October 22nd, 2010
In any company’s strategy, there is always the chance that a few loose ends and gaps will turn up. However, it is more often than not the case that these small cracks in the system will start to show at a point when it is too late to make any alterations and; leading to potentially detrimental effects on projects that may be running or maybe even serious business or shareholding deals.
This is predominantly the main reason why organizations are struggling to execute efficiently and systematically. Without a sturdy and well-though-out strategy that ties up the entire organization into one closed-loop undoubtedly comes all manner of complications regarding goal cascade, performance measurement and program management.
The i-nexus Business Execution Suite has been designed to integrate Lean Six Sigma, Balanced Scorecards and Hoshin Planning into one ‘closed-loop’ system.
Your company goals need to be cascaded throughout all levels of your organization – not kept as a secret between directors – so that you as a CEO can ensure that each of every single one of your employees is aligned to a task that directly contributes to goal achievement.
The impact of the actions performed by these employees can then be measured using the Business Execution Suite’s Performance Management capabilities, which allows you to hold certain departments – and maybe even employees – directly accountable for the achievement, or lack of, for certain goals.
The statistic that less than just ten percent of the employees in some organizations understand how their actions are contributing to wider goal achievement perfectly illustrates the necessity of goal cascade, and employing the use of a closed-loop system to link goals to actions and actions to employees, and then measure the effect of these actions on execution.
Without such a dependable system for basing and altering strategies, struggling to execute will become an inevitable outcome.
Tags: aligning actions to goals, business execution software, cascading goals, Performance Management
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October 14th, 2010
As a CEO, not knowing whether or not you are on-track for success can be an extremely daunting prospect, and without this knowledge, the means by which your organization is being run with be flippant at best.
Without knowing what your current and forecasted performance in your sector is, it can be difficult to know how long your organization is going to remain prominent in your industry, and leaves you as a CEO extremely vulnerable to receiving last-minute notation that, for a example, a project has failed, or a specific target hasn’t been met.
Organizations need to have something they can systematically measure to ensure they are on the right track for achieving their objectives. Unaware organizations without a measurement framework in place will have no means by which to know if they are doing extraordinarily well, or are about to plummet to the bottom of their industry’s food chain.
For managing and measuring your performance, consider the i-nexus Business Execution Suite with its integrated Performance Management capabilities.
Essential for gaining valuable insight into your organization’s performance, the i-nexus solution incorporates Balanced Scorecard disciplines at the core of its design, and has been helping international industry heavyweights to forecast the benefits that their current projects are having on overall business execution, as well as how they are currently performing.
This enables them to gain priceless insight into how they can alter their strategies, objectives and previous plans for achieving a set goal to get it on the right track for success, should it for any reason veer off track.
Employing the use of such a robust business execution platform into your organization’s strategy will give you the ability to know exactly where you are with certain projects, and will make adhering to certain deadlines and promises to shareholders much easier; giving you the peace of mind that all CEOs are desperate for when running their organization.
Tags: Balanced Scorecard, forecasting performance, measurement framework, robust business execution system
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October 5th, 2010
It is the responsibility of any organization’s CEO to deliver on the promises they make to consumers, stakeholders and even their own employees. Failing to do so can lead to dire consequences in which not only the CEO’s reputation is tarnished, but so is that of the organization as a whole.
However, when it comes to delivering the optimal results promised to clients and stakeholders, it can be difficult for CEOs to accurately and systematically organize how the actions of their employees will relate to goal achievement. Some employees may be performing tasks that do not have any effect on goal achievement whatsoever, which is just a waste of your organization’s time and resources.
The i-nexus Business Execution Suite can help CEOs to identify how their resources and the skills of their employees can be of the most benefit to the achievement of goals, and how they can measure whether or not they are on the right track for success.
With integrated Operational Excellence Lean Six Sigma principles, the Program Management aspect of the closed-loop system enables CEOs and Program Managers to more easily link the actions of employees to measurable outcomes; making the process of tracking success much simpler.
