Doing Business like the Borg.

Posted by Nelson de Witt on December 27, 2005 under Process Improvement | Comments

If you have ever watched Star Trek: The Next Generation you might have seen a race called the Borg. They are the 1/2 human 1/2 machine creatures that look like robot cop gone horribly wrong. The Borg are a deadly nemis because their minds are linked and when one of them figures out a new attack it spread to all of them.

I’m not suggesting that you link all your employees minds together is some sort of ultimate business cyborg but perhaps there are lessons to be learned here.

In the old way of doping business when a new technique to better service customers was discovered that information was spread through the company by memos and training manuals. There was no guarantee that employees would adopt the methods and complicated reward systems would have to be put in place to ensure compliance.

In the new business model these procedures are built into the software that runs the business. This allows innovative solutions to spread through the company much faster as those improvements can be pushed out through a software update. It also ensures compliance from all employees as checks, reminders or restrictions can be built into the program.

CVS used this technique to improve customer service in its pharmacies. It improved the process for giving out prescription medicine and was able to roll it out to all its 3,000 store in less than 2 years. The results was a 10% customer satisfaction improve in an industry that sees improvements of 2 to 3 percent.

When your business process is built into your information systems, you can take the innovations of your top performers and spread them through out the organization. The Borg would be pleased.

Digging for Ideas

Posted by Nelson de Witt on under Process Improvement | Comments

I wrote about how information technology can allow your push innovations out across your organization. But how do you figure out which ideas have the most merit?

One approach might be to allow your employees to decided.

Digg.com works on a similar concept. People can vote on their favorite stories and the most popular rise to the top.

This very same concept has been used by companies to help them decided what aspects of there business to improve. For example Dell has Ideas Storm which allows customers to suggest product improvements. Still other companies such as Dell use this type of system to evaluate internal ideas or external.

Why not leverage the knowledge of the people in the field? I’m willing to be they will be pretty vocal about areas of your business that need improvement.

Before you unleash the untaped knowledge of your works you might want to figure out some good questions to ask. For help with that I recommend the Killer Innovations blog and podcast. Creativity is great but without structure or incentive its not as effective.

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