Business cycles across economies and industries are recurring, posing newer challenges along each turn for every organization. While every organization strives to achieve and sustain success in its core business processes (more the better), the ‘enabling’ (non-core) business processes sometimes tend to lag behind the organization’s overall growth trajectory. While many organizations have emerged as leaders and visionaries in their core business by doctoring this problem of ‘enabling processes lagging behind’ and giving due diligence to the relevant enabling processes (e.g., learning & development, talent management, the entire human capital management realm) and empowering their most important assets (read people!), there are other who are yet to take the leap. Staying ahead of the curve and ensuring the growth of enabling processes goes hand-in-hand with the growth of the core business are the real challenges, and that’s what makes the differentiating strategic moves of an organization towards its business objectives so pivotal!
How does an organization stay ahead of this curve? An organization adopts processes, technology and infrastructure depending upon a number of factors (lifecycle stage, number and nature of core business processes, size, geographies, etc. etc.). [Think start-up > mid-market > enterprise > global enterprise…). While the core business processes could be more long-term propositions, most companies usually leverage advancement in enabling (non-core) processes on a comparatively shorter-term basis. The real challenge for most companies, however, is to adjudge the right time to shift gears in the management of enabling processes. And this, in my opinion, stands as one of the key differentiators. Would you agree?
Oftentimes, we come across organizations seeking learning, development & talent management solutions for the primary reason that their businesses have outgrown their current processes, infrastructure and technology. While from the outset, the time when this realization is made looks like an ideal moment to revive processes/technology, one thought that I’ve often found intriguing is – what if an organization is more proactive in terms of anticipating the need for change, and taking steps ahead of time, rather than allowing this problem of ‘enabling processes lagging behind’ to do the damage before any corrective action is taken. Like, why would anyone want the sales volumes to decline for a few quarters before realizing the gaps in sales force training on the new products/services, or a few compliance glitches due to lack of robust reporting mechanism as the root cause behind the trend.
Well, one way of justifying this approach could be that the company has all the reasons to dedicate all the resources (time, energy, money, people) on core processes (design, production ‘et al); but then again, the counter argument could be that this doesn’t need to come at the cost of a better trained workforce. As a matter of fact, the efforts on core processes will yield the best results only by effectively cascading the relevant knowledge to all levels, both internally and externally. What is your opinion?
Indeed, there are organizations that take a long-term view of their learning processes and technology infrastructure; may be because they understand the significance of enabling their core processes and the stakeholders involved therein with the best-in-class knowledge at any time and place it is required. For these organizations, to my mind, the lifecycle curve of these enabling processes follows the growth trajectory of the organization’s core business. Many would agree that these organizations are in a better position to respond to fluctuations in business ecosystem, and are backed by robust and scalable pipeline of talent and the processes to sustain them. Have you experienced any such case that you’d like to share?
Having a robust framework with a long-term view of enabling processes, rather than having to go back to the drawing board just about every time a problem pops up, has its own incentives even in the shorter term. It helps in sustaining an empowered and motivated workforce at all times and brings about a cultural shift towards being a learning organization, thereby lending that much needed thrust to the organization’s performance and productivity metrics. All the more, it helps in achieving this state with minimum investment of time and money as compared to otherwise, thereby reducing the opportunity cost and boosting the ROI metrics. After all, it’s not too difficult (not intimidating either :) ) to keep apt focus on these enabling processes that are so fundamental to the growth and development of a company’s workforce, without compromising on the attention and resources that the core business processes demand.
Having said that, the natural question that comes to mind is - what can lead an organization ahead of the curve as far as management of these enabling processes? To my mind, a company’s process and technology owners should always be ready with answers to these questions (by leveraging expertise from outside the company, if necessary) to be able to plan and be ahead of the curve: (would you like to add to this list as you read through?)
1. Alignment of enabling processes with business goals - Whether the systems and processes aligned with the short-term, medium-term and long-term business goals of the organization? What efforts are being (should be?) made to fill the gaps, if any?
2. Scalability Assessment – What user base (in terms of volume, demographics, Key Responsibility Areas, etc.) can be supported by these processes and infrastructure in their current shape and form, without compromising on efficiency?
3. Operational support - Are the current systems and processes capable of supporting the HR organization so they can focus on the strategic issues and initiatives, rather than being caught up in the nitty-gritty of operational nature?
4. Be proactive - Last, but not least, the above three should be anticipated and acknowledged proactively, and responses to them should be aligned well with the business cycles.
