Definition

As the telecommunications industry strives for speed in developing and introducing new technology and creating new services, the speed and quality of the internal processes that must actually deliver on these promises are often overlooked. Executives who realize that their organization’s output is only as good as the engine delivering it have a secret weapon: business process revolution. Revolutionizing business processes will create a fast process environment and allow an organization to achieve frictionless operation. This marvelous management technology will dramatically improve results by tuning the process engine to its peak performance.

Overview

In management meetings, are the following heard more often than one would prefer?

• "Continuing to change requirements is going to delay product introduction."
• "We can get the order, but we cannot ship it until next quarter."
• "If you are asking me to reduce cost, we are going to miss the schedule."
• "Our head count continues to rise, but we are not seeing the output increase."
• "Inventory increased again this quarter."
• "We need to get our people to work harder! Don’t they understand the problem?"

If so, revolutionizing business processes can turn these staff-meeting bombshells into annual-report highlights.

Processes are the organization’s mechanism of creating and delivering products and services to its customers. The efficiency of this mechanism is one of the key factors that determines overall corporate performance. Data indicates that when an organization commits to an improvement program, it can reduce development time to market by 50 percent, increase net profit by 25 percent, and improve productivity by 20 percent.

Process improvement is a structured methodology that involves leadership commitment, objective setting, organizational empowerment, and accountability at all levels. Its success requires a thorough knowledge of the methodologies and tools of process improvement, along with the experience to apply them to each unique process target.

The objective of this tutorial is to present an overview of the methodologies and tools that make up business process improvement. Additionally, it will allow organizations to self-assess their need for a process revolution.