HOW DOES THE PROCESS APPROACH HELP YOU ACHIEVE BUSINESS RESULTS CONSISTENTLY
Welcome to 2025! I believe this is a great year to gain new territories, skills, competencies, and make quantum leap progress.
I am a convicted believer in the systematic or process approach to business, if planned business targets are to be achieved. As I have written before, ISO international standards are based on the process approach, that it the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) methodology. Let me share a bit more about this methodology, dealing with each of the PDCA components.
Planning: In any business you need to have a proper and realistic plan. There are a number of components that constitute planning. The business strategy document is a plan. It must be done properly, taking into account the internal and external context surrounding the organisation, amongst other elements that are to be in the strategy. The context (internal and external) can be determined through a SWOT and PESTEL Analysis. Key issues from SWOT and PESTEL are to be distilled into action points that are specific, with responsibilities, timelines and that are periodically reviewed. This allows the organisation to exploit on its strengths, deal with its weaknesses and threats, and seize its opportunities. The key interested parties are to be determined also, including their needs and expectations, and distilled into key actions that are reviewed periodically. Risks related to the organisation’s internal and external context, and interested parties are to be determined, and measures taken to mitigate them. There must be a budget to support the execution of the business strategy in terms of capital and recurrent expenditure, human resource, and infrastructure. Other planning issues include having a clear business methodology (policies, procedures and work instructions).
Do: Now that there is a business plan, the next thing is the doing part, or execution. There must be strict operational controls, be it a manufacturing or service provision entity. The proper inputs are to be used, e.g. conforming raw materials, serviced equipment, and calibrated measuring devices, etc. Personnel are without any doubt be competent to carrying out the work as required, without any unauthorised deviations. There must be clear work instructions, process and product specifications, and all outputs are to be verified for conformity against specified standards.
Check: There are various ways to check if business operations are in control. These include inline process controls and reports. Meetings are to be done to check if processes and operations are in control, and to provide solutions so that they remain in control. Other checking mechanisms include internal quality audits and management review meetings that involve Top Management.
Act: If there is a problem with products, processes and operations, the organisation is to come up with correction actions. These are immediate remedial or quick fix measures that ensure business continuity and that proper decisions are made on non-conforming products or services. The next step is to carry out a root cause analysis to find out why the problem happened in the first place, and to come up with corrective actions, also called lasting solutions.
At Autarchy Enterprise and Economic Solutions (Pvt) Ltd we have a deep revelation of the requirements of these international standards, and uncommon training capabilities to assist personnel at all levels to understand these requirements. We can assist in domesticating the requirements of these standards by supporting your organisation in coming up with value adding policies, procedures and work instructions. There is a huge difference between a documented system and a system of documents. We help you have the former and not the later.
We will be glad to help your organisational in any way possible, and look forward to hearing from you. God bless
Thank you
Dr Cyril Siringwani