^The APQC Blog

In early October process and performance management professionals came together for APQC’s first ever, three-day virtual summit. This year’s event—Challenging the As Is—focused on the myriad of ways that process and performance professionals move beyond the status quo.

Only 20% of new businesses make it past their first year. This is a statistic that most business founders understand and make every effort to be on the right side of.

Process models are tools that make abstract, complex work processes more tangible by providing a concrete illustration of how processes work and how they fit together.

Two key ingredients to solve problems successfully are time and structure. By time, I mean concentrated time. And by structure, I mean a common methodology to frame a problem and solve it.

At-risk knowledge is unique knowledge and skills that might be lost due to changes in workforce demographics, projects, and/or technologies. When most people think about at-risk knowledge, they think employees that are up for retirement.

With all the disruptions facing supply chains this year, procurement professionals are in the spotlight as crucial business partners driving agility and flexibility in the face of risk and volatility.

I think that the entire 21st century has been preparing us for “what’s next”. Right before the turn of the century in 1999, Y2K helped us see the unorganized state of our data, records, and information.

The order-to-cash (O2C) process is fundamental to the basic objective of every organization—exchanging goods or services for payment—and ensures that an organization has the working capital necessary to operate.

Organizations invest a lot of time and money in identifying and developing potential future leaders and then in ultimately selecting candidates from their leadership pipelines to fill open leadership roles.

No matter what business you’re in, subject matter experts are likely in high demand. Your organization needs people with deep know-how and extensive experience to lead, innovate, and solve tough problems. But experts can’t just be islands unto themselves.