What are the most pressing challenges facing your organization
today? You want your business to prosper and grow. The more attention you
pay to the right details, the better your
chances are. How do you determine the
most important areas on which to focus
the most effort?
“It is important to regularly define what
business you are in,” says Chuck Orrico,
president and co-founder of Houston-based DYONYX. “Understand the key business drivers that fuel the business. Set your
priorities based on these drivers to move
the business forward to accomplish what
you have set out to do.”
Smart Business talked with Orrico for
his insight into focusing on the right
priorities.
What are the top business challenges facing
executives in today’s business environment?
In talking with clients all over the U.S.
and the U.K., they consistently identify
their top five priorities as the following:
- They want to sustain a steady top-line
growth. - They want to grow their profits.
- They seek speed and flexibility in dealing with customers’ needs in today’s business environment.
- They want sound managerial talent.
- They seek excellence in execution.
The top two are almost always the same,
although they may be reversed from time
to time. And, excellence in execution is
almost always fifth or sixth.
Are these challenges prioritized correctly?
Excellence in execution should be the
first priority. It is more difficult to achieve
growth or increased profits without excellence in execution. It is how you execute
your key business processes that determine the speed and flexibility with which
key decisions are made.
You also need to know how you are going
to gain any efficiencies from any processes
you implement. Will these processes
increase efficiency or provide more layers
that detract from your core business?
What role does IT play in addressing these
challenges?
IT should be an enabler to the business
and not a disabler. In an effort to increase
productivity and efficiency, one of the common mistakes made by most organizations
is to allow technology to dictate the business units by focusing on emerging technologies that are advertised to streamline
work functions. As a result, the business
units are focused to re-engineer key business processes to accommodate the new
technology. In many instances, the business unit suffers a productivity downturn,
finds the technology difficult to use and
views IT as an obstacle in achieving its stated business objectives. IT must have the
mindset to understand the key business
drivers and how these drivers generate
profit and keep the company in business.
Then IT must focus on the processes that
support these business drivers and how
best to optimize them. Once optimization
occurs, IT can then implement technologies that will automate these processes,
bringing an additional level of productivity
improvement and efficiency to the business unit — again, ultimately increasing its
ability to properly execute.
What about outsourcing certain functions?
Productivity can be further increased by
outsourcing commodity-type functions,
such as network infrastructure and desktop
and help desk support. This allows more
time to focus on the key business functions.
What does continuous improvement (CI)
really mean, and how can it help overcome
challenges?
As the term implies, CI is a never-ending
process. It is much more than specific activities, such as answering the phone by the
third ring if you are in the service business.
It is reducing variations. It’s eliminating situations that do not add value. It’s improving
customer satisfaction. It is important to
determine what causes situations to occur
in the first place and focus on the causes
rather than just fighting fires. When you
engage in process improvement, you seek
to learn what causes things to happen in the
first place, and then you can use this knowledge to implement the correct solution.
Please explain process definition.
Building a task and event relationship is
called process definition. Being able to
define that process has several advantages.
If you properly determine how processes
and technology affect each other and what
your customers are really looking for, you
have a much better chance of supplying
their needs in a timely, profitable manner.
When you define any barriers to customer
satisfaction, you can eliminate them.
Examining a process can give you more
insight into its pros and cons, allowing you
to make adjustments that lead to improvement in your overall operation and customer satisfaction. Process accounts for
80 percent of all problems while people
account for only 20 percent. If you have the
right processes, your people can act more
efficiently.
CHUCK ORRICO is president and co-founder of Houston-based DYONYX. Reach him at (713) 830-5603 or [email protected].
