(CLP) Programs

Appleton Greene corporate training programs are all process-driven. They are used as vehicles to implement tangible business processes within clients’ organizations, together with training, support and facilitation during the use of these processes. Corporate training programs are therefore implemented over a sustainable period of time, that is to say, between 1 year (incorporating 12 monthly workshops), and 4 years (incorporating 48 monthly workshops). Your program information guide will specify how long each program takes to complete. Each monthly workshop takes 6 hours to implement and can be undertaken either on the client’s premises, an Appleton Greene serviced office, or online via the internet. This enables clients to implement each part of their business process, before moving onto the next stage of the program and enables employees to plan their study time around their current work commitments. The result is far greater program benefit, over a more sustainable period of time and a significantly improved return on investment.

Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. All (CLP) programs are implemented over a sustainable period of time, usually between 1-4 years, incorporating 12-48 monthly workshops and professional support is consistently provided during this time by qualified learning providers and where appropriate, by Accredited Consultants.

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Executive summary

Process Re-engineering

It is often said that an organization consists of people, processes, and tools. People execute processes, using tools.

This training program will focus mainly on improving the “processes” in any organization; whereas “people” would fall into the realm of human resources, and “tools” would fall into the realm of information technology.

Processes are usually re-engineered (in other words, optimized or improved) in two major dimensions – efficiency and cost. We will cover both dimensions, along with the various strategies and tactics for gaining the most out of these dimensions, in theoretical and practical detail.

In a nutshell, processes can be streamlined, automated, outsourced, or eliminated. There are unique benefits to each of these choices, depending on the particular organizational situation or context. Knowing why and how a process should be re-engineered in a certain way is largely based on a combination of expertise and experience. The more you do it, the more easily it will come to you, and the more easily you will be able to advise others in your organization.

Before re-engineering any process, it would be preferable to map out in detail the chronological steps within that process, as well as the owner and particular timing of each individual step. This way, you will be able to see the workflow and the interdependencies. Segmentation is also a good skill to learn, which enables you to break down the process into a piecemeal or molecular level.

Then, it would be useful to discover the root causes of a given process – the reasons why it is currently being done this way. The root cause analysis should be counterpoised with the needs analysis, thus comparing the existing inputs with the desired outputs, before any process re-engineering is actually undertaken.

In major organizations, senior management approval would be needed before re-engineering an important process in an impactful manner. The potential impacts may affect the staff and the organizational structure as a whole; therefore, a favorable business case would generally need to be presented and approved by the relevant stakeholders before any actions can be taken. The core of the business case should show the stakeholders that efficiency or cost, or ideally both, can be significantly optimized or improved if the proposed process re-engineering takes place.

This program will dive into the various ways in which either efficiency or cost, or both, can be optimized or improved for any given process. Optimizing or improving efficiency consists of reducing the lead time or the efforts required to execute a process. Optimizing or improving costs may consist of strategic sourcing, outsourcing, offshoring, automating the process, and so on.

The objective of this program is to help you and your organization better understand how to make processes more efficient and less costly. It is my hope that, at the end of the program, you will be able to apply the learnings and insights to address any processes, however complex, in order to re-engineer them for the benefit of your organization as a whole.

Process mapping (source: projectmanager.com)

Why is process re-engineering so important?

To remain competitive, organizations should always strive to operate in a more efficient and less costly manner. Technology is also evolving at a fast pace, such that new methods regularly become available that allow organizations to do things in quicker and cheaper ways. Process re-engineering accepts the premise that every now and then, any given organizational process should be reviewed and re-engineered in order to gain an advantage in terms of time, labor, or cost – thus allowing your company to keep its competitive edge in the market.

What happens if you don’t do process re-engineering?

Old-fashioned ways become obsolete, and any company that insists on doing things the old way is going to risk a loss in market share. Process re-engineering allows your organization to take a step back and see if any processes need to be adapted to keep up with the changing times. If you don’t do it, your competitors will, and you will be forced to catch up afterward, which may be too late. Your company may also incur higher costs by doing things the old way.

Who is best placed in an organization to do process re-engineering?

Technically, anyone in an organization can suggest ways to optimize or improve an organizational process. Where there is a process owner, he or she should actively lead the effort to search for quicker and cheaper ways for that given process. Senior management should be open-minded and encourage employees to undertake process re-engineering whenever possible. Human resources should allow for flexibility in staffing, as processes can often be streamlined or automated such that employees would subsequently need to find new roles and responsibilities within the organization. Frontline and operational teams who are responsible for serving customers should also be proactive in looking for opportunities to optimize or improve the existing ways of doing things.

Who would process re-engineering involve?

In addition to the team(s) currently executing the process (for example, customer service), any re-engineering effort would also involve senior management for approval and signing off the business case. Finance may have to approve the necessary budget for implementation. Human resources may be involved if any changes in staffing are required during and after the process re-engineering. Operational and IT teams may be involved to re-route any impacted workflow, which may touch upon certain systems and applications used by employees. If the re-engineered process changes the way business is conducted, advice may be sought from legal and compliance teams. There may be other teams involved as well.

