Inside ASI-AP

The management team completed the last two days of Module 2 of our Graduate Certificate in Management course (previous posts here and here) last Wednesday and Thursday. Module 2 was "Managing Operational Improvement"; I posted about our first two days of this module last month.

I particularly enjoyed this module as it appealed to my engineering background (being about process and quality), plus it was not something I had been formally trained - concepts like business excellence frameworks, process optimisation, process variability and customer models.

Over the last few years we have certainly had a focus on process and customers. Process wise we have worked hard on sales processes, implementation processes, tech support process and customer care processes. Our focus on customers resulted in restructuring in 2005 to create the Customer Care group and give customers a central point of contact at ASI.

But the take-aways from this AIM module will drive us to a whole new level of customer focus and process focus. I also believe it is the answer to solving our compartmentalisation issues that I have posted about previously (here and here). The words used in the course were the "new management paradigm". Our processes need to become horizontal across all departments, involving cross functional teams, to satisfy customers. Our processes right now are vertically aligned, that is aligned within a single department - sales, consulting, customer care.

As for meeting business excellence frameworks - specifically the Australian Business Excellence Framework - we are right on track with our corporate use of the Balanced Scorecard management system, but now need to take our learnings from the AIM course and really drill down into the business, into processes, to refine customer models and deliver total customer satisfaction.

One of the quotes that stuck with me from the course - a 1 point improvement on customer satisfaction drives a 2 point improvement on profitability.

Of course, like all training, the real work now is to execute. What is different this time is that all of us have done the training, not just me. So we already have a shared vision and shared successes. That alone is a great start.

Wiki pages for the shared learnings of the AIM course.