Jim Sinur

I was chatting with a CEO the other day and we were discussing the effects of the down turn we find ourselves in at the moment. He made an interesting comment which matches what I have seen from the better business leaders that I have read about or talked to in the past. He said that he was bracing his company for the worst of the storm, but instead of just cost avoidance, he was going to leverage his people to make his business better. I asked him how he had planned to do that. His response was quick and to the point. He said that he planned on improving his business processes.

I think this is a common thought pattern amongst executives. After any necessary cost cutting, they want to leverage the remaining folks on process improvement. This makes a great deal of sense. When businesses are booming, they do not have the time to make their businesses better and put in customer pleasing process improvements and/or processes that are optimized for better efficiency. This is also why governments decide to stimulate their economies by extending and/or repairing their infrastructure.

It is important for all of us that are involved with process improvement to get the word out and look for opportunities for process improvement in the face of strong opposing economic winds. In fact this may be the opportune time to move from process activity on a project by project basis to process improvement as a program. It might just be the time to jump start and/or improve your business process competency center.