How long does re-engineering a process usually take?

Depending on the process, re-engineering it may take anywhere from a few weeks to a few years. If it is a simple reorganization, such as reordering tasks or changing the composition of the teams, it can be implemented right away and the staff will take a few weeks to adapt and be completely up to speed. If it involves overhauling certain systems that are used company-wide, as in data migration for example, the entire process may take a few years to be completed. It is important to have a roadmap at the outset, and to remain on schedule and on budget as much as possible.

Example of a process re-engineering cycle (source: Wikipedia)

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Curriculum

Process Re-engineering – Part 1- Year 1

1. Part 1 Month 1 Organizational Overview
2. Part 1 Month 2 Processes Overview
3. Part 1 Month 3 Process Mapping
4. Part 1 Month 4 Process Segmentation
5. Part 1 Month 5 Root Causes
6. Part 1 Month 6 Needs Analysis
7. Part 1 Month 7 Business Case
8. Part 1 Month 8 Improving Efficiency
9. Part 1 Month 9 Reducing Costs
10. Part 1 Month 10 Strategic Sourcing
11. Part 1 Month 11 Outsourcing & Offshoring
12. Part 1 Month 12 Digital Innovation

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Program Objectives

The following list represents the Key Program Objectives (KPO) for the Appleton Greene Process Re-engineering corporate training program.

Process Re-engineering – Part 1- Year 1

1. Part 1 Month 1 Organizational Overview – Organizations consist of people, processes, and tools. This program will focus on the “processes” of an organization, along with detailed examples and materials on how they can be optimized so that they can work better with the “people” and “tools” of the organization.
2. Part 1 Month 2 Processes Overview – Processes can be streamlined, automated, outsourced, eliminated, or kept as-is. This module will give an overview of each scenario, along with detailed examples and materials on how and when each of them can be put into practice.
3. Part 1 Month 3 Process Mapping – Before re-engineering any process, it is important to see the process as a whole from beginning to end, and this is facilitated by a highly useful skill known as process mapping. We will show some examples and conduct some high-level training and exercises on process mapping.
4. Part 1 Month 4 Process Segmentation – Once a process is mapped, we can determine which part(s) of the process can be optimized, and the best solution for optimizing (streamline, automate, outsource, or eliminate). Segmentation is the art of scoping the precise part(s) of the process that need to be optimized or re-engineered.
5. Part 1 Month 5 Root Causes – It is often useful to find out why a certain process came into existence in the first place. A “root cause analysis” discovers the primary root causes for a certain process to exist. When re-engineering a process, we simply need to continue to address the root causes, while changing the process to render it more efficient or resource-friendly.
6. Part 1 Month 6 Needs Analysis – A “process” involves the “people” and “tools” of an organization, and consumes a certain amount of resources. A “needs analysis” discovers what the people need to get out of this process, before we can re-engineer the process so that the minimum amount of resources are to be consumed.
7. Part 1 Month 7 Business Case – Once a proposal is made on re-engineering a process, a “business case” usually needs to be put together by the stakeholders, to show the amount of resources that the proposed new process will consume (hopefully consuming less resources than previously). This module will tackle the keys to building a robust business case, with examples and materials on how this can be achieved.
8. Part 1 Month 8 Improving Efficiency – In re-engineering a process, usually we are trying to improve efficiency or cost, or both. This module will focus on improving the “efficiency” of a process, as defined by various metrics particular to each organizational situation, context, or objective.
9. Part 1 Month 9 Reducing Costs – This module will focus on reducing the “costs” of a process in terms of labor, material, or other costs. The “business case” usually sets a new target total cost for the new re-engineered process. We will go over some of the typical methods of cost-cutting.
10. Part 1 Month 10 Strategic Sourcing – This is a subset of reducing costs. Strategic sourcing is the art of reducing your cost of purchasing goods or services, which would be essential in lowering the overall costs of your new re-engineered process. We will cover some of the detailed tactics of strategic sourcing.
11. Part 1 Month 11 Outsourcing & Offshoring – Outsourcing and/or offshoring can be ways to improve either the efficiency or the cost (or both) of a given process. We will look into some of the detailed considerations before deciding to either outsource or offshore a given process, with examples and evaluations of specific pros and cons.
12. Part 1 Month 12 Digital Innovation – In the current age of process re-engineering, often the solution requires technical expertise. This module will cover some of the most common digital solutions to process re-engineering, including robotic process automation, agile methodology (scrum), optical character recognition, and artificial intelligence.

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Methodology

Process Re-engineering

Everything done by an organization is a process – whether it is designing a product, serving a customer, accepting payment, handling complaints, publishing financial statements, or anything else. To maximize efficiency and minimize cost, every process should be optimized to the extent possible, without losing the quality of the product or service that the organization provides.

Process re-engineering is the act of finding ways to improve or optimize any given process. There are countless ways to improve or optimize a process – such as reorganizing teams, reordering tasks