It is pretty much accepted wisdom these days that companies should be customer focused. It is however unfortunate that most companies go the wrong way about this by asking their customers what they want. Customers describe their requirements in terms of products and services which when the company builds and delivers them are not desired or bought. Henry Ford put it very well “if we ask customers what they want they’ll ask for faster horses”.
And yet here in the 21st century a surprising and somewhat alarming majority of companies do precisely that. Why does this fail?
The Bennu Group is pleased to announce that the CPP Level 3 training module is now available in our Online Training system! This marks a major milestone for Bennu Group, delivering against early commitments to have all three of our advanced process management techniques available in our online training system by the end of 2007.
What’s unique about the process innovation technique in CPP Level 3? This is the only process innovation that has consistently uncovered a myriad of new improvement opportunities in the processes it has been applied against. From Improved to Radical (fundamentally resetting the customer value proposition in the market place), this is the technique being used by market leaders to drive their tactical and strategic initiatives.
A theme of recent global conferences has been the mix of different approaches to improving business performance. This quest for business performance improvement as measured by reducing costs, improving revenues and enhanced service (also known as ‘the triple crown’) is a worldwide phenomena brought on by increasing competition, greater customer promiscuity, chaotic business cycles and more generally ‘globalization’. The pressure continues to increase and companies are seeking to extract every last opportunity out of their various initiatives and approaches. So what works best then?
The last three decades have seen a gradual refinement of management thinking and practice to now present a strategic choice for organizations. The route people take should be determined by the place companies find themselves in, the place they would like to get to and the speed with which they need to move. Unfortunately all too often companies are choosing inappropriate methods and tools, investing large amounts of money in dubious technologies and training their people in techniques already proven suspect in the last century. Why is this so?
A couple of years ago we praised Gartner for their innovation in introducing a competent series under the innovative leadership of Michael Melonovsky and Jim Sinur. The conference circuit needed to up its game and make sure our experience as delegates and participants produced content with freshness. Well the bar has been lifted again and there’s a new name in town that you will would do well to experience and track. Gartners ground breaking has reverted to the old techno-babble following this summer’s departure of Melenovsky and Sinur and the ‘usual suspects’ for conferences have only improved slightly. Enter stage right GDS International (http://www.gdsinternational.com) - not necessarily a name we are all familiar with. Our first experience with them was in Frankfurt, Germany last year at the C-Level conference and since then they have developed a conference series of the very best pedigree. In Evian, France the FST European Event brought together the leaders of European Financial Services companies around an agenda of business transformation.
Simply put this was the best conference I have presented and attended - and boy do I see a lot of conferences on every continent!If you want a good conference recommendation track these guys as they lift the bar and manage our expectations to a new high.
See the Events page for our immediate recommendations for your consideration.
Greetings from Evian, France! I am with my colleague Steve Towers here for the FST Summit and we can tell you that Evian is a truly beautiful location that is refreshing for both the mind and the soul.
Yet what I want to talk about has nothing to do with the peaceful French countryside. The subject at hand comes from observations from the previous two conferences in Belgium and Barcelona, and that subject is the time (effort, expense, commitment) required to make BPM create real organizational value.
|