Step by step process in implementing organization wide performance management system

One of the dreams or visions for most of the business head of the small, merging organization is to make the organization a system driven and to implement performance-driven management.


As we discussed the need for an organization-wide performance management system, now let us learn the step by step implementation step to make the performance management throughout the organization.

Step1:

Implementing Business performance management, keeping the second level reportees as stakeholders.


Business  Level Performance Management :

When the organization is small, or the first time, the organization is getting into the performance management system, the logical step would be determining the important business key performance metrics along with some of the functional key performance metrics and start measuring. Key performance metrics can be measured and tracked by the business heads and his/ her second level reportees, mainly functional heads. 

For example, some of the business KPI's like sales turnover, inventory cost as a % of sales, Plant effectiveness, attrition rate, % of NPD contribution over sales can be measured and tracked. This set of performance metrics can be reviewed along with functional heads, and they can be encouraged to work on the action plan to improve the business performance.

This process implementation duration can be one year. 

Benefits of  business-level performance management :

1. Senior leadership team becomes familiar with the process of performance management even though they are not feeling fully accountable for the result and but they feel they are part of the process.

2. Enhances the engagement among functional heads or second level reportees o when the business head reviews along with them every month or weekly 


Step 2:

Implementing Business performance management as done in the first year and arriving suitable functional level performance management, keeping the second level reportees and their team as stakeholders.


Business +Functional Level Performance Management 

Since the organization already familiarizes itself with a business-level performance management system in the first year, now the organization can have Business performance metrics that can be set by the business head and tracked along with the functional head.

In the second level, detailed functional level performance metrics can be set and assigned to the second level or operational head level. The functional performance parameters can have more functional oriented and some of the business metrics as derived from business KPI's from the business head.

For example, the supply chain function can have more functional metrics like no of vendors developed, inventory level at different levels, freight cost as % of sales, and so on. Similarly, for all functions, we can have more functional level metrics which can be assigned to respective functional heads and their team.

The functional heads and teams can be encouraged to present the performance metrics trend and a detailed action plan for the business head every month.


This process implementation duration can be one year. 

Benefits of business + functional performance management :

1. The focus will be given in-depth to the functional effectiveness, by the way, measurements are extended to all functional key activities

2. Since we involve functional heads and their team, their involvement and focus is improved on functional effectiveness

3. Most of the organization covers under different functional metrics and performance measurement system, eventually, there will be an improvement in the communication process, visibility of issues and the solutions approach, understanding the pains of cross functions enhances significantly.

4. Eventually, engagement enhances across functions


Step 3 :

Implementing  Individual-level performance metrics which is derived from business and functional performance metrics 


Business Performance Management  + Functional Performance Management + Individual performance management :

Since the organization already familiarize itself with the business performance management system in the first year and the functional team engaged in the functional performance system in the second year, now the organization widens the performance management net to all the people in the organization. Ideally, it can be extended to executives, first-line supervisors level.

In this process, each individual is given a set of performance metrics that will have linkage with the functional parameters, which is derived from business metrics.

Each individual is accountable for improving their metrics and report the progress. The review period can be once every quarter or monthly basis, depending on the bandwidth of the organization. It is the responsibility of the functional head to review the progress of their team members. 

For example, the individual depending upon the level in the organization can be given performance metrics that are related to his/ her functions. Also, some of the development plans can be added.

By the way, almost the entire organization is governed by performance metrics related to business and functions.

Benefits of  organization-wide performance measurement system:

1. Since the direction is set for the organization at business, functional, and individual levels; it improves the focus and engagement.

2. Eventually, the organization gets clarity of performer and non-performer, and this will help to focus on people developmental efforts 

3. When the rewards and recognitions are based on the performance, it brings visibility, differentiates the performers and non-performers, improves the culture towards self and organizational performance improvement

Overall, performance management brings engagement among people, eases the communication, improves the focus on results or solutions, and thereby culture would become more of winning than blaming or complaining.

Implementing the organization-wide performance management system is a long process and needs to be implemented in a phased manner for sustaining the results and involving all the stakeholders to create performance-based culture!

