Will this statement stand true to the operational execution
world we live in, probably only time will tell, but based on the trends I
outlined at the end of 2015, and looking
forward I believe 2016 provides the opportunity.
By the way, welcome to
2016 may it be an exciting and productive year!
The holiday break it provides a time to reflect and discuss,
and in one conversation my last blog was raised and really “how much
transformation was happening?” Initially,
I thought it was a comment against the trend we are seeing with the “Operational Transformation”, but this was a
friend working in a major food
manufacturing company. His comment was actually
the momentum of change is well underway, and happening at increasing pace.
There were 4 areas
that he felt his business and associated industry where trying grapple with to stay ahead:
1/ Agility of effective, valued products
and brands to the market (which he stated was regional, eg specific tastes of
similar products changed by region and so your go to markets, packaging, etc. His example was around cheese
how the tastes in say Mexico for cheese are totally different to Australia, and
then Italy. This leads the increased
importance of regional new products vs
global new products, and effective speed and cost of innovation, execution and introduction..
So the challenge of “new product Innovation” and then “New Product Introduction”
and delivering it to the market at the correct margin to be competitive in
timely manner is a whole focus. His comment was this is the core competitive
advantage that his company identifies, and must keep driving while dealing with
the other transformations happening.
2/ Operational Workforce transformation:
He agrees with me that too much focus has been on the “aging workforce issue”
and that most of HR and Operational teams have missed the bigger transformation, and that is the one of new
generation work methods and transformation in workspace that goes with it. He
felt like his company woke up to this mid way thru last year when they could
not just not fill positions, but are having significant challenges in retaining talent, not within the company but in
roles. He felt like initially people thought that would just get a transition
to a new workforce yes younger of different experience. But they had not realized
that way in which people will work, think, interact, and gain satisfaction will
also change.
3/ “Planet Awareness, Image”:
this one was an interesting discussion, as he raised it as a real strategy for
evolving the brand of the company to been seen as proactive to the environment,
to attract further “feeling satisfaction” of customers. He also stated that government
regulation, and increasing costs of disposing of waste, and energy costs also
are now seen a significant bottom line costs, and must be managed more efficiently.
But during this discussion, it was also
clear that the perception of being “proactive to the environment” in use of
energy, carbon footprint, environment etc
was also a key strategy for attractive talent to work in the company.
4/ Transparency across the total product value
chain, “end to end”. This strategy was about tractability and making sure
they happy with brand all the way to customer, but also about cost as they were
“outsourcing” increasing amounts of the
value chain. But this did not mean they lost responsibility for product while in
“outsourced manufacturing partners” execution. The transparency across the
supply chain enables increased flexibility
and lower costs through inventory reduction.
These 4 strategies are
combined with the current strategies to increase plant performance utilization and lower cost of materials through waste /loss reduction.
When you sit back and look at these strategies a constant
set of pillars came up in the Operational Solution approach:
·
Everyone
having access to information and knowledge no matter their state or location,
this means internet becomes a part of the solution backbone.
·
Cyber Security is very much top of mind, both in
strategy to secure, manage, to contain cost and risk.
·
Data validation/ and contextualization, if transparency
and faster decisions are required how do you gain consistent information across
different sites. \
·
Delivering a new “operational Workspace/ experience”
that has embedded knowledge that does not get stale, and enables imitative
learning for a dynamic and collaborative workforce.
As the night
conversation went on it was clear that the 4
strategies was really about changing the way in which the company manages and
executes operational work, no matter how big or small. But becoming in control
of not just the planned product work, but the day to day, minute to minute work
at the different levels of the operational loop.
Based on the trends of 2015, this long conversation, I
wonder if we will see 2015 as the year people recognized that needed to rethink
how they handling “Operational Work”.
With 2016 becoming the year where momentum continues to grow on projects
turning to programs, that span plants, and value chain and an increasing amount of companies put teams, strategies
and programs in place to evolve their operations to transform the way handle “operational
Work”!
You might ask what about “big data” and the “internet of
things” but these are technologies that will be part of the enabling system for a new operational solution.
