Ever since human beingss invented Agriculture and Industry, we have been on a never ending quest for better, more efficient and more effective, ways to do things we have done. Agriculture has gone from very heavily manual work to very highly automated, computerized, mechanized farms that can be thousands of acres but still be managed by just one person!
The invention of the wheel speeded up our travel from manually powered ones like the bi-cycle to he bullet train that travels at 300+ mph!
This is a never ending quest for efficiencies, to squeeze our those wastages of time and eenrgy somewhere in the chain!
On the other hand, effectiveness also dictates that we are effective at what we do, whether it is handling a customer query on the phone to persuading someone on the phone to donate money to a cause! Effectiveness neasures the end results of the process and how well it achieved what it is supposed to achieve, with the minimal effort possible!
All of the above should ideally be supporrted by Business Intelligence, if you think about it. Business Intelligence should ideally give you a clear picture of how efficient you are compared to last hour, last day, last month and last quarter!
You don't want to fix something that is not broken. You want to figure out, in as much detail as you can, where exactly your inefficiencies are, and squeeze them out of the system.
Similarly with respect to effectiveness, some of your Customer Help Desk agents may be very good at handling customers and their Customer Satisfaction surveys show consistently high ratings. You want to know in sufficient detail, where exactly your ineffective agents are coming up short so that you can send them to appropriate training to remedy those effectiveness deficits!
Here;s a interesting story about how Honda Motor Company is able to switch from an aseembly line that making Honda Civics to making Honda CRVs!.
The assembly robots are fitted with different hands that can work on maiking Civics to making Honds CRVs by simply changing the hands of the robot! The article says that the same process of retooling a factory to manufacture one model of an automobile to another costs millions or dollars and takes as long as years!
This principle is just applicable to every business process in a company! You need to have a constant contiinuous IInprovement that looks at every activity and squeezes out inefficient ways of doing thinga and improve them. Same for effectiveness!
Business Intelliigence in the Process Space is not just about cutting costs alone! When you squeeze out inefficiencies and make things more effective, you are increasing a company's competitiveness by an order of magnitude! You get more work done with less people and resources! Like the example of Honda Motor Company!
Time to explore this area in earnest and more detail!
Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. - Robert A.Heinlein
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