Consulting

Thinking about how you could improve your current business processes? Perhaps you are not thinking big enough!  Rather than simply making incremental improvements to your current processes as you react to issues coming up, start thinking big and envisage some real innovations that could drive your organization to bigger and better things.

Business processes are the strategic and operational assets your company uses to help it deliver products and services consistently, effectively and efficiently. They are the backbone that integrates your operations and enables you to be competitive and profitable. Business Process Management (BPM) is a powerful tool business can use to keep all aspects of operations running optimally

Think of a business as an engine and BPM as a tool to fine-tune every component of that engine in order to achieve maximum performance and you’ve got the idea. A BPM program enables companies to process more with higher quality, less waste and less effort. This is particularly advantageous for startups and other companies faced with tight budgets that need to reach profitability quickly.

Often, we look to change our processes in response to perceived problems within the business. Perhaps a competitor has been able to reduce their costs and therefore offer services at a lower rate than you can justify, or maybe your customers are complaining about slow delivery times. Rather than just repair the business processes that impact these specific areas, maybe it is time to think out of the box and look for process changes that could leapfrog you ahead of the competition rather than simply catching up to them.

BPM to be extended for Innovation

Business Process Management (BPM) can be the driver of innovation, but to do this it needs to be elevated from its standard position as the ‘process surveillance’. BPM can be responsible for business transformation, but often its role is restricted to managing current processes and tinkering with these in order to ‘keep the lights on’. BPM needs to go beyond simply fixing what is broken and start pushing the boundaries of accepted best practice and create new ways of thinking and working.

Concentrating on current best practice is not going to give you any sort of competitive advantage, your competitors are almost certainly following these practices. Thinking outside of the box with your processes, and creating new best practice first, will give you a critical head-start.

Move responsibility for Continual Service Improvement to the business

For enabling a business process manager to concentrate on innovation, it is essential that responsibility for the gradual improvement of current processes, which is still a critical facet of business improvement, be moved out into the enterprise.  This will free up time that can be used to concentrate on big strategic changes that could be game changers for the business.

Research paper from Gartner urges business process managers to stop tinkering and start innovating in order to elevate the value of BPM within the enterprise by changing it from a project-based process to one that spawns creativity and innovation

Think outside the box

One way to do this is, when faced with a problem that needs to be solved, look outside of the box and seek the bigger business opportunity. When you are directed to work on solutions that are merely maintaining current capability, push back and try to redefine these initiatives so that they can deliver enhanced business value rather than simply solving an existing problem.

By continually identifying business process opportunities that can enhance productivity and profitability you will be able to put BPM much higher on the radar at the management level of the enterprise.

Another way to identify opportunities for BPM to prove its worth in the organization is to envisage your target state and work backwards. What do you need to put in place in order for your desired state to be reached? What are the barriers that you will need to remove in order to reach that state? Often, upon examination, you will find that these barriers are the result of habits that evolved into processes. With new technology and automation opportunities, it is very likely that some of these processes are no longer needed but are still being used out of habit. These redundant processes are prime opportunities for improvement.

Krishnagopal Soni
Chartered Accountant

Budget is an operational plan, for a definite period usually a year. Expressed in financial terms and based on the expected income and expenditure. The importance of establishing and sticking to a household budget is known by most of us as we always make sure that household expenditures don’t exceed income during the month, forcing families and individuals to have to borrow money or use credit cards in order to make ends meet.

The same principles apply to managing business finances.

• Business budgeting helps reduce the uncertainty that often accompanies expense and cash flow forecasting, providing executives with a fiscal framework for all of the company’s financial decisions.
• It acts as a mechanism for translating fiscal objectives into projected monthly spending pattern by offering a useful format for communicating fiscal objectives.
• It enhances fiscal planning and decision-making process by clearly recognizes controllable and uncontrollable cost areas.
• It helps to identify problem areas and facilitates effective solution along with facilitating timely feedback on utilization of budget.
• Budgeting acts as a means for aligning, measuring and recording financial success with objectives of organization.

