So far rising competition and changing customer demands have posed immense challenges to businesses. However, businesses today must deal with two additional problems namely- high rate of 'change' and irregular cash flow. 

There is little direct control a business has over change, market economy, competition or customer demand. But preventing a situation of irregular cash flow is hundred percent in the hands of the company.

As many as 80% of small businesses worldwide deal with irregular cash flow crisis on a daily basis. This can be completely avoided by installing a culture of Continuous Improvement in your company.

A culture of continuous improvement straight away means continuous business improvement, lower operational costs and higher profits.

But, for Continuous Improvement programs to generate faster ROI (return on investment), we must consider following four factors-

1. Employee engagement.
2. Communication strategy.
3. Employee training.
4. Choice of Continuous Improvement methodology.

Let's look at them one-by-one ...

Employee engagement-
One of the most important ways of developing culture of Continuous Improvement in an organization is to let the employees know their significance to the 'Continuous Improvement' goal.

​Adding an incentive to Continuous Improvement campaigns has often been found to raise employee morale. Incentives such as monetary rewards, flexible work timings, insurance, promotions, paid education, low-interest loans are usually appreciated by employees.

Next success factor is- Communication strategy.

Communication strategy-
Developing a culture of Continuous Improvement often relies on the Continuous Improvement change leader's ability to communicate regularly, precisely and authentically share ideas with employees.  

While designing communication strategy, it is necessary to be conscious that, everyone do not have the ability to communicate exactly what's in their mind. Regardless of the caliber, level of education or work cadre, people do have challenges expressing thoughts and feelings, and it is very human, nothing wrong with it.

Hence, continuous improvement change leaders and HR leaders must design communication strategy over a solid foundation of emotional quotient to empathize and anticipate employee concerns.

Also, change leaders must repeat their messages frequently. The '7 times rule' of branding also applies here.

The 7 times rule says that information must be brought in front of the audience at least seven times via multiple channels and at periodic frequency. Employee-communications must be repeated frequently, so that employees are often reminded of the objective underlying the continuous improvement campaign, and also how their contribution is vital to the success of the campaign.

Further, employees should know whom they can ask questions to; because it is vital that employees are encouraged to ask questions and feel comfortable asking them. 

Lastly, the communication strategy  must be modified from time-to-time as work-place realities change.

The third success factor is Employee training ...

Employee Training-
Continuous Improvement in an organization means that employees are constantly learning, improving and consistently contributing to the main goal of the company.

​In any company big or small, employee mix has various components- old hands, new hires, varied levels of intellect, analytical ability and memory. Therefore learning tools and techniques must be malleable and customized according to leaner's capabilities, only then it will give best rewards.

Another point to note is that, unlike previously, skills today have a short shelf life of 2-3 years. As technology advances or customer demands change, companies need to continuously reinvent themselves to stay afloat. Employees too must unlearn and reinvent themselves to stay relevant. And this can happen with continuously learning.

Therefore corporate learning and development strategy must focus on continuous re-skilling and up-skilling, so that your talent pool is always confident and job-ready.

The fourth success factor is Continuous Improvement methodology itself...

Choice of Continuous Improvement methodology -
​Continuous Improvement necessitates all individuals within the company to move in the same direction and meet goals in an organized manner. Using a variety of assessment and planning tools determine the speed and duration of change, operational effectiveness and sustained organizational excellence with the Continuous Improvement initiatives. 

There are over 18 different time-tested Continuous Improvement methodologies including- Lean, Kaizen, Six Sigma, ISO, Kanban etc. These Continuous Improvement methodologies are scientific in outlook, easy to implement and versatile- meaning they can be applied to any industry sector.

The choice of the continuous improvement methodology largely depends on the size of the business, work-place culture, product offerings, regions of operations, customer persona, cash-flow situation and operational pains of the organization. Hence, it is extremely important to understand ‘how to choose a continuous improvement methodology’ that is most beneficial for your business.

Selecting the right continuous improvement methodology is therefore, lifeline of your continuous improvement program.
​
Ensuring excellence in strategy design of all of the above four success factors and its execution, largely guarantees sustained success with continuous improvement aka business growth!

#ContinuousImprovementMethodology #ChangeLeader #BusinessImprovement #CommunicationStrategy #EmployeeEngagement #StrategicBusinessImprovement

​In this battered economy (as a result of Covid-19 pandemic) when every penny counts even the smallest increase in revenue or reduction in expenses can have an impact on cost and ultimately on your company’s profitability.

The good news is that, a large-scale company overhaul is not necessary. By and large, in most cases, it has been observed that it is short, often done, and simple improvement steps improve the bottom-line.
 
However, to calculate, manage or reduce cost, a critical understanding of all the tasks or activities that generate such costs is essential.
 
