This past year, I had the privilege to travel to the Kingdom of Cambodia to visit the great temple complex of Angkor Wat. For those not familiar with Angkor Wat, it was built in the first half of the 12th century and is still today the largest religious structure in the world. However, Angkor Wat is but one of hundreds of temple complexes many crumbling ruins spread about the countryside around the present day city of Siem Reap. For those fortunate to visit the area, the best means to travel about the temples is via a rather primitive means of transportation - the Tuk Tuk.

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Customer Focused Process Innovation: Linking Strategic Intent to Everyday Execution is compilation of David Hamme’s thoughts and processes that he uses.

An excerpt from the discussion:

Joe: Why do think we need a process? I mean why do we need a process for innovation, why aren’t we, having that one brainstorming session and putting the post-it notes up and “Boom, let’s go try this.”

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In today’s business vernacular, process improvement efforts are aimed at refining the quality, cost, throughput, or scalability of work. However, limiting the role of processes to merely the foundation for efficiency efforts is a mistake.

Enterprise-wide processes are the unique way by which an enterprise delivers value for its customers. In essence, it is an enterprise’s secret sauce—the roadmap that directs employees on how to consistently deliver a specific product or customer experience. Every enterprise is a collection of processes that work together (and not uncommonly against each other) to produce the enterprise’s outputs.

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Historically process work has focused upon improving the efficiency, cycle time, the quality, or the cost of a specific process. Many of these efforts translate into significant benefits. However there is another aspect of processes that is in rare use today with arguably even greater potential to enhance the fortune of an enterprise. That aspect is to use process management as the means to strategically position an enterprise.

Although not recognized as such, processes are the actualization of strategy. That is, they are the unique step-by-step manner by which an enterprise attempts to create valuable products for its customers on an everyday basis…

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The holiday season means peak crowds for many businesses. Amid the rush, pay attention to each customer. Take every relationship to heart, even when the days seem long. “If you are doing a job and you are watching the clock and wishing you were someplace else, I think you are missing out on a fantastic opportunity,” David Hamme, author of “Customer Focused Process Innovation,” told IBD. Get to …

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While many global organizations are trying to consolidate shared services and setting up global process offices to own end-to-end processes across business units, the role of the GPO often tends to be unclear.  Global process owners frequently find themselves driving change and directing all aspects of the process improvement across business units, without being given a clear formal authority and mandate across all functional and business units involved in the project. A study by Tungsten Network and sharedserviceslink shows that more than half of GPOs find themselves in situations where they do not have the authority to mandate change…

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Let me begin by transporting you back in time to a tense boardroom some 20 years ago. A major reorganisation of a software giant has failed to deliver the intended benefits. Cue the post-mortem and there has been several hours of discussion by the senior managers in the room. Confusion still reins, but suddenly the company founder, who has previously been listening intently to the discussion, seems to have had an epiphany.

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Historically process improvement efforts centered on improving quality, reducing costs, or increasing throughput. The success of these efforts elevated the process discipline to become a standard approach to improve the operations of companies around the world. But there are other targets of process improvement beyond simply efficiency gains. 

How strategically agile is your company? If it changes direction with the maneuverability of an aircraft carrier, you are far from an outlier. Most companies struggle to take even the most brilliant ideas and translate them into market success.

Arguably the most common impediment to capitalizing on good strategy is the misalignment between the scope of a strategic initiative and the organization that supports its execution. In a nutshell, it comes down to scope…

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Although innovation may be linked to any facet of an enterprise, technology groups are often responsible for the delivery of most innovation endeavors. Just eavesdrop on any senior leadership team and you will invariably hear terms such as digital marketing, social platforms, or big data thrown about. All are heavily dependent on the execution of the technology team. With the deluge of requests from leaders across the enterprise and limited resources, Information Technology (IT) organizations cannot possibly meet every demand. So how should IT teams determine where to focus energy and resources?

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Innovators like Apple find and exploit game changing opportunities at a more rapid pace than their competition. The question is how to systematically identify those opportunities that move the market without relying on pure genius or an extraordinary leader – because Steve Jobs type geniuses are in short supply.

In most companies, the greatest opportunities for growth and profit enhancement are not small, localized efforts, but rather large cross-functional initiatives. And therein lies the problem.

Executing even perfectly articulated strategies requires an inordinate amount of coordination and communication across teams led by different leaders. Often times, these leaders have conflicting priorities. Having experienced these challenges firsthand with multiple clients, I am now a convert of organizing resources via a process-based approach…

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When business leaders turn their focus toward processes, they often do so with an eye on becoming more efficient in how they handle payroll, manage finances or generate and distribute reports.

While it’s true that these routine tasks need to run smoothly, companies that look atprocesses solely as a way to improve the quality of a project or improve lead time, are missing a golden opportunity to positively affect the customer experience and spark innovation within their company.

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In today’s corporate circles, strategic planning and its execution are commonly identified as two separate endeavors - one is built in the boardroom, the other completed at the ground floor of the business. Leaders routinely express frustration about what is termed the strategic execution gap – how the strategy they created is rarely executed smoothly or as it was intended.

While many global organizations are trying to consolidate shared services and setting up global process offices to own end-to-end processes across business units, the role of the GPO often tends to be unclear.  Global process owners frequently find themselves driving change and directing all aspects of the process improvement across business units, without being given a clear formal authority and mandate across all functional and business units involved in the project...

From the research our team pinpointed the greatest customer friction points revolved around the time and risk associated with the purchasing process. Buying a car has never been a simple decision. They say that it’s probably the second most expensive thing you’ll buy after a home. In the olden days, you would simple go into a car showroom and purchase a car outright with cash. But now there are so many different ways of buying a car, that clarity for the customer across many aspects of the process has all but been eroded.

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These days, many published business books promote what I call “Rah Rah” leadership. While often entertaining and good reads, these books aim to make managers better motivators, teach leaders how to inspire their troops to achieve great accomplishments, and instill in managers the ability to communicate directives more effectively. In other words, these books are focused on a leader’s personal improvement...

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For Six Sigma, Lean, Reengineering and other process practitioners, it is in our nature to adopt what I label a process perspective. Whether consciously or subconsciously, we think in process terms. Every activity is a series of steps and we cannot help but introduce improvements with the passage of time. This pattern of behavior often transcends our work life… and enters into our personal life – sometimes to the chagrin of our family members.

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Historically process improvement efforts focused on improving quality, reducing costs, or increasing throughput. The success of these efforts elevated the process discipline to become a standard approach to operationally improve companies across industries and geographies.