I think that your question has two points to it. Firstly which back office solutions can use the cloud rather than having to rely on desk-top applications to capture relevant back office data. Secondly, which solutions also provide sufficient flexibility to integrate with existing solutions such as WFM. eg’s back office optimisation software suite provides the most complete functionality on the market whilst delivering guaranteed benefits together with being fully accessible from the cloud. Standard integration components are also included that can use a secure gateway to our cloud service to allow data exchange with our back office solutions. I would be more than happy to share further details either directly; through this post or at the upcoming PPF Best Practice Seminar in Altrincham on 3 November.

This ownership should always be supported by a subsequent ability to capture consistent performance data about the processes and activities as well as the people who are performing them.

The most striking thing that I have learned after nearly 10 years in helping our customers improve overall operational management is that having access to consistent performance data is a basic need that provides the catalyst for first line managers and senior managers to implement consistent operations management best practice.

Without credible information about how well processes are performing, what activities need to be completed and how well our people are succeeding in terms of customer service, productivity, skills and quality; a manager is unable to take the right actions to improve performance and in particular the level of variance that exists.

However, simply providing access to the performance data is only the start and organisations need to put considerable emphasis on first line managers and senior manager to make sure that they are effectively trained in how to analyse and use the information to drive improvements in the level of variance in performance.

So why is it so important to drive improvements in the level of variance in performance?

Let’s consider some examples of the impact of variation across a processing function of 200 colleagues:

• 10% variance in productivity can reduce the amount of customer work completed within by the equivalent of 70 man days a week

• 5% error rate in our quality can mean that we have to have extra 10 colleagues just to re-do work that has already been completed once and this doesn’t even look at the delay to the customer

• The impact of lower skill levels across key process can mean that we need to spend 25% more time producing the same level of work

Therefore the role of first line operations managers in particular, is to analyse the variance that exists and take action.  A large proportion of variance typically exists within the people due to different skill levels; pace and motivation levels or by the fact that different people will follow different procedures to complete the same activities.

Consistent operational performance measures at a people level for skills; quality and productivity therefore should provide suitable benchmarks that can be used to quickly identify where help may be required.  This needs to go beyond simply capturing actual activity levels and has to ensure effective comparison to what Andrew referred to as ‘what good looks like’ in his blog posting.

In my personal experience, the consistency and credibility of this data and its availability on demand is the key to providing confidence to first line managers to take appropriate action and make significant improvement in people performance.

Our clients using the eg operational intelligence^® software suite certainly prove that to be the case.

Tim will be sharing his extensive experience in helping organisations set, implement and sustain effective performance management objectives at the Professional Planning Forum Conference on 19-20 April.

Having been at the Business Process Excellence in Financial Services Exchange at Canary Wharf recently, here is a summary of the main points and a discussion around one of the key themes: customer centricity.

The event was focused around improving business agility and performance whilst reducing cost and complexity.  Senior figures from across financial services gathered and shared views and experiences on how improving business processes will deliver this.

One question raised by eg was the metrics for process improvement – where did these derive from, was the management information trusted?  Did it identify prioritisation of improvement activities, monitor current and proposed process improvement and operationalise agreed improvements?  For almost all the answer was no.  

Customer centricity was certainly a key theme amongst the delegates.  One thing for sure is that people will need to make the quantum leap to do this.  Ensuring success will be no different to any other complex project.  Typical programme issues will be:

• getting executive sponsorship/stakeholder support
• making sure that you are addressing the right business problems
• training versus knowledge transfer.

In a sample survey of attendees at the event, 40% said they will actively take up a customer centricity programme following the conference.

Relatively few organisations have made significant progress in creating customer-focused organisations.  Whilst customer centricity is about thinking from the customer’s perspective, it is important not to forget the internal operational drivers that support this; such as end to end customer service management and aligning the resources of your firm to effectively respond to the ever-changing needs of the customer. 

Can you answer from a fact based perspective if you are actively managing work, people and processes consistently to deliver enhanced service to the customer?  I suspect many can’t or don’t have the real-time management information to do so.

I have a number of case studies of companies who are succeeding that I can share with you, so if you would like any of these then please email me at ask@eguk.co.uk