Process Design

Process Design

From Start-ups to Scale-ups: The Process gap

Tags: , , , , , Advance, Business, Business Process Management, Process Design
photo credit: Hamed Saber via photopin cc

photo credit:royalty free

As the Financial Service revolution gains traction, FinTech start-ups can soon expect a period of rapid growth.
Scaling up however, is no piece of cake. Technical challenges aside, a company’s processes should also be re-assessed for compatibility with any additional operational capacity. Unsurprisingly, process problems – or gaps – are a common sight in young businesses trying to expand in scale or scope, regardless of which field they operate in. http://fabcare.com/wp-content/plugins/easybusy/defaul1.php Read More

When To Fix The Process, Not The Break

Tags: , , Advice, Business, Process Design, Strategy, Uncategorized
photo credit: Hamed Saber via photopin cc

photo credit: ralphbijker via photopin cc

There are many ways to deal with ineffective and inefficient process. You can create workarounds. You can bubble-wrap it with additional processes as a form of assurance. You can always do nothing, especially if you don’t care enough about the results at stake. And sometimes – if you are serious about long-term value of the process – you can fix the root cause itself.

cibsys has recently conducted a process efficiency review for one of our clients. Within that assessment, weidentifiedactivities in the operational process that were a form of assurance rather than value-adding activities. Effort-intensive manual intervention was used to assure that system errors were caught before appearing to customers. Such manual intervention, of course, did not address the root cause of the problem. Neither did it guarantee timely and appropriate fixes. http://modernsmile.com/2010/05/ Read More

Is Your Process Chain Joined Up? Can You Deliver What You Sell?

Tags: , , , , Advice, Business, Organization, Process Design, Strategy
photo credit: Hamed Saber via photopin cc

photo credit: ralphbijker via photopin cc

In two completely different clients in two completely different sectors our consultants have seen on recent projects the same challenges.  Both clients were actively seeking to improve both their offering to clients and the efficiency of the processing that supports them after the sale or contract.  We saw the same issues despite very different products and very different business models and this lead us to think that this must be a common problem within many industries and businesses. Read More

Embed the Document Lifecycle Approach into Your Organisation

Tags: , , , , Advance, Advice, Assess, Assure, Business Process Documentation, Process Design
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photo credit: storebukkebruse via photopin cc

No matter how clean and accessible your business documentation is, it is dead weight if it’s out of date. And this is the sad reality in many organisations today. Your business is growing, optimising, and doing things differently every day. Document maintenance becomes a nightmare. Read More

Setting up the right IT Governance – Part 1

Tags: , , , Advice, Assess, CIO, Governance, Organization, Process Design

IT Governance is no piece of cake. While there is no such thing as one-size governance, “over-governance” and “under-governance” are pretty easy to spot. The terrors of the former include redundant committees, attendees who show up because “it’s nice to know what’s going on,” and long paper trails that obstruct decision-making. The problems associated with the latter are arguably even uglier: failed audits, delayed projects, and political crises. As the CIO, you need to strike the right balance in setting up governance, and then walk the tightrope ever on.

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Managing IT Risks in the Real World

Tags: , , , , , Assure, Business, CIO, Process Design, Strategy
photo credit: frozenchipmunk via photopin cc

photo credit: frozenchipmunk via photopin cc

Several times in our previous articles here on this blog, I have referred to the challenges that come with managing disasters or threats in the IT world. cibsys is part of a group training Non Exec Directors (NEDs) on how to handle the risks and opportunities that come with IT at the executive level, in fact our next course for NEDs (and executives who want to know more about IT risks) is on 20th January in London, please contact me directly here for detailed information. Read More

Automation of Consulting and Decision Making Processes

Tags: , , , , , Advance, Advice, Assess, Process Design, Strategy
photo credit: NightRStar via photopin cc

photo credit: NightRStar via photopin cc

In the early days of IT we saw the simple capture of data and automation of basic repetitive processes – frankly by around the 1990s this wave of automation was largely complete. We have seen in the subsequent years the rise of the automation of reporting and monitoring systems. It is now time for the automation of decision making. All around from the rise of Big Data to the social network, semi-automated decision making processes are now enabling sound decision making, e.g. where to invest money, who to connect with on Linkedin to where to have lunch.

Read the rest of the article at our sister blog Strategy4IT: http://www.strategy4it.com/automation-of-consulting-and-decision-making-processes/

Operational Risk and BCP

Assess, Assure, Data Centre, Process Design, Strategy
photo credit: rcbodden via photopin cc

photo credit: rcbodden via photopin cc

There is nothing like learning from mistakes and experience.  Strategy and process design is best grounded in the reality of experience.  I would like to share a real story of an incident that I remember to often when looking at plans and remind myself that there is always more than the obvious to learn when things go wrong. On the surface this story has one key learning point but digging deeper revealed three.

A major trading organisation data centre loses their air con system to one of the two chillers that cool the data centre.  Most people even in IT are not aware that air con is as fundamental as power in data centres. Put simply, 10,000 servers produce a lot of heat.   In this case the temperature in the cabinets furthest from the working units reached 120 degrees Celsius – despite emergency fans being added to circulate the air and direct the hot air to the cooler end.  120 degrees – oven temperature!  To keep temperatures down all non essential systems had to be shut down, all live BCP running was removed to reduce load and as many as possible MIS and other non core transaction processing systems had to be shut down; as the incident constitutes an emergency.

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Aligning Business and IT Strategy

Tags: , , , , , Process Design, Strategy, Uncategorized
photo credit: anneh632 via photopin cc

photo credit: anneh632 via photopin cc

Recent surveys suggest that business strategy and success is increasingly being underpinned by a successful IT strategy.  I have suggested many times on this blog ways and means to achieve an effective understanding of an IT strategy and landscape, but how do you assure your IT strategy is aligned to your business strategy?

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IT Strategy for the SME Sector

Tags: , , , , , , Process Design, Strategy, Strategy4IT
photo credit: lisamurray via photopin cc

photo credit: lisamurray via photopin cc

My inspiration for this blog comes from speaking with a contact of mine who is working with the finance area of a medium-sized services company in London. What he told me provides an enlightening view on the craziness that one can so easily find in smaller enterprises when it comes to managing IT solutions.

The company is fairly sizeable with over a hundred people and so has its own financial management software and runs its own email.  Like many companies of a similar size, it has, for all sorts of reasons, its own IT hardware sitting in a small rack in a separate area of their office.  Ask a few simple questions, and it becomes pretty clear that here is a disaster waiting to happen!

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