|
Business Analysis and Strategic Dynamics
|
|
Organizational Business Analysis
OpenFrame Technologies is proficient in modeling of business systems. More important, we see problems repeat themselves. Frequently we find that many aspects of a project revisit problems we have faced before. That experience allows us to reuse models we have built before, improve them, and adapt them to new demands.
We believe a difference between analysis and design still exists, but it is increasingly becoming one of emphasis. When doing analysis we are trying to
understand the problem. To our mind, this is not just listing requirements in business cases. Business cases are a valuable, if not essential, part of system
design, but capturing them is not the end of analysis. Analysis also involves looking behind the surface requirements to come up with a mental model of what is going on in the problem.
It is important to remember that a conceptual model is a human artifact - it represents a model of the real world, a model created by human beings. Models are effective in analysis terms because they allow us to better understand what happens in the real world.
Also, organizational analyst can use more than one model. For example, for a ball game simulation a Newtonian or Einsteinian model could be used. We could argue that the Einsteinian model would be more correct because it takes into account changes of mass due to the speed the balls are traveling and is thus more precise. The analyst would almost certainly prefer the Newtonian model, however, because the speeds would be so low that they would make a negligible difference to the simulation but would involve a lot of extra complexity. This illustrates an important principle: There is no right or wrong model, merely one that is more useful for the job at hand.
Organizational Strategy Dynamics
Today’s managers are faced with a general situation that has been continuously becoming more complex: organizations grow, develop new products, offer new services, acquire additional technologies.
They often must deal with sophisticated competitors and more government interventions.
This complexity makes it less and less obvious how healthy or sick the organization is.
This is not to say that to understand an organization, or to be able to help an organization to improve its effectiveness, one needs comprehensive answers to many questions.
What is needed is sensitivity to the potential relevance of interactions of specific elements and variables.
It is also useful to understand and distinguish patterns of such interactions in the three time frames:
- the short run – six days to six months;
- the moderate run – six months to six years; and
- the long run – six years to six decades.
OpenFrame Technologies has established a framework that incorporates business strategic analysis of organizational dynamics.
Organizational System Disciplines
The simple fact is that most of businesses don’t function or serve very well.
Managing for quality in a business is inherently challenging. This is especially true for service businesses.
First, service businesses do not produce a “thing” whose quality can be measured, weighed, and tested.
Service quality is subjective and personal.
It depends on how happy the “server” is and on whether the “server” experiences the job as satisfying.
It depends on the customer’s expectations being met, expectations that might be neither clear nor mutually appreciated by both “server” and customer.
Because service quality is intangible or immeasurable, there is strong tendency to manage service businesses by focusing on what is most tangible: such as numbers of customers served, costs of providing the service, and revenues generated.
But focusing on what’s easily measured leads to “looking good without being good” – to having measurable performance indicators that are acceptable but not providing basis for quality.
Work gets done but at a steadily poorer standard of quality, by servers who are increasingly overworked, underpaid, and under-appreciated.
Firms set their standards by looking at each other, by following so-called “best practices”. If quality erodes industry-wide, firms come to accept low standards without ever questioning them.
If only managers could start to see and appreciate how these system principles prevent them from many of their favourite interventions, they would be discouraged, disheartened, they would disbelieve in humanity and leave their vain positions immediately.
OpenFrame Technologies has acquired a framework of system disciplines that assist us in making right decisions and correcting actions toward ultimate goals.
Not only we, having one shared vision, are able to achieve our corporate objectives but each and every one of us is able to accomplish our personal dreams.
|
|