Smart Companies, Smart Tools: Transforming Business Processes into Business Assets - Hardcover

Koulopoulos, Thomas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0442024967 ISBN 13: 9780442024963

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 1997

Synopsis

Smart Companies, Smart Tools is about the inextricable connections between business process and business assets. This concise, user-friendly guide provides key insights into implementing new processes and strategically using workflow to provide faster delivery of products and services, while improving quality, minimizing errors, and reducing costs.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Smart Companies, Smart Tools Transforming Business Processes into Business Assets Thomas M. Koulopoulos What are "Smart Companies"? "Smart companies" are agile, adaptive firms—dynamic, streamlined, unshackled from the mire of "that’s the way we’ve always done it." Casting aside the Industrial Revolution’s worship of mass customization and interchangeability, these firms emphasize the unique contributions of each individual employee. What are "Smart Tools"? "Smart tools" are innovative technologies, models, and systems that maximize human potential, resulting in stronger competitive advantages and customer connections. So, where are today’s smart companies? What tools are they using? And most importantly, how can you as a manager make sure your own firm "gets smart"? The answers are here in Thomas Koulopoulos’ savvy, up-to-the-minute new book. Koulopoulos spotlights today’s smart companies, describes the methods they are using, and shows you how to develop, implement, and measure the effectiveness of your own "smart tools." The key is workflow—a set of tools developed for proactive analysis, compression, and automation of information-based tasks and services. As Koulopoulos demonstrates, with example after example, smart companies maintain efficient, two-way processes that bring the work to their people—whether they are 9-to-5ers, flex-timers, home workers, or travelers. You will see how stellar firms of all kinds (service, retail, manufacturing) and sizes are using innovative technologies and systems to:

• Provide a flexible, liberating environment
• Foster enthusiasm, creativity, and individuality
• Involve employees intimately in the work process
• Facilitate round-the-clock communication and continual education
• Focus on Return-on-Time as the principal measure of success
• Get the most out of their technological investment

And you will get the information you need to respond to today’s business challenges (virtual organizations, globalization, free-agent employees, downsizing) and your company’s own unique situations with smart managerial moves. Not every new model or technology is right for every company. But Smart Companies, Smart Tools shows you what is working, and what will work for you. So, if you want your company to get in step and get ahead, get smart.

About the Author:

About the Author Thomas Koulopoulos is founder and President of Delphi Consulting Group, Boston, Massachusetts. He is recognized as a leading authority on workflow and technologies for business process redesign, and was named one of the top six consultants in the information industry by Information Week. His strategic consulting and training clients include Mobil, Chase Manhattan, the New York Stock Exchange, Wang, Apple, IBM, and AT&T. Cohost and program consultant for World Business Review and a member of the COMDEX Board of Advisors, he is one of the industry’s most sought-after speakers. Koulopoulos’ other books include Electronic Document Management Systems: A Portable Consultant, The Workflow Imperative, and the upcoming Corporate Instinct.

About this edition

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0442024967
• ISBN 13: 9780442024963
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 270