The Power of Continuous Improvement: Achieving More with Less
Highlights
Wasteful, unproductive practices can arise almost unnoticed in any organization.
Especially in highly commoditized, cost-sensitive, global markets, a relentless focus on doing more with less in business is now critical.
We emphasize a culture of continuous improvement, which leads to efficiency, allowing organizations to achieve greater results with fewer resources.
Why It’s Essential to Do More with Less
No company consciously sets out to adopt business practices that are inefficient. What’s much more likely is that processes evolve, little by little, becoming more ineffective over time without anyone noticing or being consciously aware of them.
Old ways of working become ingrained and outlive their usefulness. Bureaucratic silos emerge. Cross-functional collaboration — a critical capability in any successful organization — becomes more difficult.
This is often the moment when Prime 8 is called in. Clients realize that processes have become misaligned or goals aren’t being met and look to us to get things back on track.
We focus on addressing the challenge at hand, i.e., what’s broken and what’s causing it:
Streamlining business operations
Introducing business process improvements
Providing practical tips for business efficiency
Delivering the capabilities needed to turn ideas into action
At the same time, we're also addressing systemic issues. We're put practices into place that cultivate a culture of continuous improvement, which in turn, creates new streamlined approaches and bolsters new ones in the future . This ultimately empowers our clients to achieve more with fewer resources.
The Importance of Continuous Improvement
The practice of continuous improvement in business originates in the work of W. Edwards Deming, a mid-20th century American statistician and management consultant who noticed that because rising costs are a tell-tale sign of wasteful practices, managers are prone to address any problematic situation through budget cutting.
Deming maintained that this is actually counterproductive because it leads to cutting corners on product or service quality which ends up increasing costs in the long run. He argued that focusing on quality right from the start — both in the end result and the processes leading up to it — is the key to eliminating wasteful business practices and creating more efficiency, productivity, and market share.
Deming’s ideas have been adopted by leading companies all over the world, most famously by Toyota, where a relentless focus on quality through continuous improvement is largely credited with catapulting the company from being a small, regional producer of cars into what it is today: the world’s number one car manufacturer.
GOING BEYOND THE ‘A-HA MOMENT’
At its heart, the practice of continuous improvement involves making incremental, small-scale changes to processes, products, or services on a regular basis. The key words in the previous sentence are “incremental,” “small” and “on a regular basis.”
Continuous improvement shifts the focus away from the exciting (but rare) a-ha moments that lead to a breakthrough product or service and looks to wring more value from the years of hard work that go into bringing a new idea to market.
The practice of continuous improvement first took off in manufacturing as companies (such as Toyota) found that refining their processes using lean practices helped them withstand the increasing volatility of global markets.
Especially in highly commoditized markets — where there is often little difference between competing products and major breakthroughs often do not remain breakthroughs for very long — small, incremental advantages are likely to win the day.
MAXIMIZING BUSINESS RESULTS
At Prime 8, we look for opportunities to build continuous improvement capabilities in every assignment. For example, we recently undertook a major project with a global software giant that had a slew of innovative solutions in its portfolio but found that its ability to successfully push new products through the pipeline was becoming increasingly sluggish.
We uncovered a series of issues that were eating away at efficiency, productivity, and ultimately quality: Executive teams were overly siloed, communication/collaboration technologies were not being properly used, and basic enterprise-level project management capabilities were missing.
In addressing these challenges, we also set about implementing strategies that would help build a foundation for continuous improvement that included the introduction of value-delivery capabilities, such as project management skills and workplace collaboration technologies.
Similarly, when a global tech company asked us to help manage a new marketing initiative, our consultants used a low-code cloud service to quickly develop a dashboard that would meet the client’s immediate needs. When we completed the project, the client was able to rapidly iterate, customize, and scale the solution on their own — the very essence of continuous improvement.
Key Elements for Continuous Improvement Success
While the basic idea of continuous improvement is relatively simple to grasp, making it part of a company’s business practice and culture is often challenging. Technology alone isn’t the solution. Bringing about a culture of continuous improvement, and doing more with less, requires organizational changes as well.
Here are some practical suggestions gleaned from numerous Prime 8 client engagements:
Evangelize the vision. By definition, the enhancements that came about through continuous improvement efforts are small, incremental, and easily dismissed as “no biggie.” You need to evangelize to ensure that everyone realizes that achieving small, gradual improvements is the whole point.
Work from the bottom up and top down. Continuous improvement is only successful when there’s a commitment to it at every level of the organization, from top executives to support staff. Lack of engagement is the leading cause of failure.
Be transparent and data driven. Redouble your efforts to maintain a complete account of performance metrics and analytics to measure outcomes, provide data-driven insights, and understand trends. Sharing this information broadly creates transparency on goals, which increases engagement in the continuous improvement process.
Don’t try to boil the ocean. Focus on improving processes that are already well established and standardized. Take full advantage of agile approaches to project management — breaking projects into small, manageable tasks that can be completed in short increments rather than a single final deliverable.
Embrace change management. Help project managers obtain the skills for managing resistance to change, communicating effectively, and driving successful adoption of new processes and systems.
Keep the feedback flowing. Maintain an open feedback loop with employees, customers, and stakeholders. Developing the resources to directly address challenges as they arise and implement corrective action.
Embrace the Journey of Improvement
As humans, we tend to resist change and cling to familiar routines. But overcoming this resistance and embracing the journey of continuous improvement can yield remarkable results. Through our experience, we've witnessed businesses transform their performance, innovate, and enhance customer experiences through the principles of continuous improvement.
At Prime 8, we're here to guide you on this journey. Let us help you unlock the potential of doing more with less, driving efficiency, innovation, and sustainable success. Contact us today.