Because the main gap during the process of executing strategy is predominantly between the goal cascade and performance forecasting process, this leaves the link between actions and goals incredibly loose. The closed-loop system in place with the i-nexus Business Execution Suite can help CEOs to directly attribute the most suitable employees to the objectives they are most likely to achieve for the company, and make the most of all resources available without wasting any potential.
By having such a robust platform upon which to base and change a company strategy, CEOs can be confident that they are adequately using all of their employees and other resources as efficiently as possible to meet deadlines and those all-important promises.
Tags: business execution software, closed-loop business execution system, executing strategy, Operational Excellence Program
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August 25th, 2010
The public sector is facing scrutiny like never before due to testing financial times, so it is imperative that managers and management teams streamline their practices as effectively as possible. Try as they might though, they may never find a solution that works for them. It might be an idea to consider incorporating a Six Sigma way of thinking into the workplace.
Lean is entirely quality-based and a great way of cutting out waste from areas that are holding up other aspects of the company. By cutting waste and streamlining business execution, managers are sure to get more efficiency from their projects; leading to an increase in overall effort and project success rates.
i-nexus has an effective Operational Excellence Program that can help harmonize the Six Sigma philosophy whenever managers in the public sector are looking to incorporate it into their projects. Take managers in the UK’s NHS, for example. They may be drowning in paperwork and don’t have time to concentrate on other areas of delegation that require their immediate attention.
The structure of an NHS manager’s routine may have a lot of waste involved with their daily activities that will eventually ripple across their department, potentially affecting matters such as patient waiting times, the time taken to see a general practitioner and more besides.
The Operational Excellence Program by i-nexus can help managers working in areas such as the NHS with pristine management solutions that reduce non-value effort and increase project success rates. The only changes that realistically need to be made are ways of thinking and how to effectively manage time. An Operational Excellence Program can help managers across various public sector areas achieve this through incredible prioritization techniques for projects, customizable project templates, project benefit tracking, effecting reporting and more.
Tags: Lean Six Sigma program management, Operational Excellence Program, public health sector, public sector efficiency
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August 18th, 2010
Six Sigma methodologies are an ideal contributor for eliminating any defects or variability in processes. By combining this with Lean principles to successfully eradicate any wasteful processes, companies can become resourceful and economic much more efficiently to garner long-standing goal and business execution success.
In the public sector already, application of the Lean Six Sigma methodology has reduced payroll errors for some organizations from 75 percent to just 2, and operations management professors have also seen the processing time for disabled persons housing adaptations go from 200 days to just 12 in specialized areas of the public sector.
These principles have also been successful in providing the public sector with a better experience for employees, which initially was seen as a dreaded contribution to business execution strategies for employees in the public sector.
A drop in head count is one of the initial downsizing measures that employees and managers expect to occur as Lean comes into play, as with the reduction of wasteful processes comes a reduction in the need for employees to perform these actions.
Ever since Japanese companies in the car industry started to incorporate Lean practices, which ultimately resulted in job losses the more that resourcefulness became a priority, the association between Lean and downsizing has resulted in a negative stigma being attached to Lean practices.
However, many private sector companies that have been using Lean in their business execution strategies for decades preach that Lean does not reduce a head count and put added pressure on other employees. Rather, Lean offers employees the opportunity to implement better ways of organizing their time, so that targets specific to each employee can be met with relative ease.
Lean principles are all about improving customer experience, which is why it has been so popular recently within the public sector, as they have been under pressure to improve quality of services. This approach therefore offers employees a much more rewarding working experience in which they can manage their time, meet deadlines and thus improve the customer’s experience of public services.
