Methods of Strategy Implementation
A business process is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product (serve a particular goal) for a particular customer or customers. It often can be visualized with a flowchart as a sequence of activities with interleaving decision points or with a Process Matrix as a sequence of activities with relevance rules based on the data in the process.
Business processes must include up-to-date and accurate Information reports to ensure effective action. An example of this is the availability of purchase order status reports for supplier delivery follow-up as described in the section on effectiveness above. There are numerous examples of this in every possible business process.
Another example from production is the process of analysis of line rejections occurring on the shop floor. This process should include systematic periodical analysis of rejections by reason, and present the results in a suitable information report that pinpoints the major reasons, and trends in these reasons, for management to take corrective actions to control rejections and keep them within acceptable limits. Such a process of analysis and summarization of line rejection events is clearly superior to a process which merely inquires into each individual rejection as it occurs.
Business process owners and operatives should realize that process improvement often occurs with introduction of appropriate transaction, operational, highlight, exception or M.I.S. reports, provided these are consciously used for day-to-day or periodical decision-making. With this understanding would hopefully come the willingness to invest time and other resources in business process improvement by introduction of useful and relevant reporting systems.
Re-engineering
Business process re-engineering (often referred to by the acronym BPR) is the main way in which organizations become more efficient and modernize. Business process re-engineering transforms an organization in ways that directly affect performance.
The two cornerstones of any organization are the people and the processes. If individuals are motivated and working hard, yet the business processes are cumbersome and non-essential activities remain, organizational performance will be poor. Business Process Re-engineering is the key to transforming how people work. What appear to be minor changes in processes can have dramatic effects on cash flow, service delivery and customer satisfaction. Even the act of documenting business processes alone will typically improve organizational efficiency by 10%.
The best way to map and improve the organization's procedures is to take a top down approach, and not undertake a project in isolation. That means:
Job Redesign
Restructuring the elements including tasks, duties and responsibilities of a specific job in order to make it more encouraging and inspiring for the employees or workers is known as job redesigning. The process includes revising, analyzing, altering, reforming and reshuffling the job-related content and dimensions to increase the variety of assignments and functions to motivate employees and make them feel as an important asset of the organization. The main objective of conducting job redesigning is to place the right person at the right job and get the maximum output while increasing their level of satisfaction.
Job Redesign Process
Advantages of Job Redesigning
Six Sigma
Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes. It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization ("Black Belts", "Green Belts", etc.) who are experts in these methods. Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified financial targets (cost reduction and/or profit increase).
The term Six Sigma originated from terminology associated with manufacturing, specifically terms associated with statistical modeling of manufacturing processes. The maturity of a manufacturing process can be described by a sigma rating indicating its yield or the percentage of defect-free products it creates. A six sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of the products manufactured are statistically expected to be free of defects (3.4 defects per million).
Management By Objective (MBO)
Management by objectives (MBO) is a process of defining objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand what they need to do in the organization in order to achieve them.
Unique features and advantages of the MBO process
The principle behind Management by Objectives (MBO) is for employees to have a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities expected of them. They can then understand how their activities relate to the achievement of the organization's goal. MBO also places importance on fulfilling the personal goals of each employee.
Some of the important features and advantages of MBO are:
Total Quality Management or TQM
An integrative philosophy of management for continuously improving the quality of products and processes.
TQM functions on the premise that the quality of products and processes is the responsibility of everyone who is involved with the creation or consumption of the products or services offered by an organization. In other words, TQM requires the involvement of management, workforce, suppliers, and customers, in order to meet or exceed customer expectations.
Considering the practices of TQM as discussed in six empirical studies; Cua, McKone, and Schroeder (2001) identified the nine common TQM practices as:
Appropriate Method for the Company
I choose Job redesign, as the most appropriate for the selected company to utilize in order to implement the recommended business policy.
The goal of job design and job redesign is to create or reconstitute jobs or work roles in terms of work functions and worker capabilities that are both appealing to individuals and re in alignment with the organization’s strategy and vision. Job design involves the planning of the job including its contents, the methods of performing the job, and how it relates to other jobs in the organization. Job design and redesign’s goal is to connect the needs of the individuals performing various jobs with the productivity needs of the organization. An important aim for job design and redesign is to provide individuals with meaningful work that fits effectively into the flow of the organization. The goal of job design is simplifying, enriching, enlarging, or otherwise changing jobs to make the efforts of each employee fit together better with jobs performed by other workers. Redesigning one job can make the overall system work more efficiently methods would be most appropriate for the selected company to utilize in order to implement the recommended business policy.
