I have come into contact with and learned about many process optimization projects, and I have personally presided over and organized many projects. Looking at these projects, most of them are going in several directions such as "shortening the cycle", "improving efficiency", "improving the probability of business success", "reducing operating costs", etc., and some projects even hope to improve in an all-round way.
But is this really true?I thought: not necessarily!
First of all, different business segments of the same company have different management priorities, such as the first chain focuses on speed, efficiency and reliability, while R&D is relatively more focused on innovation, and finance is more concerned with accurate ......;Different companies in different industries, even if the business sector is the same, such as R&D, electronic product companies focus on technological innovation and reliability, while FMCG companies pay more attention to product development speed and richness ......
Secondly, even the same type of enterprise in the same industry and the same type of enterprise will have different management priorities and business strategies - differentiated strategy is the way to operate enterprises. In the early years, the outside world commented on Huawei's "first-class marketing, second-rate customer service, and third-rate products" - not that Huawei's products are really bad, but it is certain that in the market competition environment of that year, Huawei made up for the shortcomings of its own products through differentiated operational capabilities, that is, by providing high-quality and fast service capabilities, thereby reducing the attention of the market and customers to the lack of its products. This is also the reason why the "longboard theory" is widely recognized and applied.
The differential requirements of operational capabilities put forward differentiated requirements for process capacity building. Therefore, it is extremely important to think about and clarify the process capability requirements of different business segments, and use this to guide the process work plan or guide the process optimization project to be approved.
For example, for the R&D sector, whether you want to be able to launch high-quality, high-tech products or quickly launch more products, the focus of process construction and optimization will be different. The former focuses on technology planning and technology development, as for the product development process, the time cycle is not the most important, the advanced function, innovation, quality and reliability and customer experience are its focus;The latter, on the other hand, will focus on market analysis and product planning, and the product development process will focus more on development speed, plan schedule reliability and development efficiency.
Identifying the capability priorities of different business segments and clarifying the direction and dimensions of process construction requires planning and planning from the perspective of corporate strategy and overall operation: clarifying the process capability strategy portfolio of each business segment. For example, R&D should not simply think about the demands of R&D capabilities, but should collaborate with the capability status and capability strategies of different business segments such as market and after-sales to jointly form the company's unique and differentiated capabilities, just like the Huawei example mentioned above. -- Business capability is the link and bridge between process and strategy, and it is obviously an insurmountable way to identify the direction of process construction and optimization by identifying business capability requirements.
Unfortunately, from a practical point of view, not many companies have really or scientifically thought about this question: what exactly is the business capability portfolio strategy?How to build?And how to guide the process work?The result of this state is that all operations have the same requirements: cycle time (fast), timely (reliable), efficiency (cost), and effect (quality).
I remember a decade or so ago, a veteran mentioned the term "process strategy" to me, and frankly, it didn't have much meaning and significance at that timeNow it seems that "identifying the capability focus of different business segments and clarifying the direction and dimension of process construction" is actually the process of formulating "process strategy", which should be a high-level important management activity in process management.
The content described above is more macro and high-level, but in fact, this kind of management thinking and planning process of formulating process strategy is also applicable to low-level processes with different granularities, that is, the focus and target direction of each specific business process are also different, and even need to consider the differentiation from competitors, just like the "selling point", even if it is small, but it is of great significance and value.
The process strategy or strategy of the process at different levels should be the result of the joint analysis and decision-making of the process owner and higher-level leaders. Unfortunately, many managers are not aware or aware of this, and they are rarely involved and involved in the process of managing these contents. This leads to a lack of strategic direction and focus in the process of process construction and process optimizationOr the clear direction and focus, but tend to be mediocre, and the company's overall capability development needs and competitive strategy do not match, it is difficult to form an effective comprehensive capability strategy combination, and it is impossible to form core advantages.
It's the end of the year again, and the annual summary and annual planning work are on the desk again, and the process work planning and planning is still just the work of the process management functional teamHopefully, this article will be touching and thought-provoking for management.