Business Excellence

Business Excellence by Design  

 

The importance of design in business today:

 

“We should not underestimate the crucial importance of leadership and design joining forces. Our global future depends on it. We will either design our way through the deadly challenges of this century, or we won’t make it. …. That is why designers need to become leaders, and why leaders need to become designers.”

 

— Richard Farson, Management by Design, 2000

100% repeatable & predictable

At the lowest cost

World-class organizations know the importance of process-centric management.  Costs are reduced, cycle times are improved, productivity soars and customer satisfaction increases, all of which adds up to a critical and sustainable competitive advantage. That can be referred to as Process Excellence.  There are three keys to Process Excellence:  1) the quality of the overall process design; 2) the implementation of the process design, and 3) the execution of the process design. 

 

Now it is time to step up to Business Excellence.  Reread the above paragraph only substitute the word ‘business’ for the word ‘process’.  For business excellence companies must look beyond their processes.  Businesses can not be defined by their processes alone nor can they be known solely by their products.  When asked what is the key to their success many executives point towards their employees.  A company is all of those things and more and the only way to maximize business performance and achieve business excellence is to design all of the parts to work together.

 

For years management gurus have talked about the importance of aligning the organization in the performance of businesses but they failed to show how that is done.  Conceptually an aligned organization was a great idea but practically it was not achievable and therefore it became the holy grail of business.  The reason why alignment has been so elusive is the lack of understanding that design principles applied to products should also be apply to businesses.

 

“Begin with the end in mind” is one of Steven Covey’s Seven Habits.  That habit can be applied directly towards designing businesses.  Know where you want to go and the strategies you plan on executing to get there and we can tell you whether your existing design can support those goals.  If it can’t Business Design Concepts will work with you to update the design in order for you to be successful. 

 

Alignment can not be managed into an organization, it must be designed in.  Within eight to ten weeks you can have an aligned business model designed to achieve your strategic goals.  The key to Business Excellence is the overall design and execution of the business model.