The Dawn of Possibility

Seeking opportunity in the evolving digital workspace

We have all heard the business clichés. “Best Practice”, “Business Process Improvement”, or even the revered “Continuous Improvement” - All positive and exciting initiatives.   From an operational perspective, organizations rarely take the time to document and understand process. They simply assume staff are doing their job. We are aware of the typical productivity suckers; play-off season, cooler-time banter and now the proliferation of mobile devices - all exacerbated with the work-from-home generation. Nevertheless, the general assumption is everyone works as efficiently as they can. But when we do seek to be “bigger, better, faster”, today’s technological world abounds with a cornucopia of opportunity to enhance business efficiency. 

SEEDS OF CHANGE

What drives change? We witnessed two major catalysts in the past fifty or more years – globalization and technology. Combined, these two paradigm shifts continue to enable a competitive landscape that is both promising and a slippery slope. Competition is in constant and violent flux with geo-political shifts, social trends, and ever-morphing technology. Over the years, global corporate consolidation witnessed labour cost “rationalization” with automation playing a key role in efforts to reduce cost. There is significant growth opportunity selling to an expanded global footprint. Competition is fierce with geographically varying labour rates, skill levels, safety culture and other factors. If the competition can do it cheaper, better, faster you have to react or adjust to the new global pricing level either by sacrificing margin or cutting cost – and the spiral begins. The demands area a constant calling and not going away. It’s not a challenge - it’s an opportunity.

What does it all mean for business? Let’s take a hypothetical non-business example of where we are heading in the new era of technology - cloud computing and the invasive Internet of Things (IoT). 

You can no longer sneak a tomato sandwich at 2am because the fridge clocked in and logged minus 1 tomato, 2oz of dressing, 2 slices of bread. The salt shaker logged six shakes (you are only supposed to have 4 because of your blood pressure which, by the way, at the time of eating was 145/100). You washed it down with 7.4 ounces of milk and based on average consumption rates, it ordered a refill – it’ll be delivered on Thursday. 

Incidentally, this scenario is closer to reality than you might think. In fact, some of it is here now.

So what’s the big deal? As with the midnight-sandwich, a lot of things happened in the background using technology, computing, and automation that would have normally required quite a bit of time and effort otherwise. But in this scenario we don’t see it. In the future, we no longer make grocery lists, or anticipate when you might run out, or even count calories. You didn’t really have to do anything other than the main intention – enjoy a sandwich. 

From a business perspective the analogy directly translates to the essence of someone just doing their job - function-focused resources. What if we can remove all the peripheral processes and just focus on the task at hand? What if we didn’t have to walk a paper form to the next desk or cabinet, sort thru the pile, chase to correct errors and omissions, shred it, archive it, or heaven forbid, retrieve it from the archive? What is the added value to any of these tasks, and how much of that time is spent compared to actually doing something useful? Clearly, there is a price tag on those non-value added functions. The business challenge is to see where technology can be applied such that it removes tasks that a computer can do very efficiently - more of, more accurate, faster. More importantly, what can you do with the freed time? Is this not opportunity? I refer to it as the “administrative burden vs task focus” dichotomy.

OUR TECHNICAL CHALLENGE 

In today’s climate of ‘clouds’ and global winds there exists an interesting convergence of technology, people and process.

Technology

Technology continues to evolve. The shear prevalence of mobile devices and cloud technology is testimony enough - ubiquitous and stealthy. We are often oblivious to the technology that surrounds us in our everyday life. Who knew that your actual GPS coordinate would be stored within the picture you took? At the time it became exposed most didn’t even know what GPS was. 

Consider technology maturation from an ‘adoption rate’ – the cost and effort it takes to acquire and make use of. For example, the deployment of a mainframe computer just fifty years ago took more effort to build the room in which it was housed, and all it did was simple arithmetic and basic sorting and text printing. The two-hundred-megabyte disk drive was the size of a washing machine and cost north of fifty thousand dollars. Compare to your smartphone that you have up and running in literally minutes - enter the language of preference, turn on location services (or not) and select a Wifi connection – enjoy – a thousand bucks and much less.  Ever hear of anyone using a smartphone operators guide? Compare that to the mainframe operators guide. If the term mainframe escapes you, skip the comparison – you wouldn’t believe it anyway. Nevertheless, that new smartphone does your banking, emails, is a clock, a calendar, alerts you to stock prices, plays movies, monitors your caloric intake and heartbeat, surfs the web – oh, and it’s also a video-conference phone you carry in your pocket wherever you go in the world! I don’t know why we still call it a phone.