Learn the art of conducting Business Review Meeting

In the organization, one of the effective forums for engagement or one of the time-waster can be  REVIEW MEETINGS !. The conclusion depends on the way the business head or the leaders conduct the meetings. 

Conducting a purposeful and Result driven review meeting is an art, and the business head and other leaders can learn with conscious effort.

Let us discuss some of the insights about the review meetings and the solutions approach to make it effective.

Mindset related to review meetings:

some people look at the meeting as wasting of time and believe that the meeting is not going to help. Eventually, they never conduct any meeting, and even if it requires some decision to be taken, they use to call the individuals over the phone or 1-1 conversation and again convey the discussion to someone else. In this process, actually, the business head or leader's personal productivity is getting affected.

I observe that the mindset behind this, the business head is not interested or has not learned the art of conducting review meetings. The reason can be fear of facing people in a forum, not able to hold the review meeting effectively. This root cause needs to be understood and challenged.

Hence, the mindset and belief about the meeting need to be changed. Meeting need to be seen as a forum of related people to discuss, take decision collectively, and in the process, communication issues, the time delay can be avoided. Once the mind shift happens, the leader is in a position to learn the art of conducting reviews.

Fixed Meeting Reviews as much as possible :

In a smart organization, one good pattern, we can see is the fixed meeting reviews on a daily / weekly basis. For example, the sales review meeting will be every Monday at 2pm, Production review meeting every day at 9.30 am, and so on.

When you have a habit of fixing the meeting reviews on a daily / weekly basis at a fixed time, it improves the planning process of all the stakeholders, and the accountability to the meeting outcome will improve eventually as the agenda, and people's responsibilities are almost fixed.

When you call for ad-hoc meetings, the people may not be prepared for the agenda, data may not be available; eventually, the effectiveness of the meeting will also be less. It does not mean that we should not have an Adhoc meeting, as it depends on the business situation. It needs to be understood from the right perspective.

Be clear on the meeting purpose - Business or Technical Review?

I have seen in many organizations, the business head diverts the review purpose by going in microanalysis or shifting the focus to technical aspects. For example, in one of the monthly P&L review meetings, the purpose of the review should be reviewing the previous month's sales performance, expenses, and profitability and to discuss the future action plan. The discussion calls for high-level decision making on specific business-related issues. Rather than focusing on the business issues, the business head and the engineer get into the details of rejections, tool design, and engineering dimensions, and the whole meeting purpose is defeated. The other people's time also was wasted. If the technical aspect is important and to be discussed, nothing wrong in that, that can be done offline along with the respective people in a detailed manner. The business head decision is essential in the business review meeting, and he must be conscious of his/her focus on business and technical aspects.

As a business head, you need to be conscious about working on macro and micro details and need to be aware of switching in and switching out.

The other disciplines of conducting review meetings:

• start on time and finish it on time
• Go by the data or fact, less on opinion and emotional aspects
• Respect each one to voice their concerns, ideas, and suggestions
• Focus more on the decision /actions
• Be patience when others are talking
• Learn the art of questioning and giving feedback with the intention of curiosity and improvements than finding fault and blaming.

The facilitation skill of the chair is important in making the meeting more effective or just time wasters. The good news is that facilitation skill can be learned through awareness and practice!

Enhance your Planning Window for Sustainable Growth

Most of the small, emerging organizations are working on the current month or week or day and may not have much clarity about the immediate medium term. This practice results in the scenario "always busy" or "firefighting" mode to serve the customers all the time. But as a business, it will lose the long sight vision or growth potential.

One of the ways to come out of firefighting mode is to enhance the planning window.

Planning Window :

Instead of planning for the current month, extend the planning horizon for the next 3 months so that the business head and the organization will have visibility about the sales potential, working capital requirement to buy Raw material, capacity availability vs. requirement. Also, this enhanced planning will give more time to RESPOND to uncertainty.

Tool for enhancing the planning window:

The simple, yet powerful tool is 1+3 planning format. This could be used for sales projection or forecasting, working capital planning, or even for profitability projection.

For example, let us take the case of sales projection into a 1+3 format.

In a 1+3 sales format, you need to fill the data with sales projection for 1+3 months timeframe.

