When organisations are considering an Op Model change, the people the change will affect need to be front and centre of all thinking related to the change. It is far too common for ‘the people’ to be considered too far along in the process, or not really considered at all. This leads to Op Models that fail because they are incompatible with the people required to actually make them work. So, how can we avoid this to happen?
The pandemic and our response to it means that the norm is no longer the norm. Organisations need to respond by focusing their efforts around three areas: (1) Dealing with today, (2) Planning for the future, and, (3) Transforming for the new norm
The biggest mistake many organisation make when seeking efficiency savings is to implement process and governance improvements that deliver efficiencies in one area which creating greater inefficiencies across the whole. This is called sub-optimising. For example, you could streamline the processes for one area by removing certain quality checks. This then leads to additional costs further down the food chain when another department has to deal with the knock-on effect of low quality.
Designing a new operating model should be an opportunity to realise step changes in performance. It should be about reducing unnecessary waste that has built up over time, finding ways to help people be more effective, and to get that extra edge over the competition. However, this goal seems to get lost in the inevitable Op Model process, resulting in poor Op Model design, excessive costs to produce and, even worse, op models that are not fit for purpose.
Harry heads up our high performance services and is a co-founder of Enfuse Group. He has over 20 years consulting experience and has led on major transformations at some of the world's biggest brands.