The glue that brings all this technology together (and we never see the glue) we call ‘cloud’.  Whether you trust it or not, you are using it.  This concept is arguably the greatest enabler of technological application since Marconi’s discovery of radio transmission in 1859. It is what untied our devices from the physical leashes of endless wire and cables. As with wireless, cloud extends our applications beyond our desk to an unlimited arena – literally globally.  The convergence of mobile devices, cloud computing and rapid application development platforms is the dawn of the new age of possibility. Exactly what to do with it is up to us.

People

To make this possible requires people – at least so far. An interesting side-note, baby-boomers are the first generation that gained the upper hand in their ability to gain knowledge faster than their parents. In the past children learned largely from the interaction of their elders and peers. Today, kids socialize and learn from their self-guided use of the internet and it is becoming more and more prevalent. Generation Alpha possess a unique way in which to learn of their environment and how to interact within it. This generation is born with ubiquitous technology, accept it, and very much are dependent on it. They do not care that their personal information is “out there” and in fact, expect to benefit from it. It is the age of ‘free’ knowledge literally at your fingertips. Of course, a caveat exists in the age old adage, “you get what you pay for”. Regardless, compare this to the prior generation(s) that fear the intrusion of personal space with the likes of the various social media giants of today. Look at the subscriber numbers to realize ‘use and acceptance’ of technology.

Process

Recognition of the real process, and documentation thereof, are key factors to effectively manage a business, or more succinctly, managing a business process, be it sales, engineering, manufacturing, customer support, finance, HR or other. Aside from just knowing and documenting what is really going on, process reviews allow the left hand to know what the right hand is doing. Staff also realize precisely what their role is in an organization – where they fit and its relevance. These are sideline benefits that can go a long way under the right leadership that fosters and demands creativity and accountability.

Why is process important? It is somewhat of an ambiguous entity, something that can take on a life of its own if left unchecked. In simple terms, a business process can be defined as the manner in which information transfers to another person or function. Process simply relays or transforms information into new information or context (filtered, sorted, aggregated, graphed, reported, you name it). If you subscribe to the notion that ‘information is power’, process becomes a very important “thing” to control.

With today’s Business Process Management (BPM) tools the ability to document process in a clear and concise manner has never been so easy. It is literally drag-and-drop technology. In fact, the hardest part is getting the staff to articulate or admit precisely what they do. Some organizations have a detailed set of process documentation, but it does not mean they are executing it. Processes change and documentation is left behind. This no longer needs to be the case. The very tools use to document the process are used to evoke and control the processes the staff operate under. Say what you do – do what you say. 

As an example, consider a simple expense form. This process of entry, approval, reimburse can be represented in a system by three distinct icons. The entry form is defined from the drag’n’drop of an excel spreadsheet defining the fields to enter. The next process, ‘approval’, is an icon that simply lists expense forms where the approved field is blank. The reimburse icon is identical to the approval list except that it only displays expense forms that are now marked as approved but the reimbursed amount is zero. This simple example is accomplished in literally 10 minutes by drag’n’dropping one spreadsheet (the expense form) and two list/view icons. Defining the criteria for listing or viewing relevant expense forms is done by selecting field criteria (ie. where ‘approved’ equals a blank field or ‘reimburse amount’ equals zero).  Again, consider the 3 icon graphic becomes the framework in which a business defines, documents and executes its processes.

OUR BUSINESS CHALLENGE AND THE OPPORTUNITY

Given the new digital age and climate, businesses are in a great position to benefit, and many are already doing so today. With the new found ability to clearly document and control business process, we have untapped opportunity to improve and manage business efficiency and effectiveness – in short, function-focused resources. 

With today’s technological advancements, projects can have major impact and need not be onerous and costly. The return on investment can be measured in weeks and not years as with the legacy ERP’s of past. With the right selection of vendors to help with process and requirements definition, technology platforms, and the deployment thereof, business can rapidly and cost-effectively thrive in the new digital age and dawn of opportunity.