I believe, in the next-generation view of the ICC, a key area of focus will be 'adoption of lean methods to reduce eco-system fat'. Let me talk about this ‘eco-system fat’. This is just a terminology that I use to represent the ‘undesired’ elements in the ecosystem of people, processes and technology fabric, similar to ‘undesired’ fat in our body. So even though organizations might have an ICC already in place and operating (in whatever capacity), over period of time processes tend to become difficult and ineffective, people seem to be getting stuck in a pattern of activities and hence become difficult to change etc etc. At the same time, context of what ICC does for the organization changes over period of time, need of the organization changes, environment changes. While all of that changes, things in ICC typically do not change in the same proportion and pace and hence what happens here that a layer of fat starts growing on various capabilities of the organization. By capabilities, I mean processes, knowledge, operations, contribution from staff, technology performance etc. Over a period of time, this fat makes the entire organizational system of the ICC slower and less effective (in terms of delivering results) which basically means burning lot of dollars to improve anything in the eco-system.
With the current acute economical cost pressures, a shared system like ICC will need to reduce this fat significantly. One of the most successful ways to reduce this fat, (or better called non-performing elements of the ecosystem) is to adopt lean methods.
Continue reading ""What's next" for Integration Competency Centers? - Part 4" »