1 - a month is the current month, mostly firm / confirmed order

3 months can be for the next 3 months projection with firm/ confirmed order and then tentative  orders

Advantages of extending planning horizon :

1. When you see your sales projection data down the line 3 months from now, you will come to know the order position vs. target gap. That will give you response time to reach out to existing customers for more orders or pitch-in new customers for new orders
2. Since any new order requires time for approaching the right customer- processing inquiry - price finalization- proto proving- getting bulk order, this 3 months time horizon will give the flexibility and sufficient response time

3. If you know the projection for the next 3 months with some level of accuracy, that will help you to utilize your capacity well, manage the cash flow proactively.


The thought process of the business head must be proactive and beyond the current day or month for sustainable growth. This 1+3 projection will help to stimulate your thought process!

Pricing process and typical mistakes in pricing decision in small business

Below some of the pricing mistakes most of the business heads do in the small, emerging organizations as I came across in my client's business.

What is meant by " Pricing"?

Pricing is a process to determine the selling price for your product or service.

Pricing is not just a mathematical calculation of adding all your costs, then add your desirables profit and arriving some numeric value as a selling price.

Pricing process even though it looks straight forward, in reality, pricing decision is more of strategic to each customer or product or services. Pricing is a combination of science and art.

If you fix a higher price and your product is commodity nature, then you will lose it to your competition.

If you fix a lower price, then you may be losing your profitability. In the long run, your business may not be sustainable to run as the cost keeps going up.

Typical mistakes in pricing process :

1. Going by thumb rule, which was fixed a long time back. Thumb rule may not be relevant today.

For example, I had seen some people fix their process cost as 10 % of their material cost. In contrast, in reality, as per the latest P&L analysis, even the average variable price is more than 10 %. The point is the lack of relying on the newest cost details, and going by the thumb rule puts the organization in making the mistake of wrong pricing.

The organization can develop the process of checking the P&L value chain every month and can have an average value of each value chain once in a quarter. That will give the business heads or cost estimation team the realistic cost structure of the organization.

2. Not standardizing the costing process :

except for few organizations, most of the organizations, the process of pricing is being done by the business head based on his / her way of estimating the cost and finally arriving the price. One way, he/she mentally prepares the estimation based on the experience and the judgment about the product and customer. Still, when the organization is growing, a standardized process of evaluation is required. The estimation process may be customized with the template and having the process checklist like lot size, changeover time, cycle time, the weight of the component, rejection %, and typical other costs like inventory, freight cost, etc. Once the organization standardize the process, and it can be delegated to engineers to make the first level costing, and the business head can have a final decision on the pricing

3. Expecting the same profitability across product lines and customers:

as mentioned, some business head has a thumb rule of maintaining some profitability across all product lines and customers. Pricing is always strategic, and the decision will vary from customer to customer or product lines. The Business head must think about the short term and long term implications of the pricing decisions. For example, if the organization already achieved its breakeven point, it can consider any further volume or customer with less profitability than the usual profitability margin. This additional volume or new customer will bring down the cost of operation further down, and this is beneficial only for the organization.

The pricing is the combination of science and art. The decision must be taken by the business head, considering the short term and long term implications of the pricing sensitivity to the customer.

Framework for bringing synergy among people in small, emerging organization

When we complete 12 months transformation intervention with small, emerging organization, the foremost question asked by the business head is " How can we sustain the improvements going forward?

The answer lies in establishing the daily management process in the organization at each level viz CEO& Senior leadership level, Middle-level management team, and operating level. Once if we implemented the system across all levels and executed on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, it creates an opportunity to build the organization as agile and vibrant.

also, it improves the engagement level of people with the organizational objectives, and this creates an opportunity for each individual to bring out the potential.

Target / Agenda / KPI's

In any level, what we measure, that gets focussed and get improved. We need performance metrics for individual/functions and the overall business as such. Measurement drives people behavior.

Right People / Cross functional Team

We need to identify the right people and place them in the right position. That itself solves most of the organizational problem. sometimes to solve the business challenges, we need a cross-functional team

Review forum / Communication 

We need to establish review forums to discuss the challenges. Status and facilitate the team towards the solution. Meeting or review forum is an excellent place to facilitate the solutions.

also, we need to establish different communication process like Management information system/groups for sharing and updating the live information.

when the organization sets the above process and does the cycle more frequently and effectively, the concerns on sustainability, people engagement, speed of response can be addressed.