Tags: Business Execution, Goal deployment, Lean Six Sigma program management, public sector efficiency
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August 11th, 2010
High qualities of service and low costs don’t initially seem to work in consensus with one another, as service improvements tend to mean more expense in the long-run. It becomes clear that a lot of work is needed if the main goals of any organization are to become more resourceful, save money and significantly improve on the quality of service provided to clients.
In economic times that demand significant savings on resources, and a general public that are consistently demanding that they pay less to receive higher quality services, the public sector need to maintain and improve upon their services to the public whilst also cutting back on costs.
Particular issues the public sector face is retaining an apt level of organization and consistency, which can be difficult to ascertain with the fewer resources given during the public spending cuts. This is especially difficult as the public sector are often called upon to produce records all in an online format on-demand, and are pressurized to operate as resourcefully and efficiently as possible in this way so as to avoid coming under public scrutiny.
With the incorporation of Lean Six Sigma principles, achieving operational excellence strategically and setting up the public sector for sustainable success can be made a simple process.
The public sector can overcome these problems by successfully eliminating each and every single unnecessary process in place that isn’t contributing to goals and wider business execution, which will reflect in any reports requested by the government. By showing that each and every single expenditure is directly affecting goal and business execution, more effort can be placed upon maximizing the quality of these processes rather than processes that may be serving no purpose whatsoever.
Of the private and public sector, it is undeniably the public sector that comes under more scrutiny from consumers and the general public for the way they operate, and the standard of quality they are offering. With the adoption of Lean Six Sigma practices however, the public sector can take a bold step forward in not only becoming more resourceful, but providing services that are of considerably higher quality.
Tags: Business Execution, Lean Six Sigma project tracking, Operational Excellence Program, Program Management
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August 4th, 2010
Industry-pioneers such as Toyota and Motorola have the privilege of being some of the most successful private sector companies in the world to use Lean Six Sigma methodologies as part of their business execution strategies.
We all know that too much variability and waste can hinder progress for any business, and it is essential to have the right principles in place to reduce variance and waste within the processes contributing to goal and business execution.
But the application of Lean Six Sigma principles to actually combat these issues seems to only be in operation by private sector companies – even when they are just as applicable and helpful for improving upon performance in the public sector.
There has recently been an increase in the amount of public sector organizations understanding the relevance that Lean Six Sigma can have in helping them to promote resourcefulness, and employ this in their business execution strategies.
The recent recession has most likely had an impact on the timing for the increase in this realization, as more companies than ever – private and public – are hoping to cut costs. Lean Six Sigma principles are more than efficient methodologies that can be put in place to reduce expenditure and cut out any unnecessary processes in place that are having no effect whatsoever on targets being achieved.
The public sector have come to realize that they, too, operate within systematic processes that work towards the achievement of a goal, and that this goal needs to have strategic actions aligned to it for achievement to be considered a possibility. Any processes having no effect on achieving this goal are a waste of resources.
Evidently it has taken the repercussions of the financial crisis to push the public sector into applying Lean Six Sigma principles, but now that they have, the chances this sector has of feasibly cutting costs without compromising on quality of service has significantly increased.
Tags: Business Execution, Lean Six Sigma project tracking, Program Management, public sector budget cuts
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July 28th, 2010
Spreadsheets, for many managers, are still the cornerstone of their business operations and how they conduct their working lives. But it can be difficult for them to sift through file after file, trying to collate different types of information all at once. It can be a messy business.
When a large-scale project is being undertaken however, and the reliance during such a commitment is on spreadsheets, then what can be standard business practice turns into an unmanageable nightmare. Business execution and reaching predetermined goals can be delayed; causing other projects to overrun and effectively cause company-wide problems.
Spreadsheet habits are hard to amend though, usually because they have been the industry standard for many companies for decades at a time. But there is another way to achieve effective business execution, and that’s through the use of goal deployment software.
Goal deployment software can be a lifesaver for many businesses that overly rely on spreadsheets. The goal deployment software from i-nexus for instance is able to incorporate a number of users who will all be able to keep up to date on their goals and aims at a moment’s notice. It will allow project managers to put in place a strategy that is easy to amend, understand and set targets and goals for all involved.