Job Redesign Approaches
Motivational Approach-Grounded in the earlier work on job enrichment, job enlargement and various characteristics of jobs, the motivational approach has primarily been developed within the domain and scope of organizational psychology. The motivational approach has generally searched for job design constructs that will be correlated with such primary outcomes variables as satisfaction, motivation, involvement, absenteeism, and job performance. Mechanistic Approach-The mechanistic approach to job redesign has generally been on improving the efficiency with which jobs can be performed. Jobs that are constructed according to the mechanistic approach require less training and less expensive to staff. In essence the jobs are simplified and have lower levels of responsibility. With mental demands being lower, output quality may increase. Perceptual-Motor Approach-The presumed benefits of the perceptual-motor approach include the increase in output quality and a predicted decrease in accident rates due to the emphasis on the reliability and safety of the job. The reduced mental demands of the job would also reduce employee stress and fatigue.
Specialized to Enlarged Jobs
Job enlargement = same-level activities
Job rotation = moving from one job to another
Job enrichment = redesigning to experience more responsibility, achievement, growth and recognition
Business processes must include up-to-date and accurate Information reports to ensure effective action. An example of this is the availability of purchase order status reports for supplier delivery follow-up as described in the section on effectiveness above. There are numerous examples of this in every possible business process.
Another example from production is the process of analysis of line rejections occurring on the shop floor. This process should include systematic periodical analysis of rejections by reason, and present the results in a suitable information report that pinpoints the major reasons, and trends in these reasons, for management to take corrective actions to control rejections and keep them within acceptable limits. Such a process of analysis and summarization of line rejection events is clearly superior to a process which merely inquires into each individual rejection as it occurs.
Business process owners and operatives should realize that process improvement often occurs with introduction of appropriate transaction, operational, highlight, exception or M.I.S. reports, provided these are consciously used for day-to-day or periodical decision-making. With this understanding would hopefully come the willingness to invest time and other resources in business process improvement by introduction of useful and relevant reporting systems.
Re-engineering
Business process re-engineering (often referred to by the acronym BPR) is the main way in which organizations become more efficient and modernize. Business process re-engineering transforms an organization in ways that directly affect performance.
The two cornerstones of any organization are the people and the processes. If individuals are motivated and working hard, yet the business processes are cumbersome and non-essential activities remain, organizational performance will be poor. Business Process Re-engineering is the key to transforming how people work. What appear to be minor changes in processes can have dramatic effects on cash flow, service delivery and customer satisfaction. Even the act of documenting business processes alone will typically improve organizational efficiency by 10%.
The best way to map and improve the organization's procedures is to take a top down approach, and not undertake a project in isolation. That means:
- Starting with mission statements that define the purpose of the organization and describe what sets it apart from others in its sector or industry.
- Producing vision statements which define where the organization is going, to provide a clear picture of the desired future position.
- Build these into a clear business strategy thereby deriving the project objectives.
- Defining behaviors that will enable the organization to achieve its' aims.
- Producing key performance measures to track progress.
- Relating efficiency improvements to the culture of the organization
- Identifying initiatives that will improve performance.
Job Redesign
Restructuring the elements including tasks, duties and responsibilities of a specific job in order to make it more encouraging and inspiring for the employees or workers is known as job redesigning. The process includes revising, analyzing, altering, reforming and reshuffling the job-related content and dimensions to increase the variety of assignments and functions to motivate employees and make them feel as an important asset of the organization. The main objective of conducting job redesigning is to place the right person at the right job and get the maximum output while increasing their level of satisfaction.
Job Redesign Process
- Revising the Job Content: Job redesigning process involves recollecting and revising job-related information to determine the inconsistency between person and the job.
- Analyzing Job-related Information: Once the job analyst is through with recollecting and revising the job content, analyzing the discrepancies is the next step. It is done to determine the hindrances in performing job-related tasks and duties and investigate why an employee is not able to deliver the expected output.
- Altering the Job Elements: The next step is to amend the job elements. It may include cut back on extra responsibilities or addition of more functions and a higher degree of accountability. The basic aim of altering the job content is to design a job in such a manner that encourages employees to work harder and perform better.
- Reformation of Job Description and Specification: After altering the job elements, a job analyst needs to reform the job description and specification in order to make sure that the worker placed at a particular place is able to deliver what is expected of him.
- Reshuffling the Job-related Tasks and Duties: Next is to reallocation of new or altered tasks and functions to employees. It may be done by rotating, enriching, enlarging and engineering the job. The idea is to motivate the performers while increasing their satisfaction level.
Advantages of Job Redesigning
- Enhances the Quality of Work-Life: Job redesigning motivates the employees and enhances the quality of their work life. It increases their on-the-job productivity and encourages them to perform better.
