You can have great assets, great people, great resources, great intellectual capital and great opportunities in your insurance organization, and still be expending excess energy, spinning your wheels and suffering considerable loss in output. These losses emerge from your operational processes and lead to some of the greatest missed opportunities in our businesses and indeed across much of our lives.
Here’s an example of “process” related to our personal health. We suffer countless aches, pains, degenerative and worse diseases because the processes by which we take care of our health – diet, exercise, sleep, sunlight, smoking, pesticides, etc. – are so often ignored, misunderstood or deprioritized. In this way, our health assets and capabilities are often compromised.
And we’re all aware of reports of governmental waste, regulatory and bureaucratic inefficiency. It can become so frustrating that some seek to minimize or even abandon the very practice of government, leading to a crisis of confidence in our institutions.
Aligning Business Objectives, People and Processes
Interestingly, in our businesses – supposed paragons of efficiency compared to government – we invariably underestimate the high costs of neglecting to align our business strategy, our people and our processes. Yet, paradoxically while operational processes are often the last things to be optimized, they are often the most readily within our grasp to tame, improve and, over time, to transform. This is the Process Paradox: the most accessible growth and profit improvement opportunity is often the most frequently ignored.
I get it. Process is boring. There’s less sizzle than sales, less star power than strategy, less titillation than technology. But there’s ultimately way more profit and pizzazz in process.
If you’re like most organizations that are underperforming on their growth objectives and profit potential, it’s time to look across your operations at the processes that connect your organization to your clients and partners.
Optimize your processes and jettison the “paradox” and you’ll be amazed at how you can supercharge your insurance organization’s performance.