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The World
of a Business Process Consultant in Asia
By Michael Alan Hamlin
August 6, 2001
Tom Myer is a consultant with Thomas
Group (a client). Over the past several years, Thomas Group's practice
in Asia has doubled every year, as more companies rely on the firm
to help them prepare for increasing competition. Recently Mr. Myer
wrote about his work with some of Hong Kong's most recognized corporate
names. I think you'll enjoy hearing what it's like to be intimately
involved with these companies because many of their circumstances
are similar to companies here. Here's what Tom had to say:
I'm frequently asked what it's like
being a consultant in Hong Kong. The easy answer is "Great!"
A more meaningful answer is to talk about my observations, and those
of my colleagues, about the Hong Kong businesses that we assist.
The question then becomes, what are our observations from working
with clients in Hong Kong?
All clients and companies say they
are different, and they are. There are, however, some common characteristics
or barriers of Hong Kong manufacturing and service companies that
enable us as consultants to provide high value in implementing dramatic
change as Hong Kong firms increasingly look to the future and the
importance of being globally competitive.
The Positives
The very positive aspects of Hong Kong companies are:
· The Hong Kong people are nice. On the job they are always
courteous and considerate and treat their consultants with respect.
· They know how to manufacture products very well, are cost
conscious, and quality conscious.
· They understand how to manufacture and sell effectively
in international markets while dealing with diverse issues such
as culture, government, and customer differences. Included is the
ability to partner with others in joint ventures.
· They have a long-term perspective and the willingness to
invest and wait for profit rather than having to have immediate
results. Market share is important.
· Management has a great attitude about what it takes to
be globally competitive. They accept that there are things that
they know they should be doing but don't know how and also that
there are things that they don't know they should be doing.
· The hierarchical management structure allows change to
be driven from the top. If the boss says do it, they do it within
the limitations of their ability and the quality of the process.
Barriers
The most common and serious business barriers that we encounter
are:
· Lack of a process mindset.
· Inadequate measurements to manage the business
· Difficulty with the effective implementation of change.
· Fear of change by the employees and sometimes management
· Poor workload prioritization and management, which we call
AIP management, where an AIP is an action in progress or a task.
Removing Barriers
As an international consulting firm, these business barriers are
not new to us, but there are important, unique challenges implementing
them in Hong Kong. Most of these challenges have their roots in
the internal culture of Hong Kong companies. At the same time, the
rewarding aspect of our work is that the solutions are basically
the same as for a Western company with similar barriers. Top managers
in Hong Kong realize this, and help us drive change. But actually
finding solutions to barriers involves using internal and sometimes
external Cross Functional teams. These teams identify the barriers,
put measurements in place, define action plans to remove the barriers,
and then implement the plans. Let's take a closer look at the most
common barriers and the solutions that we have found effective in
removing them.
The problems and the solutions
Process mindset. Most Hong Kong companies have strong
functional managers responsible for functions such as sales, manufacturing,
and product development. The difficulty with this organizational
structure and mindset is that many of the major problems encountered
by companies can't be solved by a single function. For example,
in order to more rapidly develop new products required to be competitive
in the market, sales and marketing must properly define the product,
forecast demand, and launch the new product. Product development
must design quickly and properly, and manufacturing must manufacture
the product according to specifications and do so cost effectively.
No single functional manager can make all of these actions occur
in harmony or easily solve problems that occur in the process of
doing them. And when functional managers don't work together new
products are frequently late, over budget, cost too much, and have
quality problems. Even project managers have great difficulty solving
or preventing these problems, because it is difficult to get the
various departments to work together effectively.
The solution to the product development problem is to define a Time
to Market process (TTM) with a Process Owner who is a member of
the top management team reporting to the CEO or Managing Director.
The Process Owner is responsible and accountable for the Time to
Market Process and leads a Cross Functional Team with representatives
from each of the functions involved in the process. In our experience,
we are often able to reduce the time from the beginning to the end
of a business activity such as TTM by up to 50%.
Measurements to manage the business. We have seen two
common barriers regarding measurements in Hong Kong businesses:
1. Some have data, but not reports sufficient for managing
and improving the business.
2. Some are lacking the data and have to start collecting
data before improvement and management of change can start.
Many of the companies with data only look at results measures, such
as return on net assets. The problem with results measures is that
by the time their value is known, it is too late in the process
to employ corrective measures. However when predictive drivers such
as cycle time and first pass yield are used, clients can determine
the changes in their business and make adjustments as needed.
