SPACE: Knowledge Capture 4

KNOWLEDGECAPTURE 4

"BUILDING THE BUSINESS CASE
AND ROI INSTRUMENTS FOR INITIATING WORKPLACE
AND PROCESS CHANGE DRIVEN BY TECHNOLOGY."

FULL SUMMARY REPORT (CLICK HERE)

PART ONE

APPROACH TO THE KNOWLEDGE CAPTURE FORUM:
BUILDING THE BUSINESS CASE FOR INITIATING WORKPLACE AND PROCESS CHANGE DRIVEN BY TECHNOLOGY

Framing The Issue
Corporate Real Estate and Facility Management organizations, collectively referred to as Workplace Resource (WPR) teams, can significantly improve the cost structure and effectiveness through web enabling infrastructure services they provide. Ultimately, internal customers should be able to "point and click" for such services. While this concept has appeal to WPR managers and is intuitively cost effective, a rigorous business case has yet to be put forward for the improved work processes.

Streamlining work processes with web technology has produced very real cost savings. For example, Wells Fargo reduced its transaction cost from $1.25 per occurrence with a teller involved to $.02 per occurrence for an online transaction. A more dramatic example is Charles Schwab. When they moved from traditional to online trading processes, the charge to customers was reduced from $79.95 to $29.95. While this reduction reflected the cost savings that Schwab realized, the larger contributor to Schwab's earnings was the positive response from customers. Schwab became the online broker against which others were compared. Their market share improved and, for a period of time, their biggest problem was managing growth in online trading.

Infrastructure services have traditionally focused on the costs of the service provider, in this case the WPR team. Thus, business case analysis for process streamlining via web technology, to date, has focused on service provider cost reductions. While potential cost reductions are very real, they may not be sufficient to drive the business case to a web enabled process. What few have considered are the benefits to the service requester, or the customer side of the transaction. If those costs (frequency, time) and overall effectiveness (ease, use, support of business) can be improved, the entire company significantly benefits (the way Schwab increased their customer base and number of transactions).

Through the Knowledge Capture Event, we will identify important cost elements and build an overall rigorous business case. The methodology will be as follows >>

Part I We will move through common services that employees request: 1) a conference room reservation complete with catering for lunch and ordering a projector for a PowerPoint presentation, 2) a move/add/change (MAC) request to move to a new office, and 3) a field office construction project which includes identifying user needs, managing schedule and budget, gaining approvals, coordinating the supplier team and providing status reporting to all participants.

For each, we will define the elements of work processes, both from the perspective of WPR team and the customer/user team. The basic requirements for the Customer are straightforward; they want a simple interaction with the WPR team and services provided without error.

PART TWO

Part II For the meeting we will prepare in advance, block workflow process diagrams. In discussion we will confirm the characteristics and elements of the process. We will spend time probing the current process. What elements are working well? What process elements seem to contribute to errors and/or required rework? What kinds of outcomes have WPR teams experienced and what was their impact? We recognize that a lot of the input could be anecdotal. However, since the analytical business case is dependent on cost reductions on the WPR side and efficiency enhancements on the Customer side, we will need to gather as much data as possible and try to reach consensus among the Knowledge Capture participants on the current process inefficiencies.

PART THREE

Part III While many elements will have readily definable costs, others will be a bit more difficult. We believe that the group will be able to rank the more difficult elements and create a consensus list that will reflect the true relative costs. Then, we will brainstorm how the cost of the highest rank elements could be estimated.

PART FOUR

Part IV We will focus on the important task of establishing measurable value equations, which in turn can feed a business case statement with demonstrable ROI and ROA conclusions.

PART FIVE

Part V The final part of the exercise will be to define the web enabled process and which elements or sub-processes of current non-web processes could be streamlined or eliminated. To stimulate the group we may want to demonstrate one or more of the processes using web technology. We are not promoting any specific software. We will use tools to seed discussion and to identify potential advantages and problems with web-enabled solutions. If time permits, we would open the discussion to identify other specific processes that the group thinks would be improved by using web technology. A facilitated, yet open discussion could provide very useful information and the cross fertilization of ideas would benefit all. The input from the Knowledge Capture Event will be analyzed and a rigorous business case developed. This case will be presented in draft to participants for feedback. After input and finalization, the information will be available for use by participants in internal business case development.

