Skip to main content

One of today's major challenges

Having to produce more for less, while customer choice widens and value perception changes

    • How do you deliver double the value for half the cost?
    • Why have the results of ‘Lean’ projects so often disappointed?
    • How can the value of knowledge and other intangibles be measured?
    • What should organisations do to leverage intellectual and social capital?
    • How must ‘Lean’ adapt to reflect the changing nature of work ?

Berkshire viewpoint

Having to produce more for less, while customer choice widens and perception of value is more varied is a difficult circle to square for anyone involved in continuous improvement or cultural transformation. This is compounded by organisations now being looser networks of capability, rather than formalised teams adhering to process.

In today’s knowledge economy (including media companies, research organisations, legal firms and other professional services), organisations are increasingly reliant on selling information & ‘know-how’ but they struggle to capture the full value it brings to customers. Know-how can be in the form of advice or ‘tacit’ knowledge built into approaches or products.

Moreover, many organisations now serve customers in looser networks of staff rather than through hierarchy, process or system. For them, delivering consistent cost efficiency through a network, which morphs for each customer and for each job, is a huge challenge, because reducing costs involves standardising process, reducing variation and systematically identifying the various types of waste. If waste differs for each job, how do you eliminate it?

Another issue is that customer value is increasingly becoming ‘tacit’, intangible or even unrecognised. A product has a specification, services have SLAs, but people networks often produce value which is variable depending on client need and circumstance. This results in much value being taken for granted by either or both parties, or value not being defined and measured.

How Berkshire Consultancy can help

To meet the demands more agile and networked ways of working, a radical new reinterpretation of Lean is required. This involves an innovative approach adapted from the Six Sigma DMAIC cycle, introducing creative performance metrics, embracing soft behavioural skills and empowering staff to manage these organisational ‘networks’.  We place a strong emphasis on addressing the cultural aspects of performance, so staff engagement, competency frameworks and leadership skills are all taken into account.

While the Lean and Continuous Improvement skills themselves are often widely understood and basic training readily available, our client change-teams often lack the required combination of:confidence in applying them,facilitation skills to draw out the best solutions from their staff and behavioural skills to implement potentially unpopular solutions.

Our distinctive Lean, Learn, Lead™ approach provides a complete service, from project design and analysis through to implementation support and benefits realisation. We not only train and develop your staff, but we can build on the skills they already have, coaching them to deliver their own transformation and cost-out programmes.  We also help our clients derive performance metrics which capture value as perceived by their customers, rather than how they think value should be measured!