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Survival of a business in this digital age largely depends on its ability to timely embrace Digital Transformation. Digital Transformation entails using Digital Technologies to streamline business processes, culture, and customer experiences.

In order to compete today—and in future—and to enable Digital Transformation, organizations should work towards fostering a culture of continuous learning, since Digital Transformation depends on learning and innovation.  The organizations that holistically

A commonly quoted statistic is that 80% to 95% of the cost of a product is determined by its design and is therefore set before the item enters manufacturing. This assumption suggests that the dominant focus of Cost Management should be during Product Development and not during Manufacturing.

However, contrary to a widely held assumption, companies can integrate a variety of Cost Management techniques not only in the design phase but throughout the product life cycle.  This is to ensure that ther

Culture is essential today in helping employees and management survive in today’s environment. Survival has become a strong word today. Without culture, everyone in the organization would act or behave differently. No one would be able to anticipate someone else’s behavior, and no one would understand why people behave the way they do. When this happens, the organization’s performance would be very chaotic.

What is culture? Organizational Culture is a learned process and is developed by the organ

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) can be a great success but it can also be a great failure.

After months or years of careful redesign, organizations can achieve dramatic improvements in individual processes.  However, a paradoxical outcome has become almost a commonplace. Organizations suddenly find themselves watching the overall results decline. Process costs were reduced by 34% yet operating income stalls.  Claims process time cut by 44% yet profits drop. It seems that organizations are sq

Companies often know where they want to go when it comes to Strategy Development. Companies want to be more agile, quicker to react, and more effective. They want to deliver great customer experience, take advantage of new technologies to cut costs, improve quality and transparency, and build value.

Yet, while most companies are trying to get better, the results tend to fall short. One-off initiatives in separate units do not deliver big enterprise-wide impact. Improvement methods that were adopt

In the age of rapid technological progress, where Digital Transformation  has become pervasive, business applications are getting increasingly complex and interconnected.  The advancement in technology has also helped attackers get more aggressive and inflict more damage to IT systems and applications.  Application security tools and techniques are evolving too, yet most organizations still fall prey to vulnerabilities.  Cybersecurity has become a bigger threat than ever before.

The current appli

Digital-savvy startups are disrupting markets and threatening conventional businesses.  They are doing this by utilizing technology to offer new products and services and providing tailored yet uncomplicated experiences for their customers.

Likewise, large traditionally-run firms will have to keep evolving their Customer Experience approaches to secure additional avenues of revenue and to stay competitive.  To accomplish this, they will need to develop capabilities to effectively utilize insights

Organizations need to persistently improve the way they do business to stay ahead of the curve. New ideas trigger organizational improvement and build the foundation of a Learning Organization.

Scholars have defined a Learning Organization in many different ways. Some suggest it as an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights. Marlene Fiol and Marjorie A. Lyles describe organizational learning as “t

The Insurance industry is facing extensive operational challenges with disruptive market and consumer changes leaving insurers with no choice: innovate or die.

 As a result, many are undertaking a complete top-to-bottom transformation. One such U.S insurer is Liberty Mutual, who are exploring new ways to automate and operationalize to transform their processes.

PEX network spoke to the Director or Special Projects – Process and Technology, Sidharth Grover, to find out what he and his team are look

As customers demand more, the insurance industry has to listen or lose out. An effective voice of the customer programme (VoC) will not only create an environment for continuous improvement, but also provide a competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded market. With more insurance companies conducting their own customer research, PEX Network spoke to Lisa Schilling, Vice President, Health Care Performance Improvement, Kaiser Permanente, about bringing the voice of the customer into the hear

Disclaimer: Much of this article is based on the PowerPoint presentation Operational Excellence: An Integrated Business Execution System developed by Operational Excellence Consulting.

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In "The Discipline of Market Leaders," Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema describe three distinct value propositions an organization can choose to compete in their market or industry:

1. Operational Excellence,
2. Product Leadership, and
3. Customer Intimacy.

The core of the book is based on five years of research by the T

Disclaimer: Much of this article is based on the PowerPoint presentation Lean Thinking 101 developed by Operational Excellence Consulting.

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Lean Management is a management philosophy based on the Toyota Production System (TPS). This management philosophy was coined "Lean" only in the 1990s. The objective of Lean Thinking is to eliminate everything that does not add value (i.e. "waste") from the customer's perspective.

The general approach to Lean is learn-by-doing and to foster a culture of

In the full-grown organization executives have a systems view of their organization. They see interrelationships, not things. They manage things and lead people. Change is a mosaic of processes, methods, materials, equipment, work environment and people. The shifting, understood patterns of change are controlled using statistical theory and other quality tools. Controlled not because someone in upper management is atop all the processes and information, but because:

• · Customers and their requirem