What Do Thriving Organizations Have in Common With Underperforming Ones? They Can All Benefit From Operations Improvement
Universal Advisor, 2008 Issue No. 1 


When people hear “operations improvement,” they often think of underperforming companies — specifically, restoring underperforming companies to profitability. While that’s certainly one component, operations improvement is applicable to any organization in any industry — even ones that are thriving.

Think about it. Thriving organizations still want to reduce costs, improve quality, enhance customer service, and increase profitability. Oftentimes, these opportunities exist — it’s just difficult to see the forest through the proverbial trees. That’s where we come in.

Recently we were reviewing a thriving financial institution’s operational processes, one of which was issuing certificate-of-interest checks. We learned that each year, the bank issued about 6,000 of these checks, which took 12 people and 90 distinct steps to produce. Furthermore, each check issued cost the bank more than $10; some of the checks were less than $10, and there was more than $1 million leaving the bank each year!

We worked with the client to answer one simple question: why? Why allow $1 million to exit the bank annually? Why 90 steps? And why did 12 people need to be part of the process? Ultimately, we helped the bank reduce the number of checks (and, consequently, money leaving the bank) by 96 percent, and significantly simplified the process (90 steps to 18 steps) for those still being issued. Moreover, the bank is serving its customers better by offering alternative opportunities to invest those dollars elsewhere within the bank.

How else do we help clients? We’re helping one of the fastest-growing Fortune 500 companies in the country improve its processes, operations, and quality to facilitate growth and effectiveness. Another client that just went public last year engaged us to concurrently manage their due diligence and design the acquisition integration process that they’ll use for future acquisitions. We also assist organizations that have been forced to comply with various regulations with efficiency improvement and cost reduction, as oftentimes, in the rush to comply, these organizations build in wasteful, non-value-added steps. We help warehouse and transportation companies review and reduce transportation costs, and we design and administer customer and employee satisfaction surveys to help companies determine how happy customers and staff are and what they can do to improve.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. These aren’t troubled companies; they’re thriving organizations that span a variety of industries, from manufacturing to service to financial institutions.