Traditional VS Breakthrough – Reduce Risk and Drive Operational Excellence

Running an organization based on quarterly goals and measuring quarterly performance have forced business leaders to scramble for short-term profit gains instead of having a long-term plan for performance and margins expansion.  Because of those short-term bets and quick pivots, organizations are struggling to meet ever-changing customer needs, are challenged to drive margins, find themselves vulnerable to non-traditional competitors, and are seen as unattractive to potential employees.  This confluence of forces has led 52% of the Fortune 500 to be acquired, merged, go bankrupt, or fall off the list since 2000.

How is the traditional way of doing business getting in the way of reducing risk, increasing margins and maximizing overall performance?

Organizations allocate their investments and resources based of this type of hierarchy. Let’s look at each stage, from top to bottom.

Brand: priorities are focused on expanding the image and appeal of an organization’s outside perception including building connectedness.

Strategic differentiation: priorities that create game changing transformation or business model disruptions, including the adoption of new social enterprise apps or connected business solutions.

Sales and growth: priorities that drive top-line improvements.

Operational efficiency: priorities that drive business efficiencies including cost optimization, process transformation, and elimination of redundancy.

Regulatory compliance and controls: priorities that reduce risk, prevent lawsuits, reduce fines, or avoid bankruptcy.

 

I would challenge that the traditional hierarchy of business needs is the major barrier to growth because it allocates too much time to the low-value categories of operational excellence, regulatory risk and compliance.

Operational excellence, regulatory risk, and compliance are perceived as non-profit centers; it is something an organization is forced to do and does not contribute to revenue growth. However, the problem is that organizations can spend up to 20% of their efforts spinning their wheels just keeping up with the changes. This could be a death by thousand cuts for the organization. This process takes too much time, and it keeps organizations from using their resources on activities that add more value, or more differentiation from competitors.

Are you ready to ready to innovate and flip the pyramid on its head, and automate your operational excellence, enterprise risk, and compliance management processes ?

 

Not Convinced?

 

Organizations are bound to stumble. When the organization’s main focus is on revenue growth, the focus on regulatory compliance diminishes. And because regulatory compliance has been pushed down the hierarchy of needs, organizations increasingly breach regulatory rules and regulations. Those at the front-lines pushing for sales and growth will overlook compliance in favor of more sales. However this puts the organization at risk. And this in turn will create a tug-of-war between revenue growth and regulatory compliance needs. It is critical to push regulatory compliance to the front-lines, where revenue growth and regulatory compliance must go hand-in-hand. We cannot force regulatory compliance to the backseat. This will free up workers for training in higher-value jobs as well as reduce potential work injuries.

 

Still Not Convinced?

 

Technology was once perceived to be highly expensive as a cost inhibitor to automate your operational excellence and enterprise risk management. Today, there are cloud-based bleeding-edge technology companies that have developed platforms with artificial intelligence, a big data approach, and cognitive computing that can reduce implementation within several months.  By implementing an enterprise risk and compliance management platform, you can increase opportunities for revenue growth and strategic differentiation.

 

Now, are you ready to change the way you think- traditional vs breakthrough, flip the pyramid, and kick start growth?