Breakfast Briefing series considers process driven innovation

Cardiff Business School’s Executive Education Breakfast Briefing series kicked off the New Year with a session on innovation to stimulate business growth, on Tuesday January 19 2016.

The briefing, held in partnership with the Project Management Alumni Network, was entitled ‘Innovation in Sales & Marketing for Business Growth’, and hosted by Simon Elias.

Simon is the Director of Lean Competency Services Ltd, and a long-time Cardiff Business School collaborator, having previously served as the Director of the University’s Lean Enterprise Research Centre (LERC).

Simon focused on how a Systems Thinking Leadership approach could be used to transform sales and marketing. He advocated that the application of process thinking to, what has previously been thought of as a creative set of skills, could deliver great benefits to the organisation and the customer. Simon argued that organisations should focus on analysing customer value and aligning their work processes to deliver that value, removing unnecessary activity. 

The session also touched on the barriers to introducing a process driven approach to sales and marketing, understanding impediments to flow, waste and how to best deliver customer value.

In conclusion Simon articulated why process thinking was relevant, and valuable, to sales and marketing:

• Process thinking is for everyone in the organisation
• Process thinking makes you ask the right questions and make decisions based on data
• Once activities are viewed and analysed as processes, then the opportunities for improvements are revealed
• Understanding the value stream clarifies what does and does not add value to the customers

The Executive Education programme will revisit this topic with a Service Improvement Innovations course to run May 23 – May 27 2016. 

The next Cardiff Business School Executive Education Breakfast Briefing will be held on Tuesday 8 March 2016 at 8.15am. Hugh James’ Head of Training, Helen Iles, will discuss social media law, sharing insight in to how to use this communication tool, but use it wisely. To register for the event, please email Linda Hellard.