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Before exploring the road to optimisation, it’s essential to define what optimisation means in a business context. The best definition I’ve found is:
“The process of improving processes, systems, or strategies to maximise efficiency, productivity, and profitability, while minimising costs, waste, and risks.”
I believe optimisation should be viewed as a continual process—an ongoing effort rather than a one-time event, so I’d add ‘continual’ between ‘the’ and ‘process’ above.
Optimisation begins by deciding what needs optimising; this could be your whole organisation, elements of it, or a single function, such as sales or procurement.
Once that is agreed, you must establish your current state, herein referred to as the baseline, enabling you to understand:
• Where you are now.
• What works, what doesn’t, and why.
• What you should keep, improve, stop, or start, and why.
In my experience, the only people who truly understand this are those working in your business every day. Their insights are invaluable for identifying what’s effective and what needs to change.
Often, when I share this opinion with clients, the main objection is practicality: “How can we capture this input from hundreds or thousands of busy people across the globe without disrupting our organisation?”
The process of gathering input from your workforce is straightforward but powerful. By tapping into their collective wisdom, insights, and unique perspectives, you gain:
• A richer understanding of your business realities
• Greater buy-in for future changes, since people feel heard and involved
Giving employees a voice not only improves the quality of your optimisation efforts but also increases engagement and commitment to the outcomes.
Over the past 25 years, I’ve developed many ‘off the shelf’ baselining models, primarily focused on aspects of Business Winning such as Bid Optimisation, Winning Strategic Deals, Sales Optimisation, Channel Optimisation, Alliance Optimisation, and Growth. I’ve also developed ad hoc models to meet specific requirements, and these usually take no more than a day to build and test.
Every model ‘chunks up’ the subject it addresses into circa 10 statements, with Likert 5 answer choices, plus the all-important comments field. The statement below is one of several that appear in every model.
“People in the xxxx function receive the appropriate level of leadership, coaching and support they need to do their job effectively.” This is followed by Likert 5 options (Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree), and a free-text comments field.
The statements are preceded by a few questions about the respondent’s role, tenure, and level of daily involvement in the given subject. This provides context for the analysis of the captured information.
I send the model link to my sponsor for forwarding to all-hands, accompanied by a note emphasising that people have until a mutually agreed date to contribute and what will follow. All contributions are completely anonymous, which frees people to speak their minds.
The data captured fall into two categories: quantitative (the Likert 5 ratings), which indicate whether problems exist, and qualitative (the all-important comments), which explain why they do or don’t. I refer to this as actionable intelligence, primarily because that’s what it is.
This actionable intelligence enables me to quickly produce a summary of the findings, primarily any gaps that exist, and why, accompanied by a detailed analysis of the complete data set. This is shared with my sponsor for initial feedback, and I work with them to agree on what happens next, which is usually them presenting the findings to all-hands, followed by a facilitated stakeholder workshop to agree on the way forward.
The workshop uses actionable intelligence to prioritise the suboptimal aspects of capability that need attention to be optimal, plus the actions, owners and timescales.
In my next post, I will share a few examples of successful projects where this approach, of which there are about 200.
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