment with IT. I think there has to be a very strong partnership with IT and the business to guarantee a higher probability of success. I strongly believe the business process initiatives benefit in those cases where the business engages IT in their implementation.
ATKINS: Thinking of a large business process change initiative you have undertaken, if you had it to do all over again, what would you do differently?
HATAMI: One can always do a better job at identifying and communicating impact of change. It is critical to ensure impacted stakeholders are engaged and are aware of the how, who, when aspects. I would also add that projects, by definition, have a beginning and an end, but it’s important to make sure that the end point is defined to include the subsequent maintenance and support, so that there is not this expectation in the minds of the business stakeholders that once you’ve gone through the cut-over, it’s now ‘let’s move to the next one’.
IP: Being able to fully map out and budget the post go-live requirements of the change is something that we seem to lack. We budget well for the up-front implementation but we don’t do a good job managing the maintenance mode; so that whole change process after the initial rollout is something that I would love to do differently on a number of our projects. I’d also like to take more time properly mapping the process against the technology, as opposed to throwing technology at an existing process and just blindly automating. That’s something we’re starting to do now. 076196