Articles by Diana Davis

Get the process wrong at your peril It seems strange that one of the constant challenges for process professionals is convincing the business of the value of improving processes. What you do and how you do it seems to me the substance of your business - and no amount of pie in the sky strategy on PowerPoint can supersede the importance of actually delivering on that strategy at all levels of the...Full Article »

It has been a difficult couple of years for financial services companies. The global economic outlook has gone from worse to worse after recent ratings downgrades of major Eurozone economies including France, Italy, Austria and Spain. So it’s not surprising that banks are again shedding staff in further cost cutting measures – Citi, Bank of America, Royal Bank of Scotland, are a...Full Article »

Slower growth in the telecommunications industry means that there is increasing pressure on profit margins, says Mark Zirbser, Head of Process Excellence at global telecommunications company Cable & Wireless, so improving process efficiency to drive growth has become a critical role of process improvement in the industry. In this PEX Network video interview, Zirbser discusses how Process...Full Article »

What does it take to lead successful Lean transformation? Virgin Media, one of Britain's largest commercial television and media services companies, won PEX Network's award for best Lean transformation. Jason Chipchase, Virgin's Head of Operational Excellence, discusses what the company achieved, talks about moving from the "swamp" of operational...Full Article »

Businesses don’t want mere managers, they want leaders, writes PEX Network Editor Diana Davis. But why? Within the pages of just about any business magazine you’ll see them: advertisements with smiling, well dressed people, typically wearing an expensive Rolex. Positioned above their toothy grin, there will be a short quote about how a certain educational establishment gave them the...Full Article »

The future is in Asia, James Bellini, futurologist and author, told delegates at the start of Process Excellence Week Europe in London last week. “We’re currently undergoing the biggest shift in global reality since the industrial revolution, and the challenges ahead for business will be unprecedented,” Bellini said. The annual Process Excellence Week brought together...Full Article »

Businesses need a new framework to tackle this century's new challenges, says Robert “Doc” Hall, Professor Emeritus at Indiana University, a founding member of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence. In this PEXNetwork.com intervew, Hall says that the old economic models of value don’t work in a world of finite resources. PEX Network: You've had a long...Full Article »

The environment used to be anathema to business as the costs of tackling things like carbon emissions were considered an expensive burden on the economy. Now, the news is full of the latest corporate initiative designed to save both the planet and boost the bottom line. Is it all just “greenwash”, asks PEXNetwork.com editor Diana Davis, or is there a more fundamental shift...Full Article »

If you were a man wearing a Mickey Mouse costume for eight hours under a blisteringly hot Florida sun, you would expect to be forgiven for snapping when the hundredth person came up to you and asked: “What time is the 3 o’clock parade?” Yet at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom theme park, Mickey, Goofy, Cinderella and indeed any “cast member” (the term Disney uses...Full Article »

Doing more with less was the mantra at many companies during the depths of the recession. But as developed economies move sloth-like towards growth in 2011, doing a lot more with the same level of resources is the emerging slogan for many a process improvement program. Process improvement looks set to be - to borrow a phrase from street vendors in South East Asia - “same, same but...Full Article »

Do we want best practice or next practice? That was the question posed by Charles Bennett, SVP with the non profit BP Group, on the opening day of IQPC’s Profit through Process Summit. “Most of our organizations, most of our economies, are under greater stress than ever before,” said Bennett in his opening State of the Industry address. “That’s not going to go...Full Article »