Deliverables
-The Business Case for Web Enabling -Employee Services
-Group Knowledge
-Benchmark Information
-Process Change Outline
-Value Added Opportunities via Web Enabled -Service Provision, with Cost and Savings -Identified Over Time
-Process Advantages
-Anticipated Hurdles in Process Change

SPACE LLC AND THE BURNEY GROUP

<previous next >	KNOWLEDGECAPTURE 4

"BUILDING THE BUSINESS CASE AND ROI INSTRUMENTS FOR INITIATING WORKPLACE AND PROCESS CHANGE DRIVEN BY TECHNOLOGY." FULL SUMMARY REPORT (CLICK HERE)
	PART ONE
APPROACH TO THE KNOWLEDGE CAPTURE FORUM: BUILDING THE BUSINESS CASE FOR INITIATING WORKPLACE AND PROCESS CHANGE DRIVEN BY TECHNOLOGY Framing The Issue Corporate Real Estate and Facility Management organizations, collectively referred to as Workplace Resource (WPR) teams, can significantly improve the cost structure and effectiveness through web enabling infrastructure services they provide. Ultimately, internal customers should be able to "point and click" for such services. While this concept has appeal to WPR managers and is intuitively cost effective, a rigorous business case has yet to be put forward for the improved work processes. Streamlining work processes with web technology has produced very real cost savings. For example, Wells Fargo reduced its transaction cost from $1.25 per occurrence with a teller involved to $.02 per occurrence for an online transaction. A more dramatic example is Charles Schwab. When they moved from traditional to online trading processes, the charge to customers was reduced from $79.95 to $29.95. While this reduction reflected the cost savings that Schwab realized, the larger contributor to Schwab's earnings was the positive response from customers. Schwab became the online broker against which others were compared. Their market share improved and, for a period of time, their biggest problem was managing growth in online trading. Infrastructure services have traditionally focused on the costs of the service provider, in this case the WPR team. Thus, business case analysis for process streamlining via web technology, to date, has focused on service provider cost reductions. While potential cost reductions are very real, they may not be sufficient to drive the business case to a web enabled process. What few have considered are the benefits to the service requester, or the customer side of the transaction. If those costs (frequency, time) and overall effectiveness (ease, use, support of business) can be improved, the entire company significantly benefits (the way Schwab increased their customer base and number of transactions). Through the Knowledge Capture Event, we will identify important cost elements and build an overall rigorous business case. The methodology will be as follows >>	Part I We will move through common services that employees request: 1) a conference room reservation complete with catering for lunch and ordering a projector for a PowerPoint presentation, 2) a move/add/change (MAC) request to move to a new office, and 3) a field office construction project which includes identifying user needs, managing schedule and budget, gaining approvals, coordinating the supplier team and providing status reporting to all participants. For each, we will define the elements of work processes, both from the perspective of WPR team and the customer/user team. The basic requirements for the Customer are straightforward; they want a simple interaction with the WPR team and services provided without error.
	PART TWO
	Part II For the meeting we will prepare in advance, block workflow process diagrams. In discussion we will confirm the characteristics and elements of the process. We will spend time probing the current process. What elements are working well? What process elements seem to contribute to errors and/or required rework? What kinds of outcomes have WPR teams experienced and what was their impact? We recognize that a lot of the input could be anecdotal. However, since the analytical business case is dependent on cost reductions on the WPR side and efficiency enhancements on the Customer side, we will need to gather as much data as possible and try to reach consensus among the Knowledge Capture participants on the current process inefficiencies.
	PART THREE
	Part III While many elements will have readily definable costs, others will be a bit more difficult. We believe that the group will be able to rank the more difficult elements and create a consensus list that will reflect the true relative costs. Then, we will brainstorm how the cost of the highest rank elements could be estimated.
	PART FOUR
	Part IV We will focus on the important task of establishing measurable value equations, which in turn can feed a business case statement with demonstrable ROI and ROA conclusions.
	PART FIVE
	Part V The final part of the exercise will be to define the web enabled process and which elements or sub-processes of current non-web processes could be streamlined or eliminated. To stimulate the group we may want to demonstrate one or more of the processes using web technology. We are not promoting any specific software. We will use tools to seed discussion and to identify potential advantages and problems with web-enabled solutions. If time permits, we would open the discussion to identify other specific processes that the group thinks would be improved by using web technology. A facilitated, yet open discussion could provide very useful information and the cross fertilization of ideas would benefit all. The input from the Knowledge Capture Event will be analyzed and a rigorous business case developed. This case will be presented in draft to participants for feedback. After input and finalization, the information will be available for use by participants in internal business case development.

	Deliverables -The Business Case for Web Enabling -Employee Services -Group Knowledge -Benchmark Information -Process Change Outline -Value Added Opportunities via Web Enabled -Service Provision, with Cost and Savings -Identified Over Time -Process Advantages -Anticipated Hurdles in Process Change

<previous next >	SPACE LLC AND THE BURNEY GROUP