Business Process Auditing
Why should I audit?
Labor related to customer acquisition and installation is a major cost component of any new IP communications service, particularly in the enterprise space. Making efficient use of these resources is a source of competitive advantage for providers. However, best practices in the area of deploying hosted IP communications services are still emerging. Furthermore, the day-to-day issues most managers contend with rob them of the time needed for a full end to end analysis of current processes.

As a third party consultancy, Leonid has experience with best practices across dozens of VoIP deployments. And as consultants, we have the singular focus needed to complete your process audit.

What's in an audit?
The compenents of the audit report are:
  • Diagnosis
    • Here we describe the state of the operation and its key drivers. We evaluate the operation in a competitive context and summarize the opportunities available for growth and increases in operating efficiency.
  • Recommendations
    • These are specific, actionable recommendations for operational changes. They may pertain to product packaging, pricing, sales, sales engineering/order configuration, fufillment, product standardization, training/skills definition, workflow, and systems.
  • Analysis
    • This consists of both qualitative and quantitative work from the engagement including time studies, process mapping, and skills audit (see next section).
  • Next Steps
    • This section describes specifics on how to implement the preceding recommendations.

How is the audit conducted?
After understanding your business objectives and assesement of capabilities, we focus on creating a process map. This mapping defines your core business processes, including the process lead, metrics for success and related systems. We look at three different types of metrics for each process: efficiency, effectiveness, and outcome. Efficiency measures the amount of labor it takes to produce a given output. Effectiveness measures how well that output conforms to the stated target attributes and qualities. Outcomes metrics look at how well the processes are actually servicing the end customer.

The process mapping is supported by quantitative time study of the core processes. We then analyze these time studies to look at their cost and proportion of RVA, BVA, and NVA time. Measuring their cost allows you to focus attention on the processes that are driving the largest proportion of your cost, particularly where these measurements differ from current expectations. RVA time ("real value added") is time spent that pays off to the customer; this should be minimized for efficiency while maintaining quality. BVA ("business value added") is time spent on internal reporting an management; this should be aggressively minimized. NVA ("non value added") is essentially wasted time and should be eliminated.

What allows us to integrate this analysis into an actionable plan is the depth and breadth of our experience in IP communcations.

How do I start an audit?
Contact businessprocess@leonidconsulting.com for more information.

Consulting
Business Process Audit & Design
streamlined
Publications
Top 10 Performance Improvements for VoIP Providers
Software
Loki RPStm
best practice business process management