Processes across your company should work together to drive business value and increase efficiency. Many companies struggle with disparate, inefficient business processes that not only hinder process excellence but harm performance and delay progress and innovation. Even measures designed to increase efficiency, like automation, can backfire, serving to drive poor results in a quicker manner.<\/p>\n
How do you make progress when there are more opportunities for improvement<\/a> than there are hours in the day? How do you convince budget decision-makers to invest in process improvement projects against technology improvements? How do you combat the ever-present \u201cif it ain\u2019t broke, don\u2019t fix it\u201d mentality?<\/p>\n You can start with understanding the value that excellent processes add to your company. When your processes work together, you can work proactively and spend more time innovating.<\/strong> When you align your broader end-to-end processes with your strategic goals, you find opportunities to further improve specific processes and overall process capabilities.<\/p>\n Without process excellence<\/a>, you might manage reactively, regularly thinking on your feet to resolve issues that come up or losing efficiency because your employees perform non-value-adding tasks you could automate.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s look at the steps you need to take to drive process improvement results.<\/p>\n Sometimes it\u2019s difficult to know where to start. To understand your organization\u2019s readiness for process excellence or business process improvement initiatives, consider:<\/strong><\/p>\n Regardless of the current status of your process excellence activities, it can be a challenge to determine what, how and where to direct internal and external improvement capabilities and resources. After answering these questions, there are two steps you need to follow to determine where your business can go on the path to process improvement.<\/p>\n We recommend starting your process improvement initiative by identifying where you are today to help better define your vision for tomorrow. Use the process maturity model below as a catalyst to direct your improvement efforts and move your company further along the process excellence curve.<\/strong><\/p>\n Complete a simple self-analysis to determine where your company currently stands on the curve. Then set goals for where you would like to be in the future. Now you can start developing a framework to achieve your goals across processes.<\/p>\n Not all structural competencies will be at the same level of maturity. By evaluating your organization\u2019s process maturity, you can identify strengths and gaps.<\/strong> This honest identification fosters successful business process improvement<\/a> and management initiatives.<\/p>\n You can apply this process maturity model at any level of the organization: single process, division or entire company. You can also apply it at the department level, but it will generally result in a high number of level 1 and 2 ratings since this level typically is not cross-functional.<\/p>\n By understanding your company\u2019s process maturity and its supporting organizations, leaders and owners can determine the best approach<\/a> to initiate process excellence efforts.<\/p>\n Process excellence is not the first step for all organizations. For example, a company without documented processes, assigned process owners, an overarching implementation approach, or aligned IT teams would need to address lagging competencies first (or in parallel to) new improvements.<\/p>\nEmbarking on a Process Excellence Journey<\/h2>\n
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Identify Your Firm\u2019s Maturity along the Process Excellence Curve<\/h2>\n
![\"Process](\"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/BCS-Process-Maturity-Model-Blog-8.10.22-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nEvaluate your Process Maturity<\/h3>\n
Is Process Excellence Right for My Organization?<\/h3>\n