Business planning process for existing business in a small, emerging organizations

Most of the Small, Emerging firm's business head think that business plan is meant for banks/finance institution to get financial assistance when they start a new business or expanding the existing business.

Actually, in the existing business itself, the business plan needs to be done at least once in a year irrespective of expansion or new plant. This planning process drives your thought process to navigate future opportunities and challenges in a proactive manner.

What is business planning or preparing a master plan is all about?

1. Visualizing the future opportunities/threats
2. Anticipating the risk
3. Proposing counteractions
4. Preparing your organization for next-level growth

How to do business planning for your business?

Inputs required for business plan

• Industry Trend / Changes in the business environment
• Volume forecasting/projection for the next 3 years
• Your organizational goal aspirations on profitability and growth 
• Customer segment or new customer's opportunity 
• 
  

Planning areas

Likely output from business planning Process

• Organization structure / Engagement initiatives
• Financial plan
• Organization development plan
• Initiatives on productivity/cost and quality aspects
• Product portfolio / business model / integration / diversity plan
• Marketing initiatives

This is a collective visualization and introspection process to make your organization to manage any uncertainties as well as to prepare your organization for future!

First, be aware of your pain and constraints

Some time back, I had met the small business owner, and when I asked him, " what is your business pain areas?". He responded that everything is fine. When I asked about his sales turnover, he said almost the same for the last 3 years. When I asked about profitability, he immediately responded, ok as of now, but when I showed him different trend patterns of profitability, he started opened out.

some of the signs as mentioned  by the business head 

• Business profitability had been in a declining trend,
• No sign for new customers order,
• People are not engaged and not listening to his instructions
• Not aware of the monthly performance as he was working based on the customer's pressure and somehow delivering.

Here the key point is as business head, you must know your pain point or constraint in your business which is affecting your delivery performance.

The constraint could be your manufacturing process, flow, equipment downtime, capacity imbalance, material shortage, people non-availability, and so on ... Even at the business level, the constraints could be your marketing or order procurement process or planning process or engineering function, and so on.

You must learn the techniques of identifying the constraints in your business through the following organizational capability.

1.Data collection and Transparency across all levels and functions on plant utilization, People efficiency, and product quality performance 
2.Review  / Communication mechanism at levels about performance 
3.WIP data 
4. The capacity and limitation of each function/process that could be manpower, equipment, working capital  or competency gap 

Developing those systems and process help you to be aware of your constraints 

once you know the constraints very well, you are almost towards the solution since with your expertise, once you the constraints clearly, you could figure out the answers quickly.

The point is, as a business head, you need to sure enough about your pain areas and constraints!

Need for organizationwide performance management system

As we discussed earlier "what you measure, will get focus and control." Measuring business, functional and individual through performance metrics will drive the behavior and actions. 

Organization-wide performance management systems mean from top of the organization to the bottom of the organization have a COMMON GOAL, deployed to all levels, with a different set of objectives that will have linkages with COMMON GOAL. 

For example, a business goal of achieving X % net profit is to be deployed from top to bottom levels of the organization and everyone will have the same focus to achieve the goal. But the fact is business metrics cannot be populated down the level as such as it is very difficult for the people to understand.

To engage all levels of people, deployment of business objectives to the down the level with supporting objectives are being done. For example, a business goal is further broken down into the functional level goal, in turn, the functional level goal is further broken down as an individual goal. By achieving the goal at the individual level, the functional goals are achieved. By ensuring functional goal achievement, the business goals are achieved.

Given below 
deployment of one performance metric from the business level to the individual level.

Now let us discuss why does the company require organization-wide performance deployment?

1 Organization-wide common performance deployment promotes performance s oriented culture over a period of time.
2. It differentiates performer and nonperformer.
3. It engages individual and the team, and it is a natural team-building process
4. The team understands each other's challenges and helps each other for a common goal.
4. It helps to improve individual / functional efficiency as constraints are exposed.
5. eventually, the organization migrates from functional orientation to organizational goal achievement orientation, and this drives the solutions-oriented mindset among the team.

