Achieving Corporate Synergy - The New Paradigm For Success
Corporate synergy is by far the most efficient means to achieve success in any organization.
(PRWEB) February 20, 2005 -- Synergy: The working together of two things to produce an effect greater than the sum of their individual effects.
Most businesses operate on two distinct levels:
•Human Systems -- Those systems that are concerned with or operated by people.
•Process Systems -- Those systems that are functional or mechanical in nature.
Each of these systems is independent of the other and each has its own characteristics and needs. Human systems and process systems do not generally have the same challenges or solutions although they must work in total synergy in order to achieve the greatest success.
Take a simple task like driving your car. The operator (human system) must be alert and competent. The car (process system) must have all of its components running smoothly. The two systems (human and process) must work in total synergy and cooperation with one another in order to succeed.
We could envision this process as:
Synergy sits atop the pyramid of alignment of human and process systems."
Most companies operate their two systems in a seperate and distinct manner and most fail to ever reach true synergy.
True synergy is the almost effortless cooperation between the two systems. It produces very little waste and the outcome is highly efficient, productive and optimized toward the customer.
So if true synergy is a goal how does one achieve it?
To achieve true synergy in business we must first know and understand what our customers want and expect. We must design our process systems around that customer need while eliminating all waste and re-work. Process systems should be measured for effectiveness using statistical methodology, yet remain open enough to allow for substantial change. This, of course, requires the constant and accurate intervention of the human system to study, analyze and design solutions that are targeted to the customer, and highly efficient.
So our roadmap for synergy could begin with gathering our customer requirements and needs, identifying waste and variation in any existing process system using tools such as statistical analysis, constantly eliminating the sources of defects and waste on one side while eliminating non value added or unnecessary items on the other prior to proceeding to the design or re-design phase.
This is an important first step to assure we meet our customer requirements and expectations while eliminating costly and unnecessary steps.
It has been accurately estimated that the process of waste and re-work elimination alone can save $250,000.00 a year for a company making or exceeding $5,000,000.00 per year.
Human systems are by far the most complicated and intricate of the two. Most high performing companies spend the time and effort to hire and retain top performers. They train employees in technical skills and soft skills because they know that it takes a combination of the two to create an efficient and innovative work force.
Their people are empowered and looked at as partners in the company not tools of management.
The effects of this type of corporate culture are clear and compelling. Each employee is expected to handle not only the technical side of their jobs but are personally engaged with customers and have a clear understanding of what that customer expects and wants.
They are expected to take full accountability for their actions and are allowed the freedom to make decisions concerning the way the work is done.
These types of companies are breaking the mold of the Traditional Workforce" paradigm and are outperforming their more traditional counterparts in every formal criteria known to scholars.
Unfortunately, organizations who are not adopting high performance strategies are slowly but surely losing ground to those companies who do adopt these types of strategies.
Therefore, our roadmap for success should contain the following:
•Human Systems Optimization and Training
•Process Systems Optimization/Measurement
•Customer and Systems Alignment
We like to optimize the human system first because it is the human system that must be able to drive the innovation and take leadership responsibility for the correct optimization of the process system.
It is hard work to achieve true synergy but once it is mastered businesses can expect hard working and customer centered employees working in total cooperation with other human systems and process systems, which together create a base for total customer quality, corporate profitability and internal efficiency.
Mr. Maceda is the president of Applied Knowledge Systems Inc. a Washington D.C. metro area consulting firm specializing in high performance for human systems and process systems.
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