International Process and Performance Institute

The Institute has just approved a new Certification course - the Certified Process Manager program - and it's an important step in giving people the ability to drive new levels of success in their business. Considering the economic "challenges" we seem to be facing now it couldn't come at a better time.

What need does this program serve? For more indepth information on the course and its purpose you should visit https://ipapi.org/open_courses.php#CPM. Under Learn More there are several resources that should help you place this program into perspective.

In a "nutshell" though, this course addresses the high level view of the organization via a new perspective on Enterprise Architecture (no, I'm not talking about IT Enterprise Architecture I'm talking about Business Enterprise Architecture). The CPM program takes us to a "place" that enables us to understand, visualize, set goals for, and act upon those goals as an Enterprise - without getting snared in the complexity of details normally encountered when we try to build this kind of enterprise perspective. Once again we are taking people to a new place characterized by simplicity striving to reach that ultimate state of sophistication as denoted by Leonardo da Vinci.

The course also covers Process Strategy to increase customer value propositions, improve customer satisifaction and achieve internal buy-in. No matter what we do the need to get the right goals in place along with building internal support for our goals. Building internal support of those goals is a critical part of making postive change happen quickly. The Process Strategy component of the CPM course does just that.

Lastly, the program includes a section called Process Management - where we show how to develop process "Health" measures that make all the difference in evaluating the performance of our improvement activities and protecting process gains as we achieve them. Left unprotected, most process gains are subject to a slow but steady slippage away from the original value enhancement - and that's something we want to make sure NEVER happens. This section also addresses key auditing techniques and ways to expand organizational behaviors supporting customer-centricity, quality, and process efficiency.

Implied within the program is something very important, perhaps more so now then at other times though I think that is more a perception than a reality. When economic challenges exist, the ability to achieve changes that dramatically increase customer satisfaction - quickly - means we can improve our customer retention. When the economy is "down," retaining our customer base is a really big deal. Having the means to do so quickly, with gains often seen within 30 days, is the kind of help many of us are looking for. The CPM program is now here to address that need.

In the longer view though this kind of approach is a different value. The more successful we are at retaining our existing customers, at building very strong customer loyalty, at delivering on customer value propositions that are seen as a real differentiator by our customers; the better we are positioned for strong business growth and market expansion when economies are stronger - or booming.

I think that is the most interesting dynamic of the current world market. Call it a market reset, recession, depression, slow-down, melt-down or whatever else you like - we are in a economically challenged environment. Guess what is waiting for us on the other side of this "down-turn?" That's right, a market boom.

Have you any guess as to which organizations are going to reap the benefits of the boom to follow? How do you think those organizations that improve their customer experiences, increase customer satisifaction, build customer loyalty, and develop enhanced customer value propositions NOW are going to do when the "boom" comes?

It's not hard to figure that one out, is it?