following on from my previous post

Activities re-design

Re-assign, good afternoon sir, my name is danny, how may i help you today? (echo echo on the phone!, )

How can this activity be outsourced? to a land where the mango’s and monkey’s roam free, the cost of living close to a penny, and the sun only shines on TV, sounds like one way ticket it is for me!)

Apply when:

You don’t perform the activity at world class levels

Resources are limited and focus is on core competencies

Competitor performs this activity at world class levels

It is neither a core competency, nor it is critical

How can existing activities and decisions be moved to a different organisation? (dam! I gotta commute now? monthly intercity pass it is then. opps! im not that old lol )

Another organisation has skills or resources you lack

It is too difficult to change previous operating model or culture

You want to take advantage of someone else’s branding

How can suppliers / partners perform this activity?

The supplier or partner has skills, assets or economies of scale that you lack

The activity is not a core competency

The activity is in an area of the business that may change rapidly in the future, and you need flexibility

How can the organisation perform an activity that the customer is already performing?. hey! I thought of that before!, grrrrrr dragon's den (before you shell back at me, I am a huge fan of the show along with the wonderfully creative talent that appear on it... okay, proudness creeping in, keep it in check lol)

The customer wants more value and / or convenience

The organisation wants to get closer to the customer

How can the customer perform this activity?

Customers want to be empowered to help themselves (self serve)

Costs need to be reduced

Certain customer segments are not profitable

How can cross-training integrate and compress tasks?

Processes are not complex enough to justify a specialist

Multiple tasks are needed to produce an outcome

Only 25% (estimated) of cases or less require special expertise

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Off course these points are just a brief snapshot for assessing viability to re-assign tasks, processes or entire business units. Further investigations supported by feasibility study and a business case would be compiled and presented to the Wii happy board room, stressing savings and benefits.

( HERE WE GO)

After much consideration, deliberation and should I? I decided what the heck, let’s create a blog.

Should I Tweet it? Or Twit if? Faceplaster it? or Whatchamadoodle it? The strangely bizarre inapt wording would have any board room laughing in their boots only 15 years back. Wii anyone?

Unless I join the likes of Richard Branson (sir off course )and bag myself a cosy humble abode somewhere in the tropics where the fish swim free and P&O’s float by, I’ll have to firmly plant myself in the “bin the dictionary!” cat 5 patched domain and sing out loud... come on numbers! Only need 6! Can feel the sand already. :-)

Okay, firmly back to earth.

Well, I loved BGT, the awe and ooh’s witnessing the latest bunch of misfits experiment with their time in the limelight, heck why not? If you got it, go for it! If you’re lucky enough, you may be name checked by the king himself Doh! By the way is that that latest benchmark for reaching super stardom? Clifford?

Well, the movie scene’s a bit dire right now, Star trek was good,terminator salvations.... don’t think so. I mean who can re-capture good old Arnie’s performance from the first two? I guess someone’s not coming back.. ahem!

So moving on to TV, nope nothing there for me

Current affairs? Oh boy, don’t get me started on the Mp’s! Kerching! fiddle fiddle flip

Music?... ahhh tune in and cop out :)

Latest technology? As if we’re not swimming already. Someone throw me an iPhone jacket with app directions to shore!

So it’s settled, my passion Business Analysis

Business Analysis, what’s all that about Alfie? Am I one already? How can I apply its principles? And when do we get to go on a jolly boy’s outing to Margate? Do I need a BA to organise that? You do if you’re trotting from Peckham!

Business analysis, ‘a discipline that promises to offer much for the alignment of organisations business objectives with the possibilities offered by information technology’

You’ve guessed right, I enjoy a little light humour, but only here in cyberspace :-) Ooh. Can feel the warm sun already

Analysing Processes to procedures, departments to business units, SME’s to large enterprises, pizza to diet coke, a BA’s role is a diverse one. So how can one grab that all important holy grail for process perfection?

Before I continue, I would like to state, Business analysis contains a diverse, in depth set of tools and techniques allowing senior business professionals like me to investigate develop and implement change within organisations. Enterprise wide, to processes innovation, business cases construction, to modelling the IT system. It is a vast arena, and over the coming months I will share with you my knowledge, thoughts and ideas.

Now, before you commence qwerty shelling, I request you take time to absorb the contents. I would love to hear your comments, critical or otherwise, and in true style the best will make it on here! :-)

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Improving Business activities

‘As is’ processes along with the norm way of doing things may have been in use for some considerable time. During their existence they may have from time to time been changed in bite size chunks to reflect changing business needs. But rarely would these be looked at as a whole. As a result, there are significant inefficiencies and inconsistencies. Steps are still carried out despite the fact that they are no longer needed. Manual intervention still takes place even though automation suited to the task is available. The same work may be carried out twice (except for the purpose of validation) and the same data is captured and stored redundantly, finally paper based work flows still exist. Suffice to say the list is long.

So the questions to ask, why do we need to improve these areas? What can we gain from process improvement? And will it be cost effective to implement process change? We start by challenging the assumptions upon which the current processes are built upon and which may limit the process.

Improving a process may involve:- Simplifying it; -Removing bottlenecks;- Extending the boundaries of the process;- Changing the sequence in which the steps are carried out;- Changing the way in which the steps are carried out; - Including new innovative steps, and so on.

Many books and articles have been written in is this arena. Chasing the Holy Grail of activity perfection. In addition to these brilliantly crafted and detail documented frameworks, I have crafted some bullet points, drilled from the depths of my mind, which will assist to identify the (in no particular order): what, where, why, when and how.

Expect intelligent and innovate ideas, expect deep creativity, infectious charisma, diverse analytical thinking, and challenges to the status quo. Not forgetting utterly brilliant concepts which off course are way ahead of their time, unless you’re reading this 6 years from now on your moogle wrist watch!

So let’s cut to the chase, and dive right in!...