Driving organization towards solutions-oriented culture is a paramount priority of business head, and organizational-wide performance deployment will help to achieve the mission !!

Importance of daily routine management towards sustainable performance

One of the common phrases we use to hear in most of the discussion in the organization is daily routine management.

Let us understand the meaning of the term and its significance on sustainable performance in the organization, especially in small, emerging organization.

Some of the myths of daily routine management:

"It is all about roles and responsibility as described in the job description."

Even though daily routine management is a responsibility of all individual in the organization, it goes beyond as mentioned in the job description. From my experience with small, emerging organization, the job description is written with the mix of activities and accountability.

However , Daily routine management is nothing but how you are consistently managing your daily routines so that you ensure your organizational performance is on track against the target. 

The context is if you are not active on a daily basis, you cannot be successful in your weekly results. If you are not effective in your weekly commitments, you cannot be successful in your monthly results and so on quarterly, half-yearly and annually.

"It is required only for shopfloor people and not for management level"

Daily routine management is a management practice, and it is required for all the levels.

For instance, if you are a shop floor manager, you suppose to do some of the activities on a daily basis irrespective of your other priorities. For example, the activities like reviewing your previous day production against the target, quality issues, customer complaints, communicating with other functions through MIS or meeting forums at a fixed time are the daily routines.

If you miss it for one day or do it in ad-hoc frequency, you may have the consequences regarding losing targets. For example, if you do not review your production status on a daily basis and ensure you are matching with asking and running rate, you may have relatively less response time to catch up or to take timely counteractions.

If you do not monitor the progress on a daily basis, you don't know the reality and cannot take timely corrective action.

In fact, daily routine management is based on the P-D-C-A cycle.

Similarly as a business head, if your daily routine activities are maintaining relationship with customers and employees, reviewing the financial aspects, reviewing the strategy implementation aspects and so on and if you are consistently doing those activities on a fixed, short intervals, you may face the consequence on the performance failure in any of those critical areas.

Benefits of daily routine management across all levels

1.Improves certainty and communication among team members

2. More response time available to take corrective action in case performance slips

3. It drives organization towards performance-based culture and engagement

4. More importantly, it improves personal efficiency and effectiveness

As any habit formation, initially it would be challenging to follow disciplined, structured daily routine management, but once it is formed, the organization is capable of handling any changes from external as well as internal environment.

In my opinion, more than management processes, daily routine management is culture building towards performance!

How to select the right candidate for your organization?

One of the challenges for most of the small, emerging organization is selecting the right candidate for the job and retaining in the organization. There could be many factors contributing to retaining the people, and we discuss in another forum. However, one of the typical scenario we are witnessing in most of the organization is that within a short time, say 1-3 months time, the business head and the incumbent conclude either person is not fit for the job, or the organization is not fit for the new incumbent. This scenario is more common in senior level recruitment.

A strange fact is that the business head had personally involved in shortlisting, interviewed the candidate and inducted for employment. If either one of them concludes " this is not fit for me," we can arrive a logical conclusion that " selection process needs to be improved".

Typical mistakes the business head do during the selection process?

1. On an ad-hoc basis, decide the requirement for manpower 
2. No job description or role clarity/ responsibility/accountability defined before shortlisting the candidate even though there is macro level articulation on the need.
3. Conducting the interview process  with the intent of understanding more about the  candidate's previous experience and not on verifying or calibrating his caliber is matching with the organization's prevailing business practices or the culture
4. No structured questioning to check the attitude/perspective of the candidate to solve the existing organizational challenges or issues
5. Sometimes, selecting the candidate based on the reference from a known circle or filling the position with " somewhat" fit candidates.

Impact of the poor selection process:

1. Attrition rate becomes high, and it affects the stability of the organization.

2. Business head spends his time in routine work which affects his productivity and other aspects of profitability and growth
3. Cost of recruitment keeps increasing with no return benefits.

4. The organization which has grown with old, loyal employees, the high attrition rate signals different communication among employee. Eventually lead to complacent mentality, arrogance, know it all attitude which affects speed and flexibility towards change 

5. Sustaining organization development and gearing up for next level growth with a professional mix of people will become a major challenge for the organization.