Many may feel cautious about approaching an alternative to spreadsheets but that is mainly because they’re so set in their ways. By incorporating goal deployment software into a business it will streamline business practice and allow for greater achievements and business execution.
Larger corporations especially will benefit from goal deployment software which can effectively transmit goals and information across all levels of a company. No matter how many people are involved in a business or company project, the right goal deployment software will categorize matters more effectively than a spreadsheet and lead to improved business execution.
Tags: alternative to spreadsheets, Business Execution, goal deployment software, Quick Projects
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July 21st, 2010
Deadlines are serious in business. They signify the end point of a project and it’s vital – especially for large companies who have many projects on the go – that all deadlines are respected and projects are promptly completed.
If deadlines are missed, however, then it’s usually because of miscommunication or because somebody isn’t able to complete their work on time. If this is the case then the project is more likely to overrun, using up valuable resources including employee time and company funds. If one project overruns then this likely to have a knock-on effect on all others, meaning that goals won’t be reached in a timely manner.
Goal deployment software is the best way to counteract this problem, and it is essential to use the right software for the right situation. Goal deployment software from i-nexus for instance allows strict organization of everybody’s goals and specific aims within a project, yet is also flexible enough to communicate efficiently and effectively. Any real time changes that need to be made mid-project can seamlessly be integrated into i-nexus’s goal deployment software, so should an employee ever have to drop out of the project due to unforeseen circumstances then changes can be made to the strategy at a moment’s notice.
The goal deployment software supplied by i-nexus is an excellent way to update traditional business methods whilst also keeping goal solutions and effective business execution intact. Its capabilities are further-reaching than any other goal deployment software and will keep not only the core management members up to code with their targets, but it can also extend further to all areas of a company to ensure that everybody is working in unison.
Deadlines are usually hard to gauge at the start of a project, but with the right goal deployment software helping to strategize, the road to business execution success will be a lot easier to travel.
Tags: aligning actions to goals, Business Execution, business execution software, goal deployment software
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July 14th, 2010
Dedicated to providing their clients with support through every step of the business execution process, i-nexus cite maximizing return on investment for their clients as their main priority after the implementation of their business execution software.
This is echoed in their committed approach to maintaining contact with their clients after the software implementation process has been carried out, and the company have created a selection of what they consider ‘value optimization’ services that can help to ensure that the use of their software garners long-standing success for their clients.
i-nexus have developed a Customer Account Management Service that boasts no charge whatsoever to customers, and involves the allocation of a well-versed account manager to each client, who will offer expert knowledge and an in-depth understanding of i-nexus’s diverse business execution solutions, as well as useful information about which actions should take place for that particular client to maximize the possibility of success.
In conjunction with this, i-nexus’s continuous assistance to their clients is further accentuated by their offering of a Business Execution Health-check. This involves an external assessment from the i-nexus team which is designed to show clients whether or not the initiatives put in place to secure improvement are having as much profitability as possible, which is priceless knowledge to gain in order to ensure that all of the correct changes are being made to secure long-standing achievement.
Another health-check-type component on offer is a Software Deployment Health-check. This check ensures that the individual requirements of each and every single client are catered for, and that their business execution software is fully optimized to generate significant improvements within their organization. Included in this particular assessment is a check to ensure that dashboards are configured for the user of each individual within the organization, and that these individuals actually have the fundamental knowledge required to perform their job role effectively.
Provider of business execution software to industry giants such as Nestle, Novartis, Toshiba, Gold Fields, Alstom and Pfizer, i-nexus’s Expertise is supported by their invaluable insight into the precise practices that has made some of the world’s leading organizations so successful in their field.
Tags: Business Execution Health-check, business execution software, Customer Account Management Service, Software Development Health-check
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