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During the "Discovery Phase" we conduct structured interviews with key stakeholders for 175 of the primary business processes. These stakeholders include supervisors, managers and front line staff members who describe their area of responsibility and current workflow. Around these, we seek their input and listen carefully to their ideas, experiences and problems, process improvement thoughts and frustrations. Our goal here is to understand and document key processes while simultaneously searching for opportunities that present financial gain.
During this step of the process we analyze historical data for each functional area such as, historical sales by customer and representative, lost business analysis, sales by product group and customer segment, slow moving inventory, DSO (days sales outstanding), DPO (days payable outstanding).
Information gathered is then input into the "Discovery Phase" tool and scored using established measurement criteria.
The "Analysis" from the Discovery Phase is a consolidation of the scoring for all locations sorted by the 175 key business processes within each functional area of the business. At a glance this tool identifies the strengths of the location while hi-lighting opportunities for improvement.
The findings are presented in a manner that allows you to identify those items with common needs and those items where the need appears to be unique to one or two locations.
The "Opportunities" section outlines a written explanation of the needs identified in the "Analysis" with the related benefit for addressing each need. Only those items identified as opportunities are expanded on.
Because the primary focus of this study is to identify significant opportunities that will produce a financial gain, each of the opportunities are carefully evaluated based on its potential financial impact and probability of successful implementation. With this evaluation complete, the opportunities are ranked accordingly and hi-lighted with their location and functional area. These rankings are designed to facilitate decision making and speed the implementation process. We then rank the high priority opportunities in a table format by various criteria such as financial impact, location and functional area to facilitate further prioritization.
The rating system used in this segment of the report is unique to the rating offered in the "Findings". The scores are arrived at through the discovery phase and are based on the experience and judgement of the ODP team.
The key to any successful initiative is successful implementation. Recognizing each of our clients has unique resourcing capabilities we offer various implementation options to suit your needs. These options are as follows:
1. We provide a professional PowerPoint presentation designed to be used by your senior management to present the findings and recommendations from this process. Opportunities are sorted and organized based on the criteria established by the client. In this option the client assumes full responsibility for implementation.
2. We facilitate a meeting with field management to gain consensus for the recommendations from the process. These recommendations are used to develop the framework for an implementation plan that can be used by a company designated team leader. We will supplement the process by providing specialized consulting services where the client deems it appropriate.
3. We facilitate a meeting with field management to gain consensus for the recommendations, provide full project management and provide specialized consulting services where appropriate. This approach allows our client's management team to remain focused on their daily responsibilities while our team works as a project manager to implement the opportunities.
Any of these options can be tailored to meet each client's specific needs.