Solutions approach to improving the selection process:

As a business head, before filling and selecting the candidate, you need to be clear on the job description as follows

• Position description
• Age, Experience, and qualification
• what level of competency(Job Knowledge and Skills) you are looking for 
• what is your organizational culture and how would you like to check during the interview
• your affordable pay and structure
• Likely growth path to the incumbent and likely changes in the existing organization structure

Once you are clear on your expectation, circulate the job description to professional recruiters and get the potential candidates.

Scan through the potential people and shortlist a  few who fit into the above requirements.

During Interviewing the candidate:

Look for the attitude which is required for the position or title. Attitude can be tested by asking the following question and look at the response from the candidate.

1. Experience in handling people dynamics and his style of managing the challenges 

2. State some of your organizational scenario or challenges and ask how he would respond in those scenarios.

The quick or momentary response, to some extent, will reflect the person's natural attitude towards work and people as this help you to gauge the suitability of the person to your organization.

Also, You need to note that you are recruiting senior level people to bring a change and sustain the business growth. Hence be balance in your approach to select the person with a track record of change management and fit into your culture.

Since we are dealing with human dynamics, it is challenging to gauge people's capability and attitude in the interview time. However, having a systematic process and improving your interviewing skill will improve the probability of choosing a right people for the organization as it helps both you and the others!

Relevance of Target setting & Review forums on accelerating business performance

One of the management process to control the business performance is to set the business target and review those targets.

when the organization grows from small to large, complexity also gets grow faster than business growth thanks to more customers, more products, more people and so on. Communication also gets complicated among all the stakeholders.
To overcome the complexity and bring accountability, setting the target and review those targets becomes important.

The targets could be Business targets, Functional Targets, and Individual Targets. The targets can be termed as Key Performance Indicators (KPI's)

Depending on the size of the organization and bandwidth to administer the performance management system, the business head can set the target in the following hierarcy

1. Business Key performance indicators 
2. Functional Key performance indicators
3. People Key performance indicators

From our experience, it would be a right approach, to begin with, Business Key performance indicators covering all functional deliverables in terms of the following categories

• Productivity
• Quality
• Cost 
• Delivery
• People engagement

The business head can set the annual target on the above categories as it covers all functions.

for example, "Manufacturing cost per component" is one of the key performance indicators under the category of "Cost".To achieve this KPI target, all functions have to contribute, by the way, business level KPI target setting covers all functions.

Once the organiztion becomes familiar with target setting at a business level and acquires competency, it can go to the next level of target setting at a functional level and individual level.

The business level KPI's can be set for annual basis which can be tracked every month , every week and every day.

Benefits of Setting Business Targets (KPI's)

1. Business heads and the team get clarity what they want to achieve on business profitability and growth
2. Targets set the direction to the team
3. Brings the people together
4. Improves the focus of the team
5. Improves the communication among team

Review forums :

once the business KPI's are in place, it is the responsibility of the business head to create a review forums to review/discuss the target status along with cross-functional team members and take a counteraction if it is required.

The review forum is nothing but a meeting of a relevant cross-functional team with fixed agenda.

The review forum could be monthly KPI review meeting, weekly reviews or daily performance review.

Benefits of Review forums:

1. Review forum is excellent process to review the target status and take counteractions
2. when the review happens along with cross-functional team members, it brings accountability to all
3. Review forums brings the problem to surface and can be solved along with the team quickly rather than individual review
4. Since each cross functional team member involving and contributing to different KPI's in different roles either as lead or team member, the review forum helps the team to know each other's problem . It helps to bring the bond among the members
5.Review forums if conducted properly with a real problem-solving approach, it enhances the personal productivity of each individual.

When the targets are clear and the teams are facilitated for achieving the targets through review forums, eventually organization sets for performance management culture and it would accelerate the business performance!

How does Project Management apply to New Product development?

As discussed in Typical problems in new product development in a manufacturing environment, we have observed some patterns of challenges. Project management is all about the application of different management knowledge, skill, tools, and techniques in each phase of the projects.

Hence, the following principles of project management can be applied in new product development also.