Key points to be considered while preparing budget

• Flexibility and synthesis: – Budgeting should be synthesis of past, present and future along with necessary flexibility where ever required so as to synchronize with overall organizational goals and objectives
• Organizational structure: – Need a sound organizational structure with clear line of authority and responsibility. It should be in the form of statistical standard laid down in the specific numerical terms taking into consideration organization structure.
• Charts of accounts: -Designed to be consistent with the organizational future planning taking into consideration future course of action and control over all activities in the organization. Revenues and expenses must be reported by responsibilities areas, thus providing historical data that are valuable for planning and providing budgetary control for evaluation as performance can be compared to plans.
• Managerial support: -Essential for the budgetary program. Budgeting should be product of joint venture and cooperation of executive/department head at different level of management. Budgeting is usually done at the departmental level, it must be valued by top administration. Managers must be willing to devote their time and energy to the budgeting process.
• Formal budgeting process and procedures: – Should be available in budget manual, in which objective are clarified and instructions for budget development are discussed. – Calendar of budgeting activities with the schedule for each stage of program is presented.

Benefits of Budgeting

Taking the time to create a business budget may offer many potential benefits to your company, including these four:

• You can predict when cash shortfalls may occur, enabling you to plan in advance whether you will need to secure financing, tap into a line of credit or make adjustments to your payables schedule.
• You can plan large expenditures (including CAPEX) more strategically, rather than being caught unprepared when these needs arise.
• You can reduce interest expense by planning financing needs well in advance.
• You will have a better handle on your cash flow, which will increase your overall financial control.

Krishnagopal Soni
Chartered Accountant

The role of HR in the present scenario has undergone a change and its focus is on evolving such functional strategies which enable successful implementation of the major corporate strategies. In a way, HR and corporate strategies function in alignment.

Today, HR works towards facilitating and improving the performance of the employees by building a conducive work environment and providing maximum opportunities to the employees for participating in organizational planning and decision-making process

Performance management is a much broader and a complicated function of HR, as activities such as joint goal setting, continuous progress review and frequent t communication, feedback and coaching for improved performance, implementation of employee development programmes and rewarding achievements.

Performance management system includes the following actions.

• Developing clear job descriptions and employee performance plans which includes the key result areas (KRA’) and performance indicators.
• Selection of right set of people by implementing an appropriate selection process.
• Negotiating requirements and performance standards for measuring the outcome and overall productivity against the predefined benchmarks.
• Providing continuous coaching and feedback during the period of delivery of performance.
• Identifying the training and development needs by measuring the outcomes achieved against the set standards and implementing effective development programs for improvement.
• Holding quarterly performance development discussions and evaluating employee performance on the basis of performance plans.
• Designing effective compensation and reward systems for recognizing those employees who excel in their jobs by achieving the set standards in accordance with the performance plans or rather exceed the performance benchmarks.
• Providing promotional/career development support and guidance to the employees.
• Performing exit interviews for understanding the cause of employee discontentment and thereafter exit from an organization.

Effective performance management system includes the following components:

