Bridging the Operational Disconnect within the Collective Enterprise (Lombardi Software Profile)

“Information is giving out; communication is getting through.”

John C. Maxwell, American Author, Professional Speaker and Leadership Expert

In my February 5^th post I shared (perhaps confessed would be more appropriate a word) my belief that as a writer, one is never completely certain as to the degree in which a particular article or post will resonate with his or her readership.  This is why the above quote by Maxwell carries so much weight and of course significance.    

With the ubiquitous advent of the Internet, the sheer “mass” of information that is made available within a matter of seconds at the mere push of a button can be overwhelming.  This may lead one to erroneously believe that it is indeed the true halcyon days of the information age.  What is interesting however is that at times this indiscriminate increase in volume, has not necessarily led to a proportional increase in understanding.  Similar to the Aldus Huxley lament that “truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance,” understanding is sometimes lost in a tidal wave of varietal information overload.  Or in the case of first generation process mapping software, information that may not reflect the way in which the real-world operates at the individual department level.   

Simply put, true understanding is achieved through effective communication. Effective communication in turn is intrinsically and intuitively linked to meeting the reader or collaborative partner where they are today relative to their area of experience and expertise.

And it is based upon this very principle that Lombardi Software’s Blueprint solution successfully bridges what I refer to as the collaborative disconnect that usually exists between the seemingly disparate departmental processes within a collective enterprise.

More Than a Roadmap

Traditionally, process mapping has fallen within the purview of the IT department, where the intricacies of functional requirement and technological configuration meet to deliver a program that automates business process.  To most, the applications that have been developed to chart this “course of understanding” represent a foreboding degree of complexity that has usually limited their use to a select few, and as a result confined the areas of positive impact to these corresponding departments.  In short, the tools that were designed to provide broad operational insight in reality provided a departmentalized lens through which the challenges of the enterprise as a whole were viewed and defined.

The ramifications of this collaborative myopia are reflected in the consistently high rate of initiative failures due to unanticipated problems and stakeholder resistance.  The irony is that the very processes that were expected to automate operational capacity actually created more work for the individuals they were expressly developed to assist.

And while implementation methodologies have recognized the importance of active participation in which diverse stakeholders from both within and external to the enterprise provide feedback, the practical implementation of a collaborative mechanism is still based upon the consolidation of critical information through a central group of individuals whose point of reference steadfastly remains within the context of their own operational understanding and priorities.  Hence the ongoing proliferation of finance-based, ERP-centric supply chain initiatives, where priority is usually given to those areas of the business that the finance department deem to be essential.  Needless to say, what finance considers essential doesn’t always align with purchasing’s priorities.

Building the Bridge of a Common Standard  

In a 2008 Procurement Insights post titled “Bridging the Communications Gap between Finance and Purchasing,” I made reference to an article in which the author concluded that “financing and purchasing don’t speak the same language.”  To illustrate this point, I cited a 2007 Aberdeen study of CFO’s which found that 73 percent of all savings claimed by purchasing were discounted by finance as being invalid.  Can you imagine if this same level of disconnect existed during a process mapping exercise.  I am not talking about a mere semantic misunderstanding along the lines of the you say “to-may-toe” and I say “to-mah-toe” – “who’s on first” type of routine.  What I am talking about is a monumental rift in which the prioritized understanding of one department becomes the primary point of reference for the operational framework or standards of all departments across the enterprise.

This is a very real problem with the majority of initiatives, which is clearly reflected in the statements from supply chain professionals who in the case of the City of Houston’s failing SAP implementation emphatically stated that the only people who like SAP are in the finance department.

Examples such as these tell us that the group or department who is responsible for defining and understanding (re mapping) the operational workflow within an enterprise ultimately impose their unique process model on all the other areas of the organization.  This means that the point of commonality that must be achieved to establish a collective and cohesive working model is actually based on a single one dimensional platform to which all other stakeholders must adapt, versus a multi-dimensional collaborative platform in which the unique operating attributes of each stakeholder has been fully understood and effectively incorporated into a master plan.

For those of you who are involved with software development, it is the elemental difference between utilizing an agent-based model and an equation-based model.  To the rest of us, it is like building a car where different areas of the operation focus on manufacturing a particular component that upon completion will be incorporated to produce the finished product.  The process (and tools) used to manufacture the engine are not going to be the same as those used to manufacture the car’s frame.  Therefore it is both reasonable and necessary for a representative from each group to independently map the processes for their specific area of operation before they can ultimately incorporate it into the desired collective process that produces an optimal outcome – in this case a working car.

With traditional process mapping software, in which the skill sets to utilize the program are limited to aforementioned select few, the ability for different groups or departments – who know their own area of operations better than anyone else – to manage this exercise, was virtually non-existent.

Lombardi’s Blueprint solution has changed this, by removing the barriers of complexity that were the hallmark of first generation process mapping software applications.

Why Lombardi Blueprint?

For those of you that are part of my regular readership, you already know that an important tenet of the Procurement Insights Sponsorship Program (which includes these profiles) is my total commitment to neutrality.  And as such I will continue to leave the assessment surrounding the viability of the Lombardi value proposition in your hands, (as always, I will direct you to the Link To Our Sponsors and Sponsor Presentations Section of the PI Blog to investigate their service offering in greater detail, and at your own convenience).

Disclaimers aside, what Lombardi has done with their Blueprint solution is create an intuitive user interface that represents the next generation in process mapping methodology.  Quite simply, they have created a program that puts the power (and benefits) of process mapping at the fingertips of anyone and everyone.

Once the process elements of individual departments have been captured and defined, the powerful, correlative functionality of the Blueprint program creates an integration metrics that establishes and maintains a collectively cohesive enterprise-wide operation model.

Similar to the concept of a universal translator, Lombardi’s Blueprint solution truly bridges the chasms of functional disconnect to establish a common ground of operational excellence.     

Impressive? Yes!  Necessary?  Without a Doubt?  Does it really work? I invite you to take advantage of Lombardi’s 30-Day Free Trial to see it for yourself.  Use the following link to register for your trial today: https://blueprint.lombardi.com/signup/trial   

 

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