^The APQC Blog

Today, September 6, is Fight Procrastination Day. About a week ago, I decided this would be a great topic for a blog post. But then Labor Day weekend came and went, and this morning found me sitting at my desk, typing furiously, finally putting down all the thoughts that have been bubbling in my brain while I enjoyed some downtime these last few days.

I have some breaking news for you. In case you were not aware, the photo sharing app Instagram is really, really popular. In fact, as of this summer, half a billion people worldwide use Instagram. As a lifelong, committed contrarian, I proudly confess (is that an oxymoron?) that I am not one of those people. However, I can certainly understand the app’s allure.

I was recently able to speak with Will Thomas, vice president enterprise sales Americas at Signavio, about decision modeling, its impact on process modeling, and some advice for getting started on integrating the two.

Is your organization strategizing the best way to slay your supply chain monster? Your monster may be figuring out your processes, or it could be benchmarking your processes (these are the two I hear most often from organizations).

Three quarters of finance executives who responded to a recent APQC survey are engaged in some form of finance function improvement. Unsurprisingly, CFOs want finance to push for greater cost-efficiency. That campaign will never end, especially as finance moves stridently toward robotics and various process innovations in the realm of transaction processing.

I come from an Italian family. My mom, the undisputed matriarch of the family, was born in Italy and takes great pride in sharing her cultural heritage with my family, often in the form of delicious Italian food. Growing up, this made dinnertime a highlight of the day, as it was a golden opportunity to gorge on perfectly al dente pasta of every shape and size. All of this came to a screeching halt the day I decided to start a low-carbohydrate diet. 

APQC recently chatted with Darren Rehrer and David Kazel of Centric Consulting about the challenges and benefits of optimizing customer onboarding in a digital age.

Darren and David will be leading a breakout session at APQC’s 2016 Process Improvement Conference Oct. 3-7: Optimizing the Customer Onboarding Process in a Digital Age.

APQC recently talked to Shelley Sweet, president of i4 Process, about why overcoming roadblocks to implement process improvement initiatives proves to be so difficult.  She provides a unique 3-PEAT method of modeling processes and analyzing data that accelerates operational improvements, and builds leaders and employees who sustain operational excellence.

APQC recently spoke with Murillo Xavier, one of HP’s most acclaimed supply chain strategists and author of Strategic Sourcing- Suppliers are from Mars, Customers are from Venus.

Here’s a universal truth: When processes are left to develop organically, they tend to grow up in isolated silos. Invariably, some silos have more mature process-minded approaches than others, making it difficult to integrate and standardize horizontally.

Even when there’s a recognized need for greater cross-silo consistency, there’s almost always the same pushback: “We’re too unique to standardize,” “We’re too innovative to standardize,” or “This is the way we’ve always done it.”