Accelerate the Innovation Engine in Your Organization but Watch for the Potholes

With promising economic statistics in the US, some organizations are hiring again and manufacturing and retail sales are starting to turn around. Yet management remains cautious about spending and more and more are thinking about how to innovate in order to provide customers with products and services that are recession-proof.

They are asking:
--How do we innovate?
--How much should we spend on innovation?
--How much time should we devote to innovation?

But these are not the right questions. Rather, management should be asking, "How do we re-shape the culture in our organization so that innovation is just part of what we do?"

If you get the environment right, a culture of innovation will easily fall into place and the business side of your operations will be that much easier. Many organizations spend time on strategic planning and business planning but rarely spend time on building their culture, the development of values and principles and the type of reporting relationships that will support the new culture. These are requirements to get the innovation engine started.

Organizations often struggle with the on-going trade-off debate between growth and earnings, short and long-term goals, etc. They spend too much time discussing how to cut costs in order to meet monthly revenue targets and too little time talking about the longer-term opportunities and how the short-term decisions are likely to impact these. By the time leaders start to realize that their growth has been stifled by their need to meet these short-term objectives, innovation will have already been killed. Short-term thinking is perhaps one of the biggest pot holes to fill.

There is no doubt that being privately held certainly makes it easier. You'll be less prone to short-term thinking and profits, etc. demanded by shareholders and Boards that impede innovation and stifle the culture needed to foster it. However, innovation is not about private or public, retail or manufacturing, technology or science. It is about all of these and not specific to any type of industry.

Read the full article at http://www.bia.ca/articles/AcceleratetheInnovationEngine.htm

I look forward to your comments and insights.

Increase Productivity

The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business recently stated that “Canada is about to pay the price for its failure to address a productivity rate that is universally described as woeful”.

Wow – that’s huge!!!

They went on to say that the economy is expanding but is producing less than it did before the financial crisis. Today there are fewer jobs and people buying goods and services. The only way to generate more wealth for companies is to increase their productivity levels. But this isn’t just a Canadian issue. It is a reality facing most of the world’s advanced economies.

More importantly – what do we do? So many organizations have already implemented Lean and Six Sigma approaches to save money. But these have not always increased the levels of productivity expected. However, there is an opportunity to increase productivity that is fast, effective and will deliver bottom-line improvements.

There is no doubt that as organizations seek ways in which to increase productivity and save money they will reach the conclusion that they will continue to have to work with fewer resources. These organizations must use Business Process Management (BPM) to examine their key processes. BPM will also ensure that employee performance and morale are maintained. Otherwise, productivity will negatively be affected, staff motivation levels will decrease and the customers will feel the impact of these decisions.

Streamlining key business processes will increase productivity, reduce costs and optimize customer service levels. Our current situation may seem challenging but through these efforts you can identify new opportunities for managing these.

If your organization is facing any of these challenges below you can benefit from BPM:
•There is increased global competition.
•Constant price reduction demands from customers.
•Increased requirements for quality.
•Must remain competitive, innovative and profitable.
•Need to implement enhanced cost and cycle-time reduction.
•Customer satisfaction and loyalty levels need to be increased.
•Requirement to minimize all forms of waste and maximize value for the customer.
•Resources are stretched and not sure where to spend their time.
•Many key business processes are in crisis and there is lots of fire-fighting rather than looking into the root causes of the problems.
•There is blame and excuses for poor individual and group work practices.

Improving productivity growth will become an even more important component of economic growth in the future as labour forces continue to remain stagnant.

If you need advise on how to get started or want help to increase your operational effectiveness, let me know - mstanleigh@bia.ca