- Increases Organization’s and Employees’ Productivity: Altering their job functions and duties makes employees much comfortable and adds to their satisfaction level. The unambiguous job responsibilities and tasks motivate them to work harder and give their best output. Not only this, it also results in increased productivity of an organization.
- Brings the Sense of Belongingness in Employees: Redesigning job and allowing employees to do what they are good at creates a sense of belongingness in them towards the organization. It is an effective strategy to retain the talent in the organization and encouraging them to carry out their responsibilities in a better fashion.
- Creates a Right Person-Job Fit: Job Redesigning plays an important role in creating a right person-job fit while harnessing the full potential of employees. It helps organization as well as employees in achieving their targets or goals.
Six Sigma
Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes. It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization ("Black Belts", "Green Belts", etc.) who are experts in these methods. Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified financial targets (cost reduction and/or profit increase).
The term Six Sigma originated from terminology associated with manufacturing, specifically terms associated with statistical modeling of manufacturing processes. The maturity of a manufacturing process can be described by a sigma rating indicating its yield or the percentage of defect-free products it creates. A six sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of the products manufactured are statistically expected to be free of defects (3.4 defects per million).
Management By Objective (MBO)
Management by objectives (MBO) is a process of defining objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand what they need to do in the organization in order to achieve them.
Unique features and advantages of the MBO process
The principle behind Management by Objectives (MBO) is for employees to have a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities expected of them. They can then understand how their activities relate to the achievement of the organization's goal. MBO also places importance on fulfilling the personal goals of each employee.
Some of the important features and advantages of MBO are:
- Motivation – Involving employees in the whole process of goal setting and increasing employee empowerment. This increases employee job satisfaction and commitment.
- Better communication and coordination – Frequent reviews and interactions between superiors and subordinates helps to maintain harmonious relationships within the organization and also to solve many problems.
- Clarity of goals
- Subordinates tend to have a higher commitment to objectives they set for themselves than those imposed on them by another person.
- Managers can ensure that objectives of the subordinates are linked to the organization's objectives.
Total Quality Management or TQM
An integrative philosophy of management for continuously improving the quality of products and processes.
TQM functions on the premise that the quality of products and processes is the responsibility of everyone who is involved with the creation or consumption of the products or services offered by an organization. In other words, TQM requires the involvement of management, workforce, suppliers, and customers, in order to meet or exceed customer expectations.
Considering the practices of TQM as discussed in six empirical studies; Cua, McKone, and Schroeder (2001) identified the nine common TQM practices as:
- cross-functional product design
- process management
- supplier quality management
- customer involvement
- information and feedback
- committed leadership
- strategic planning
- cross-functional training
- employee involvement
Appropriate Method for the Company
I choose Job redesign, as the most appropriate for the selected company to utilize in order to implement the recommended business policy.
The goal of job design and job redesign is to create or reconstitute jobs or work roles in terms of work functions and worker capabilities that are both appealing to individuals and re in alignment with the organization’s strategy and vision. Job design involves the planning of the job including its contents, the methods of performing the job, and how it relates to other jobs in the organization. Job design and redesign’s goal is to connect the needs of the individuals performing various jobs with the productivity needs of the organization. An important aim for job design and redesign is to provide individuals with meaningful work that fits effectively into the flow of the organization. The goal of job design is simplifying, enriching, enlarging, or otherwise changing jobs to make the efforts of each employee fit together better with jobs performed by other workers. Redesigning one job can make the overall system work more efficiently methods would be most appropriate for the selected company to utilize in order to implement the recommended business policy.
Job Redesign Approaches
Motivational Approach-Grounded in the earlier work on job enrichment, job enlargement and various characteristics of jobs, the motivational approach has primarily been developed within the domain and scope of organizational psychology. The motivational approach has generally searched for job design constructs that will be correlated with such primary outcomes variables as satisfaction, motivation, involvement, absenteeism, and job performance. Mechanistic Approach-The mechanistic approach to job redesign has generally been on improving the efficiency with which jobs can be performed. Jobs that are constructed according to the mechanistic approach require less training and less expensive to staff. In essence the jobs are simplified and have lower levels of responsibility. With mental demands being lower, output quality may increase. Perceptual-Motor Approach-The presumed benefits of the perceptual-motor approach include the increase in output quality and a predicted decrease in accident rates due to the emphasis on the reliability and safety of the job. The reduced mental demands of the job would also reduce employee stress and fatigue.
Specialized to Enlarged Jobs
Job enlargement = same-level activities
Job rotation = moving from one job to another
Job enrichment = redesigning to experience more responsibility, achievement, growth and recognition