We help our clients define the key measurements for a business and
to ensure that the focus is on the appropriate processes that will
drive results. A simple one-page panel of nine or ten measurements
is normally adequate for a CEO or MD to manage the overall business
and for each of his Process Owners to manage their processes. With
this simple but hierarchical approach to metrics management teams
can achieve dramatic results by quickly identifying and removing
barriers to effective processes, and preventing others from being
set up.
Fear of Change. Often fear of change can be a significant
barrier to successful implementation of change. Most people naturally
prefer the certainty of the status quo over change they do not understand.
It is as simple as fear of the unknown.
Key to overcoming the fear of change is a powerful
communications program to keep employees well informed about the
objectives of change, the methods of change, and its impact on the
employees. Participation in change contributes hugely to overcoming
the fear of the unknown. We use cross-functional teams consisting
of members from a number of parts of the organization to do effective
barrier removal and buy in by the employees.
Nothing is more powerful in getting employee support
than letting them participate in fixing a problem that they have
known about for a long time. Recognition is also important for those
employees who participate and contribute to the change process.
Recognition comes in many forms depending on the company and includes
group celebrations, group and individual rewards, company newspaper
articles, and posters with pictures of the team members. Top management
gets recognition for successful change implementation at weekly
management meetings.
Implementation of change. Clients often talk about
two problems regarding implementation of change in their organizations:
1. There are changes that they need to make, but their
organizations don't know how to make the changes.
2. There are changes that should be made that they
don't know need to be made in order to be globally competitive.
The underlying reasons for this difficulty in implement
change include all of the barriers we've already discussed:
· Poor workload prioritization and management,
· Lack of a process mindset.
· Inadequate measurements to manage the business
By applying proven methodologies that directly address
these barriers throughout the client's complete business or business
unit in close cooperation with management, we have been able to
effectively drive operational performance improvements. And, achieve
the financial benefits associated with these improvements as well.
To do this, we use hands-on implementation of process improvements
and focus on implementation of prioritized changes that improve
both the client's business culture and processes. Key to this process
is the empowerment of people and teams by transferring realistic
levels of responsibility and authority from management to teams
and their leaders. This is one of the most radical changes that
take place in Hong Kong organizations where previously one person
made all important decisions.
AIP management. Do you ever start more tasks than you
finish? Most managers and workers do. It is made worse in Hong Kong
companies due to their typically hierarchical structure. Consider
the comment of one of my clients: "In a traditional Chinese
corporation, the staff has gotten used to being obedient, so they
get new directives from their bosses, they will accomplish the new
job first and ignore their work on hand which may be more urgent."
Very few employees will question their boss or supervisor regarding
which of their AIPs (tasks) are the most important or even have
the discussion of what is the due date that is required. The results
are that many times there are a large number of incomplete tasks
or work in process from which no value is obtained, employees work
excessive hours, and the highest priority projects are not completed
on time.
The solution to AIP management problems is judicious
use of the 80/20 rule that says that 80% of the value is accomplished
in 20% of the tasks. The difficult part of applying this rule is
to identify the critical 20% and then to implement those tasks effectively.
This can be accomplished by the use of our AIP management tools
and processes, but it also requires a culture change in the organization
that can only be implemented by an outside change agent. Quoting
our client: "all the staff have set up "Action Plans"
to determine the urgency of their work. With these action plans,
our senior managers recognize priorities. If they didn't have these
plans it would be difficult for them to balance the benefits of
completing work in progress versus turning around new assignments."
Summary
Do you have any of these problems? How effective is your organization
at removing the barriers, defining action plans, and implementing
radical change?
What I like about being a consultant
in Hong Kong is to work with a management team in implementing the
radical changes necessary for their company to be globally competitive,
to dramatically increase their customers' satisfaction, and to see
the growth of the managers themselves as they learn new management
processes and tools. It is also very rewarding to witness how much
improvement there is in the internal communications between the
managers themselves and also up and down the organization. Finally,
a wonderful part about implementing change in Hong Kong is that
the CEOs and MDs drive the change. And their organizations respond,
implement, and get great results as a result. Great results are
what make us all feel successful, and the clients know that they
now have the knowledge, skills, and the tools to continue to manage
change in the future.
(Mr. Hamlin is managing director of the consultancy TeamAsia
and the author of two books on Asian economies and managing in Asia.
His latest book is The New Asian Corporation: Managing for the
Future in Post-Crisis Asia. His e-mail address is mahamlin@teamasia.com.ph.)
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