People Process and Technology

Technology

Too frequently, businesses spend heavily in technology to obtain competitive advantages.  The processes and the people are secondary.  Next, they attempt to integrate the processes and people into this new technology.

But the best result won't result from doing this. Without the appropriate individuals and procedures being followed to support it, technology is useless. As a result, technology should always be the last thing taken into account once the problem has been thoroughly understood, the necessary talent has been identified and hired, and the process requirements have been established. The technology won't provide the optimum return on investment if the users don't know how to use it or the process doesn't make good use of it.

A process is a series of activities or actions that come together to achieve a certain outcome.  The "how" element is primarily defined by the process in the PPT framework.  How are we going to get the intended outcome?  How can we use people and technology to address the issue in business? Processes are repeated acts that, in theory, should yield the same outcome regardless of who carries them out.

Many businesses spend a lot of money on consultants who create elaborate systems.  Organisations, meanwhile, are always evolving.  People, technology, and market conditions all continuously change.  The processes may eventually become less effective as a result of this.  As a result, companies need to continuously assess all of their processes to determine what's working and what isn't. The procedures must then be modified in response to this input in order to continue providing the business with high value.

People

New procedures or technologies cannot be implemented without the people's complete support.  Without it, organisations will see a slow adoption rate or less-than-ideal use.   Enabling individuals is one of the major change activities. 

Businesses must identify the important personnel who have the necessary training, expertise, and attitude for the position.  Where people can not be empowered by receiving the right training for new roles, they may need to acquire new personnel, transfer workers from other areas, or outsource the work to a consultancy or agency. 

It's crucial to make sure the team is composed of the correct individuals who can effectively communicate.   

Transformations may also require organisations need to consider their customer or the general public and how changes will impact them.

Technology and Process

Combining only two of the elements will achieve:

• Greater efficiency/speed and standardisation
• Better organisation and internal procedures
• Mismatch between people and operations
• Skills gap is a ‘time bomb’ – real impact on customer can worsen (customers can feel ‘processed’)
• Investment in technology and process not realised/used



Getting the right balance between people, process and technology development is critical to improving the customer experience and therefore achieving increased business results. One of the biggest challenges of customer-facing change is achieving understanding and adoption of new ways of working internally.

Change that is dominated by technology achieves around a 10% level of adoption, leading to significant wasted investment. Solutions that achieve the right balance of investment across people, process and technology frequently achieve near 100% adoption.

Technology, Process and People

• Bringing all three together in the same transformation programme will achieve:
• Sustainable long-term improvement in results
• Best return on investment
• Optimum use of process and technology by dynamic people who ‘own’ and ‘drive’ improvement
• Fast gains, eg ‘quick wins’
• Highest impact on customer
• Greater customer retention through effective relationship building