Red Cloud Road: How Strategic Process Management Drives Competitive Advantage

Strategic Process Management (SPM) goes beyond traditional Business Process Management to redesign enterprise management around workflow, incorporating a systematic development, design, and improvement methodology that is integrated with enterprise strategic planning to deliver sustainable competitive advantage. Since 1993, SPM has been field-tested in over 300 enterprises across a wide variety of enterprise sizes, shapes, and industries. This book lays out a comprehensive understanding of SPM, including how to re-organize around workflow, how to implement sustainable improvement, how to measure what matters most, how to manage change, and how to achieve the substantial benefits Strategic Process Management can bring to the enterprise.

Enterprises make substantial investments in facilities, information technology, people, knowledge, and equipment to provide resources for enterprise operation. These resources enable the production of solutions (products and services) that deliver the firm's value proposition. What is typically missing, however, is a comparable investment in business processes and workflow management. Because of this weakness, those other resources are less productive and enterprise performance significantly suffers.

Actively managing workflows provides improved outcomes that directly impact competitiveness. When the focus is shifted to a workflow-based enterprise view with a commitment to building strong business processes, leadership will see benefits that include focused accountability, greater customer value, cost savings, increased productivity, revenue growth, lead-time reduction, improved quality, and strategic alignment, all within a framework that makes it strategically sustainable.

Strong business processes drive enterprise performance. For the first time, Strategic Process Management lays out a comprehensive methodology that teaches leadership how to harvest the hidden value process management and corporate strategy together can deliver.

Process maps, like SOP's, document what work is completed. More importantly, unlike procedures, process maps drive continuous improvement throughout the whole organization. By engaging staff to define processes creates stakeholder ownership and pushes process thinking to become an integral part of the organization's culture. The people who do the work define the work, including subject matter experts fully integrating critical knowledge into the processes. Process mapping provides the opportunity for drastic simplification and improvement, builds the foundation for key business initiatives, and eliminates traditional organizational boundaries to create a seamless enterprise. Best practice is established on a global scale where enterprise performance management, resources, and strategy are fully aligned.

Don founded Business Enterprise Mapping, LLC (BEM) in 1993. As the Senior Program Director, he has led hundreds of clients through their Strategic Process Management journey, and he also spearheads program development at BEM. He has over 30 years' experience working in senior-level positions at various companies in Europe and the United States, including VP of Engineering, Director of Operations, Director of Quality Assurance, and Director of Advanced Manufacturing Development. Don graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Bath University, UK.

Elizabeth is a Program Director at BEM with deep consulting experience working with clients to implement Strategic Process Management. With a 25-year background, primarily in manufacturing and human resources, she is an expert in using BEM's Perigon Method to collaborate with clients to implement Strategic Process Management. She is also a primary trainer for BEM's Certification in the Perigon Method. Elizabeth has a BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, is a member of Phi Theta Kappa, and holds several certifications from both industry and academic groups.

Joe is a BEM Partner who handles business and program development and overall company strategy. Joe began his over 30-year career with PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he became the firm's lead consulting Partner in the Consumer Products Supply Chain Practice. He subsequently led two consumer products companies before co-founding a private equity firm and, later, an angel pledge fund. He has served on several public, private, and non-profit boards and has co-authored two books, including Time Based Manufacturing published by McGraw Hill in 1993. Joe holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from the University of Cincinnati and an MBA from Xavier University.