Some of the principles are given below

1. Starting the project with END GOAL in mind
2. Involving all stakeholders at an early stage
3. Define project scope with a set of key performance indicators
4. Tracking Key Performance Indicators throughout the project phase
5. Defining the phases or steps in the project 
6. Proactive risk assessment and mitigation plan
7. Review and communication process
8. Active Change Management Practices
9. Engaging people with team/leader structure

Those principles can be applied in new product development as well.

Typical Problems in New Product Development in SME's

Typically, new product development starts the moment's customer asks for a new product or giving intend for new products to the organization delivers the physical product to the customer .We can call it as C to C

In between the intent of physical delivery, a lot of issues or challenges the organization is facing. 

Given below some of the typical issues or challenges 

1.Not fully aware of the customer's requirement

2.No sign off of idea/concept between customer and organization leads to  frequent changes in the idea/concept of the product itself

3. Not identifying and involving all the key stakeholders at the beginning of the project may lead to changes at a later stage, in turn, affect the timeline/ cost and deliverables (Quality Requirements)

4. Not spending enough  on planning  product development process leads to time delay and cost overrun

5.No structured management reviews on risk assessment and mitigation of risks lead to delay in decision making, Q issues, cost overrun and time delay.

6.No structured tracking systems for  change management and in the absence of change management, any delay or cost overrun or quality issues in the new product development would be taken at a personal level and blame of others

7.No systematic planning on facilities like fixture/ gauges/material handling/toolings leads to delay and quality issues in the product.

8.NPD trials and proto building take the second priority in the organization next to day to day deliveries lead to delay and personal friction among the people on sharing the organizational resources.

when you observe those above challenges, you can find a pattern of challenges.

That is lack of target, people integration, lack of process on communication, resource planning, risk assessment, review forums and so on. To overcome those pattern of challenges only, PROJECT MANAGEMENT comes a holistic solution in the new product development process!

Build an Environment and Process for Employee Engagement

One of the most fundamental reasons for a consistent growth organization is people and how they are engaging themselves toward the organizational goal. Developing people and bringing them together is the primary responsibility of the CEO or head of the organization.

Bringing the “emotional connection within” is a challenging task, but is possible with two factors. One is creating a positive environment in the organization and the second is establishing a structured, consistent process.

The environmental factor consists of providing basic amenities to the employees, visual management, and housekeeping through daily management. A positive environment triggers a positive behavior, action, and results among the employees.

The structured, consistent process includes identifying the engagement methodology for different levels of peoples, defining the administration of engagement initiatives, rewards, recognition plan, etc.

Given in the following text is the framework of employee engagement initiatives for different levels.

Maximizing profitability in emerging organization- a holistic approach

Irrespective of your external environment, you can maximize profitability in your business by looking at your opportunities holistically.I have given practical six approaches to improve the business profitability which we have tested and delivered result in our client base.

some of the approaches may be relevant to your business model as well

Hope you enjoy to watch this video clip and implement in your organization as well.

Maximizing profitability-a holistic approach 

Why is Lost Order Analysis important for Organization?

Keeping continuous order pipeline is one of the healthiest indications of the organization. Even though ensuring order pipeline is perceived as accountability of marketing or sales function, it is actually cross-functional deliverables. 

Typically in a medium size organization, the following functions involved in order procurement process

1. Marketing or customer relationship 
2. Sales 
3. Engineering & 
4. Finance / Cost estimation 
5. Business head or pricing committee

Order procurement process indicates the speed, flexibility in decision making, teamwork, cost competitiveness and disciplined approach of the cross-functional team and management. One of the analysis indicates the organizational speed, decision making is "Lost Order Analysis."


What is meant by Lost order Analysis?:

Even though Lost Order Analysis is reactive, it analyses the reason for losing the prospective customer order. The reason could be a technical reason or regret from a technical perspective, pricing issues, delay in response from the organization, perception of the customer and so on.

This analysis will give clarity of why the organization is losing the potential customer's order.