Cost, in accounting language are of various types- fixed cost, variable cost, controllable cost, uncontrollable cost etc. But in Kaizen parlance, costs are basically of 2 types-

1. Obvious cost.
2. Hidden cost.

​Obvious cost as the name suggests are ‘obvious’ and cannot be eliminated, as they are incurred to run the business. For example- wages, rent, purchasing raw materials, payment made to others in the course of running the business, etc. Although ‘obvious’ cost cannot be eliminated, it can be controlled to a significantly large extent.
 
Hidden cost on the other hand are like a leaking faucet that drains out water from a storage tank. I would say that a ‘hidden’ cost situation is grave and should be a huge area of concern in any company- be it big or small.
 
‘Hidden’ costs if not eliminated can actually toss out a company’s balance sheet out of the window. ‘Hidden’ cost therefore must be completely eliminated- just fix it! 

​There are three primary categories of ‘hidden’ cost- 

1. Cost due to ‘Variability’
2. Cost due to ‘Waste’ and
3. Cost due to ‘Inflexibility’

 
Addressing these three categories will open-up numerous areas of opportunities for cost reduction.

And Kaizen methodology can be used to identify areas of opportunity for cost reduction that would ‘control’ the obvious cost and ‘fix’ hidden cost, find favorable solutions to sort out the cost-problems and sustain results.
 
But most businesses do cost-reduction ad-hoc. What do I mean by that? Let me narrate you an incident-
 
Imagine Quarter 1 results have come-in and you notice that profit figures are not as targeted, they have dipped. The reasons for this could be many, for example- the new product scheduled launch didn’t happen on time or a critical raw material’s procurement cost had suddenly risen due to a shortage or the manufacturing over heads became higher than what was budgeted, or sales didn’t happen as planned …

The cause factor(s) may be one or many, but the first or most-likely comment by decision-makers is- "We must contain costs” and then there's a hiring freeze!

​In my view this is an ad-hoc cost-reduction decision. 

In Lean Kaizen, Lean defines various types of wastes which create costs, while Kaizen provides the mechanism to address those wastes. By Kaizen-ing, one can reduce the ‘obvious’ costs and eliminate the ‘hidden’ cost.
 
However, to apply Lean Kaizen methodology accurately, it is vital to understand its underlying principles, advantages and implementation challenges. You may read more on Lean Kaizen here.
 
Is your organization cutting costs correctly?  To know more on how you can strategically cut costs at your workplace contact us for a free preliminary online consultation.

​#CostCutting #CostReduction #KaizenForCostReduction #LeanKaizen #BusinessImprovement  #StrategicCostReduction

These PSGs provide recommendations for developing generic drugs and generating the evidence needed to support Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) approval, thereby helping to streamline generic drug product development by industry and ANDA assessment by FDA.  

The batch of 69 PSGs includes:  

• 26 new and 43 revised PSGs.
• PSGs for generic products for important treatments for diseases such as: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Leukemia, Opioid Use Disorder, Post-Partum Depression. Read details about the guidances here.

​
This requires pharmaceuticals and allied organizations to keep pace and revisit their Kaizen strategies around the products impacted (if at all) by the above regulatory changes. 

​There are eighteen top business improvement techniques- Kaizen being the most propitious. 

Kaizen has its origins in Japan and is one of the most promising business improvement tool for pharmaceutical, medical device and biotech companies. It can be implemented in innovator as well as generic pharma set ups.

Moreover, Kaizen works equally well with at-site and remote operations. 

Kaizen involves making small improvements at all levels within a product’s lifecycle. These incremental changes then bring-on exponential benefits such as-  
​

1. Good quality affordable medicines.
2. Lower operational costs.
3. Error-free processes.
4. Increased safety, productivity.
5. High speed product development and
6. First-to-file.

Kaizen is based on cooperation and commitment (vis-à-vis radical or top-down changes) where employees at all levels of a company work together proactively to achieve regular, incremental improvements. Kaizen thus combines the collective talents within a company to create a powerful engine for continuous business growth. 

To learn more on how Kaizen can help your organization successfully drive thru the rough patch posed due to Covid-19 check here. 

When I talk with the business leaders and heads of strategy across organizations, the common challenge that they seem to face is to translate ideas into business profits. This very dilemma led me to delve deep on this topic. And, I noticed that there exists a ‘generic’ outlook regarding innovation, which is- Innovation is everybody’s business. ​

Now, what do I mean by Innovation killers? “This will never work! “Or “What is the NPV?” - Do you hear such or similar statements the moment a new idea is mentioned? If YES, then there are innovation killers in your organization.

Here are some of the ‘innovation killers’ I've observed, that dramatically reduce return on investment (ROI) on innovation. Read on and checkout if your organization hosts any of them-

'We welcome all new ideas' - This is one of the suicidal innovation approaches. Leadership should clearly inform ‘what not to do’ as once constraints or boundaries are placed, the team knows what innovations to focus on i.e. innovations are more strategic and happen not ‘by chance’.

