The first i&i Members Community Network Meeting of 2009 met to discuss the current economic recession and how business improvement practices are more important now than ever…
i&i Members Community Network Meeting
Thursday 12th February 2009
The current economic recession is proving challenging for businesses
in almost every sector. In these difficult times, every aspect of the
organisation comes under scrutiny and none more so than business
improvement. The purpose of this meeting was to provide attendees with
practical insights into ways in which they can demonstrate value and
display tangible results for their projects and programmes.
Leading economics and derivatives analyst Don Smith provided
background knowledge from the macro economic perspective. His detailed
presentation informed attendees about previous downturns and
recessions, and he identified the trends that may have a forbearance on
the current situation.
Looking from a more micro economic angle, Keivan Zokaei of the Lean
Enterprise Research Council (LERC) at Cardiff University gave the
meeting further valuable knowledge by arguing that in order to survive
and thrive, businesses have to move away from driving efficiencies
towards concentrating on providing customer value by being more
effective. As an example, Keivan detailed how Tesco have applied this
philosophy successfully by basing their strategy on their customer’s
needs, with innovative practices such as stocking shops based on the
local people’s shopping habits.
As Global Head for Quality and Efficiency at Credit Suisse, Jon
Theuerkauf provided well-informed insights for the group from his
position at the top of a company in the sector that is at the heart of
the current recession. Among the many key issues he addressed,
attendees generally agreed that the most important action they would be
taking back to their own organisations was the fact that in this
climate, tangible results, quickly delivered are paramount. Jon gave an
overview of how reducing project timescales and concentrating on issues
that can provide quantifiable benefits – whilst simultaneously
embedding sustainable improvement based on data – is vital to ensure
the business is properly positioned to weather the current storm.
The second half of the meeting was devoted to knowledge sharing.
Members of the group shared details of successful aspects of their
programmes in an open forum, question-and-answer format. These issues
were:
- Employee engagement: making it an integral part of a business improvement programme.
- Developing a clear view of the value-chain to ensure
strategic decisions and the improvement programme are both aligned to
creating a value-chain fit-for the future. Also, prioritising
cross-functional learning to accelerate delivery of improvements.
- Developing an electronic project tracker that centrally
monitors and tracks progress with all current projects, effectively as
a cost benefit analysis.
Knowledge sharing and learning continued as the meeting split into
groups to discuss pointed challenges that member organisations are
facing. The discussions were around the following:
- Separating job losses from improvement programmes – how are businesses dealing with the risk of losing staff engagement.
- How can organisations translate business requirements into future projects?
- Strategy deployment.
- How to achieve a shift in mindset and create a sense or urgency or “burning platform” to motivate everyone to change.
Attendees were asked to complete feedback forms and rate their
experience using Net Promoter Score (NPS). The overall NPS was 69%.
Some of the comments received about the day overall were:
- Some very useful contacts made and experiences to share, useful for team members to be here.
- I found the whole experience very rewarding and informative.
- Great to network with other CI specialists.
- Great way to meet new contacts and identify networking opportunities.
- Many great insights and lots to consider for our business.
- Has given me some insight in how I can move my company into being more customer focused approach.
- Excellent. Very inspirational.
- Many great insights and lots to consider for our business.
- Business improvement can support organisations effectively in this current climate.
