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Preserving Cash in Uncertain Times with Business Process Transformation
Posted on Jun 09, 2020 12:58 PM by:

As I speak
with clients, I find that many are focused on preserving cash in the current COVID
business climate and are less concerned about capital expenses.I believe this is a good sign for the longer
term as it shows optimism that, while business has fundamentally changed, the
expectation is that the impact will be short-lived versus a prolonged
recession. The challenge for these
executives is; how do we conserve cash now, while making strategic bets that
will put our organization in a stronger position for the next cycle of
business?
One area
that can be beneficial to explore is business process transformation (BPT). This can enable your firm to increase the
efficiency and speed of business processes, thereby driving a higher value per dollar
spent. When embarking on a BPT with the
goal of preserving cash, here are a few things I recommend:
Look to
Your Internal Business Processes
When exploring BPT initiatives, I generally put them in two categories
- External - customer facing processes and systems that provide opportunities to drive and create new revenue streams
- Internal - tackling internal and support processes that are inefficient, manual, and that employees would list as pain points
Since external BPT initiates generally have a less certain outcome, we recommend starting with an internal project if your focus is on conserving cash.
Start Small and Justify Value
We recommend focusing on short (6 to 12 week), value justified, cashflow positive, single business function projects that actively engages your user community.Be sure to also allocate time and resources after the project is complete to measure results and ensure you are achieving the desired metrics regarding increased efficiency and reduced costs.These quick project wins will enable your organization to rapidly see value from BPT versus a monolithic, all absorbing, lifetime duration program.
Optimize AND Automate
While diving
straight to automation might seem like a quick win, if you only automate your
process, you are only enabling bad or redundant processes to run faster.We always recommend simultaneously optimizing
and automating your business processes; it is the combination of these two that
drive out manual effort and inefficiencies at the same time.
- Optimize: Often employs six sigma style techniques and focuses on improving the efficiency of the process, removing redundancy, and optimizing the use of the enabling technologies
- Automate: This is where we use advanced technologies such as RPA, AI, and chatbots to reduce manual effort, improve accuracy, and improve user experience
Explore Outcome-Based Partnerships
Finding an experienced partner to help with
your BPT journey can be a huge accelerator.While executives are hesitant to invest in new initiatives right now,
partnering with firms such as Intellinet/FPT in an outcome-based BPT model can help
to strengthen the position of your organization through increased efficiency
and reduction in errors while additionally conserving cash by paying for the
effort out of a portion of the savings.
While there is a lot of uncertainty in the
world and the economy right now, there is no better time to think differently
and explore ways to improve your business.
As Rahm Emanuel famously said, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste …
it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."