"What is the NPV?" - Asking for a NPV information or for that matter any financial metric at the time of onset of the innovation project is again self-immolation. Instead the acceptance could be based on customer needs, trends etc.

"We are confident since we have lot of quantifiable industry data" - Industry reports are great to understand market landscape but customer needs have to be understood and documented only after spending quality time in the market to conduct the market research that helps to identify the unmet customer needs and key business model levers.

"Our brand and technology are better'- Instead ask ‘What is the unmet customer problem?” Secondly, do your brand and technology allow you to satisfy your customer’s problem better? If the answer is not an unequivocal yes, then go back to the drawing board.

"This will never work" -  Typically teams in most organizations teams can be split into four main categories:

Innovation enthusiast: these are people who dislike maintaining status quo. They always like to take risks and seek new heights.
2C Profile-ist: This comprises majority people who are comfortable with status quo. However, with coaching and convincing (2C) will tend to be supportive and accept moderate changes.
Followers: This group doesn’t have any specific opinion. They simply tend to follow the majority route per se.
Nay sayers: These people constantly pose discouraging comments and excuses at every instant a new idea is presented. In an economic era where continuous improvement and innovation are lifeline for businesses, such ‘Nay sayers’ might turn out to be more dreadful than an under-performer.

Below are some methods I've successfully employed to effectively handle Innovation killers–
​

1. Demonstrate the damage they cause.
2. Stop excuses and limit destructive criticism.
3. Work hard to build an organizational culture that supports innovation.
4. Get buy-in and ownership from business unit managers.
5. Always have a widely understood systems-wide business process.
6. Tie ‘Innovation’ to ‘Company strategy’.
7. Spend enough resources on training and coaching Innovation teams.
8. Create an ‘Idea management system’: if necessary, use external experts to evaluate ‘Innovative concepts’ before allotting dollars. Set effective idea acceptance criteria and metrics in advance.

You can no longer expect to lead the pack in your industry simply with incremental continuous improvement efforts. Instead, you need to raise the bar and develop a business process that draws’ Continuous rapid innovation’.


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#ContinuousImprovement #Kaizen #Innovation #BusinessProcessManagement  #LeanInnovation  #LeanManagement  

Customer-centric innovation as a concept isn't new to us. It has been in our business lives all along. As a customer we always feel special when the shopkeeper customizes our order. And we always visit that store just to check what's happening out there i.e. even when we don't step out to shop with an agenda. The bottom-line: Customer-centric approach breeds customer loyalty, increases market share and profit.

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Root cause analysis makes it easier to identify the reason a problem occurred in order to prevent it from reoccurring. It is essential to identify the underlying root cause of the problem, which are controllable through management and open up the possibility to recommendations to be made. Root-cause analysis is also a decision-making tool, very helpful to business leaders to take strategic decisions based on facts.

Root cause analysis requires the collection of data, identification of the root cause, charting of information regarding the cause and suggestions for making changes and implementing them.

There are different methods for root cause analysis and some are better at pinpointing the actual root cause. Different techniques apply to different circumstances. 
 
There are three vital steps in order to perform a root cause analysis. The steps include- 
​

1. Defining the problem and its affect on goals.
2. Analyzing the root causes through visual representation via mapping and
3. Preventing unsatisfactory impacts by choosing the solutions that are effective.

Defining in stage one asks, “What is the problem?” Analyzing in stage two asks, “Why did it happen?” Whilst stage three, or preventing, asks, “What will be done?”
 
A root cause map is constructed during a root cause analysis in order to determine the reason for an incident’s occurrence in a visual manner. It links the various relationships in order to come up with potential causes.  The relationships that are considered are cause and effect types. It is meant to be a simple map, however some situations require much more detailed maps. 

A root cause map begins on the right hand side by stating the problem. The map then involves arrows that point viewers into the direction of causes, which are then asked “Why” for each. Each time the question is asked, the response is added to the right of the respective boxes. The questions continue five times until the root cause of the problem is clearly identifiable. The reason that this works is because it is easy to see when the optimal state of processes has been sacrificed or altered. 
 
The root-cause diagram is also known as Ishikawa Diagram or Fishbone Diagram. It is one of the most commonly used tools for cause-and-effect explanations. Other variations of graphs and diagrams can be used to depict root cause analysis as well.

Brainstorming, ideation and mind-mapping are some of the best ways to come up with solutions once the cause has been determined. Once the analysis is complete, the information should be shared in order for others to understand the root cause of an issue. The root-cause analysis sharing may be done via A3-reporting.



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#RootCauseAnalysis  #IshikawaDiagram  #FishBoneDiagram  #CauseAndEffectAnalysis