1. Performance Planning: Performance planning is the first crucial component of any performance management process which forms the basis of performance appraisals. Performance planning is jointly done by the appraisee and also the reviewee in the beginning of a performance session. During this period, the employees decide upon the targets and the key performance areas which can be performed over a year within the performance budget., which is finalized after a mutual agreement between the reporting officer and the employee.
2. Performance Appraisal and Reviewing: The appraisals are normally performed twice in a year in an organization in the form of mid reviews and annual reviews which is held in the end of the financial year. In this process, the appraisee first offers the self-filled up ratings in the self-appraisal form and also describes his/her achievements over a period of time in quantifiable terms. After the self-appraisal, the final ratings are provided by the appraiser for the quantifiable and measurable achievements of the employee being appraised. The entire process of review seeks an active participation of both the employee and the appraiser for analyzing the causes of loopholes in the performance and how it can be overcome. This has been discussed in the performance feedback section.
3. Feedback on the Performance followed by personal counseling and performance facilitation: Feedback and counseling is given a lot of importance in the performance management process. This is the stage in which the employee acquires awareness from the appraiser about the areas of improvements and also information on whether the employee is contributing the expected levels of performance or not. The employee receives an open and a very transparent feedback and along with this the training and development needs of the employee is also identified. The appraiser adopts all the possible steps to ensure that the employee meets the expected outcomes for an organization through effective personal counseling and guidance, mentoring and representing the employee in training programmes which develop the competencies and improve the overall productivity.
4. Rewarding good performance: This is a very vital component as it will determine the work motivation of an employee. During this stage, an employee is publicly recognized for good performance and is rewarded. This stage is very sensitive for an employee as this may have a direct influence on the self-esteem and achievement orientation. Any contributions duly recognized by an organization helps an employee in coping up with the failures successfully and satisfies the need for affection.
5. Performance Improvement Plans: In this stage, fresh set of goals are established for an employee and new deadline is provided for accomplishing those objectives. The employee is clearly communicated about the areas in which the employee is expected to improve and a stipulated deadline is also assigned within which the employee must show this improvement. This plan is jointly developed by the appraisee and the appraiser and is mutually approved.
6. Potential Appraisal: Potential appraisal forms a basis for both lateral and vertical movement of employees. By implementing competency mapping and various assessment techniques, potential appraisal is performed. Potential appraisal provides crucial inputs for succession planning and job rotation.

“Don’t lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations”

Swati Tirpude
HR Consultant

When people have the right attitude, they are both motivated and adaptable which makes them more open to learning new skills. With the right attitude and enough effort most new skills can be mastered quickly. Whereas improving attitude is often about changing behaviors which is always much more difficult to do, as people need to want to change and without the right attitude this is unlikely to happen.

Several elements play a vital role in achieving success, but it all starts where attitude meets aptitude. If you have the right attitude but lack the required aptitude, success can be difficult. Attitude defines how you work or proceed toward your goal. Aptitude, on the other hand, defines how much potential you have to learn specific skills or gain knowledge that will help you achieve your goal. Here is an insight into the different roles your attitude and aptitude play in defining your success.

Role of Attitude

Attitude is the key to success because it can push you forward or slow you down. It all starts with how you view yourself in a specific environment. Is there a right attitude recipe for success? Right attitude means knowing what you are capable of accomplishing. Ambition, determination, and commitment fuel the right attitude, also known as a positive attitude or go-getter attitude. As per the Human Resource Survey it is been revealed that 46% of hired people are likely to fail in the first 12-18 months on the job. The high failure rate is not because they lack skills or knowledge, but due to lack of right attitude. The three essential elements of attitude according to the study are:

• Temperament: Work temperament is an important aspect that helps people to establish their goals and achieve them. It is been revealed that 15% of people at work, experience failure because of a lack of proper work temperament. Work temperament refers to a positive attitude and a strong personality.
• Emotional Intelligence:In a highly stressful work environment, emotional intelligence plays a vital role. It is been noticed that  23% of employees are unable to manage their own emotions or assess the emotions of colleagues. This inability to manage emotions breeds a negative attitude, which, in turn, can destroy your confidence.
• Motivation:It is the key to success! Some people are motivated by others while some people find ways to self-motivate themselves. On the other hand, lack of motivation can lead to low work efficiency and have a negative impact on the overall performance. If you are motivated, in control of your emotions, and have a positive temperament, sky will definitely not be the limit for you.

Role of Aptitude

In a constantly changing work environment, aptitude is crucial if you want to taste success.

The thought of the day is “it is not your aptitude, but your attitude, that determines your success altitude”

Preeti Berua
HR Consultant