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Service Level Agreement Mistakes
A service level agreement (SLA) defines the specifications, quality, and cost of a good or service being provided by a supplier to a buyer. SLAs help to provide transparency about what the buyer expects from the supplier and protects all parties in the…
What Is Workforce Planning?
Workforce planning can increase organizational agility, improve talent outcomes, save money, and improve business performance. Yet only half of organizations carry out workforce planning effectively.To reap the full benefits of strategic workforce planning, consider adopting APQC’s 7-step framework…
How to Improve Team Productivity
Improving team productivity starts by focusing on more than just efficiency. When many organizations think of productivity, they often misunderstand efficiency as the sole determinant. While efficiency is a crucial measure of how productive (or not productive) a team is, it’s not the only…
Reducing Involuntary Terminations Starts with Better Leadership and Communication
Role reductions, workforce adjustments, flattening the organization structure, managing attrition, reshaping for the future . . . while the lingo varies, the message is the same: layoffs are coming. Over the past six months, the business press has seen its share of layoff announcements. After…
Why Your Customer Service KPIs Are Off-Target
Excellence in customer service is critical for retaining customers and maintaining a competitive advantage in the face of changing expectations. Yet APQC finds that many customer service organizations have picked key performance indicators (KPIs) that are inward-looking, lack customer focus, and…
Process Management FAQ: Roles and Skillsets
In late 2022 and into early 2023, APQC conducted our annual priorities and challenges survey. The survey explored trends in process and performance work and revealed the top five priorities and challenges in process management and organizational performance management. The survey found that about…
RPA in Supply Chain: Success Starts With Exceptional Governance
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is often positioned as a game-changing technology that helps organizations achieve cost savings, better process performance, and numerous other benefits. But given all the hype around automation, it’s all too easy to underestimate the amount of time, labor, and…
What Early Adopters Can Teach Us About AI
Interview with Thomas H. Davenport ChatGPT burst upon the AI landscape in November 2022 with a media and market frenzy not seen since Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007. Over one million people immediately signed up to test if OpenAI’s large language learning algorithm could perform…
Supply Chain Sustainability Hits a Road Block
Organizations are facing pressure from multiple sources to ensure that their supply chains are operating in a sustainable manner from end-to-end. Organizations that do not currently track and assess the sustainability of their logistics providers may be left scrambling when Scope 3 disclosure…
How To Build a Collaborative Culture
Interview with APQC 2023 Conference Keynote Speaker Dan Pontefract Collaboration enables teams to solve problems more quickly, decrease reinvention and duplicative work across the enterprise, and drive innovation toward better products, services, and processes. But collaboration does not…