Talking to clients about what they are currently working on, they consistently nominate process improvement. Whether it is for the purpose of implementing a new strategy, reducing expenses, introducing efficiencies, identifying innovations or taking advantage of new technology, process improvement can benefit customers, employees and shareholders.

Why do you do things this way? Can it be done faster? With fewer documents? With fewer signatures? Process improvement can be in response to market demand: if a competitor can enable customers to access a product or service on a mobile device why can’t you? Can you design a service (or a part of a service) that is not being provided by anyone else?

It is important to understand what you want to achieve and what the outcome will look like. Whilst technology changes will require investment in research and development, all changes start by mapping the current process and understanding the regulatory obligations and legal hurdles.
• Can a particular transaction be completed electronically?
• What records need to be kept?
• Why do we do that at this point? Can we combine this step with that?

Sometimes the reason for a whole process or a particular document has been lost in time: it may have related to a repealed law or no longer used software. Having an up to date intranet or other knowledge sharing system helps: it will have the latest version of documents and information supporting their creation and latest changes. But perhaps it has not been kept up to date.

Sometimes it is like pulling a thread: starting with one project will lead to another. Sometimes the project is built around a major legislative change. You time your compliance around a new computer system. But you can’t implement that new computer system until you have reviewed your internal processes and completed staff training. Sometimes you’ll need to incorporate an unexpected legislative change. Have you completed your risk assessment? Does your regulator need to give its approval?

Is there a contract counterparty you need to deal with? Do you have a contracts register that records all your obligations to parties you deal with? This will dictate whether you need to tell the other party about changes you want to make or even whether you need to obtain their consent to changes. If you can change the contract terms and conditions unilaterally in order to implement the process change you may still need to give advance notice of the change.

If you’re interested in how I can help your process improvement project, call me.