What are the parameters to be analyzed? :

As said, this is cross-functional deliverables, and the business head must review the cross-functional team on the following parameters and the gap 

1.No of potential customers asked for queries  Vs. No of queries responded on time
2.No of quotes responded Vs. No of quotes converted into a sales order
3.Reasons for losing the potential orders

this analysis will give an insight about the organization on the following 

1. The effectiveness of marketing function to identify, grasp the opportunities
2. The cross-functional effort in ascertaining technical, commercial feasibility on time
3. decision-making ability on pricing 
4. Speed in responding and followup with prospective customers
5. Cost & Quality competitiveness in the market from customer's perspective


How frequently the organization needs to do  Lost order Analysis?

The frequency depends on the industry type, customer 's profile, lead time to respond. Generally, we suggest to our client to do the lost order analysis at least once in a quarter, as it is a reasonable time frame to understand the losses.

Role of business head:

The role of a business head is critical to conducting lost order analysis reviews as typically the functions point each other for losing orders and most of the time from our experience, the organization losing the orders due to both strategic and operational reasons.

The frequent review by business head will help the organization to improve the policies, business processes and of course to improve sales turnover of the business.

For example, when we initiate this analysis in one of our client, the team had realized that the majority of the orders lost due to High pricing. When we did deep analysis on the pricing, the cause identified was on the "cost estimation method" in which "lot size" was given overemphasis while costing in engineering function as well as at business head level. Once team identified the mistake and policies were framed on " lot size" in costing. After the corrective action,  we could see the reduction in the quote value and subsequently order conversion rate was increased significantly. 

The point is as a business head, if you do the lost order analysis frequently along with your cross-functional team, you will get a lot of insights about your order procurement process, and you can improve your business turnover.

 Also, this type of analysis will improve your cross-functional working cultures towards speed on decision making and execution

Managing Inventory with a holistic approach in Small,Emerging Organization

In most of the organization, Inventory is a concern for the business head.

When we say inventory, it consists of Raw Material *+ Work in Process (WIP)+ Finished Goods Inventory.

* It includes raw material used in product + consumables + spares for equipment also.

Why inventory is a concern ?:

1. Holding  and funding cost of stock is a burden on working capital as this could be used for something else
2. High  inventory occupies more space, need more handling and people deployment
3. Despite having high inventory, delivery actualization is not met on time, holding inventory adds fuel to the inventory cost, in turn, manufacturing cost

From a basic understanding of waste from a lean perspective, inventory is waste, and it is only a symptom. Inventory cannot be controlled or reduced at symptoms level as the inefficiency of all the manufacturing, supply chain, and order procurement process and effectiveness impact the inventory level.

Hence if you want to reduce or control inventory significantly, the causes have to be managed with a holistic approach. It calls for strategic as well as tactic management.

Given the factors affecting the inventory either in RM stage or WIP stage or FG stage.

Depending upon the industry, the factors may vary a little bit, but with our experience in many manufacturing industries, the following significant factors to be revisited for better inventory management.

1.Manufacturing factors
2.Engineering factors
3.Supply chain factors
4.Customer factors
5.Internal System factors

1. Manufacturing factors :

Most of the time, the WIP inventory primarily based on the lot size, changeover time, machine/plant capacity, reliability of machine/ plant equipment, the overall flexibility of the resources and the capacity imbalance among the process concerning customer's order pace or takt time.

when you want to reduce or control WIP, the above factors have to be revisited and re-engineered.

2.Engineering factors :

It includes the no of parts in the components, standardization among the parts and modular systems, Processes involved in manufacturing those parts and the stages involved in manufacturing either internal or external sources and so on

3.Supply Chain Factors :

This factor is more of the strategic intent of the organization on the supply chain design. It includes the no of the vendors for each part, their location, pricing factors, lead-time to supply, the reliability of the vendor base and so on

4. Customer Factors :

It is more of an external driven. However, management has a choice to drive. It includes the customer profile either tier1, tier2 or OEM, the location of the customer, demand pattern, and forecasting accuracy, no of products or product lines, varieties, and volume in each variety. Those factors govern the inventory of RM+WIP+FG 

5. Internal system Factors :

Irrespective of external factors and industry type, the discipline, and internal management processes govern the inventory to some extent. It includes Norm fixation for each commodity or part wise, budgeting, buyer accountability fixing, regular reviews, and management communication system among the team.



Inventory control without affecting the customer's order delivery is a continuous management effort and calls for a holistic approach.!