Implement Business Excellence 3 times faster than traditional consultant-led approaches
The traditional consultant-led model for full implementation of business excellence has failed SMEs and SMBs. Unfortunately, penetration of the global SME / SMB sector with that traditional approach is only around 1%. Businesses perceive the costs of hiring the management consultants for extended engagements are prohibitive and that even with such skilled external assistance, the time required to institutionalise the techniques takes many years. Making matters worse, the international reference frameworks for excellence typically used in those engagements do not ensure that everything links to everything else in a fully integrated manner.
The good news is that provided an SME / SMB undertakes our recommended implementation steps within all 5 Prerequisites of the MBE approach in the right sequence, the foundation for ongoing and ever-improving Business Excellence capability can be built within 2 years while ensuring that all the key elements are fully integrated. It’s relatively simple and costs little. And even within that first year, the quantified benefits will far exceed the costs. What’s not to like?
Once CEOs realise that this tremendous competitive advantage is well within their grasp at low cost, the percentage of total SMEs / SMBs embarking on their own business excellence journey should accelerate dramatically beyond the current abysmal global figure of approximately 1%. The positive impact on each of them would be enormous. At the same time, the collective impact on their national economies would be substantial.
Key Steps within the 5 Prerequisites
During that first 12 months you will begin with development and progressive implementation of your agreed 1,2,3 or 5-year Strategic Plan (Prerequisite 2: Shared Strategic Direction).
Then you would undertake multiple process improvement projects – at least 5 small Fast Process Improvement projects, plus 1 large Business Process Reengineering project – that individually and collectively yield substantial net benefits. (Prerequisite 1: Process Design & Improvement).
Every month you will monitor your improved business performance via the agreed set of ‘right’ KPIs defined during development of your Strategic Plan. Reporting of operational and strategic progress and trends is easy due to the state-of-the art graphical charting techniques provided. (Prerequisite 3: Performance Measurement & Feedback)
Towards the end of the 12 months, you will build your capability for both process management and knowledge management – linking process flows and the associated knowledge flows via the powerful, low cost software provided. (Prerequisite 4: Knowledge Capture & Leverage)
By working through the recommended steps of Prerequisites 1-4, your people will already have developed a much improved capability to lead and manage change. Additional practical techniques and guidance are provided. (Prerequisite 5: Leadership & Management of Change).
Tying everything together for customer delight and a common language
Progressive integration of everything from Prerequisite 1 to Prerequisite 5 over 2 years and beyond is essential to maximize the overall net benefits! The good news is that integration is automatic if your people follow the recommended implementation sequence and continually use the standard language of each Prerequisite.
From ‘fire-fighting’ business problems to continuous business improvement
By the end of the first year, you and your people will have experienced all of the key techniques necessary to implement Business Excellence according to the My Business Excellence approach. And by repetitive use of the simple 1-page spreadsheet provided, you will be keeping track of the individual and cumulative overall Benefit to Cost ratio of all the projects to date – including the opportunity costs of having your people involved in teams to improve targeted processes.
Extending the implementation approach into Year 2 and beyond largely involves repeats of the techniques experienced for the first time during Year 1. (For example, at the beginning of Year 2, you will ‘roll forward’ your Strategic Plan by another year.) Your organization’s overall capability will accelerate and the organization’s net benefits will compound.
This continues year after year. Business excellence techniques will progressively become the foundation of your organisation’s agile, high performance culture.
Conclusion
Any SME / SMB can implement Business Excellence at least 3 times faster than the traditional consultant-led approaches by working through all 5 Prerequisites for the first time in just 12-15 months. But remember, that’s just the start of your organization’s exciting and never-ending journey!