Enterprise business integration brings together all the necessary ingredients

Six Sigma. Lean Thinking. Enterprise resource planning. Total Quality Management. These terms are ubiquitous in the business world.

Their common theme is business process improvement, improved efficiency and quality, and enhanced competitiveness. The desired end result, though, is higher profits.

In the past, most companies learned one of these methodologies and stuck with it. But combining methodologies may produce even better results.

And why not? Like snowflakes, these methodologies look alike but upon close examination are all different. In combining components of each and implementing them concurrently, the whole can be greater than the sum of the parts.

Enterprise business integration (EBI), the term for this mixing of methodologies, can create greater workflow synergies and more significant improvements than any one methodology.

EBI may combine quality-improvement techniques, such as Six Sigma, Lean Thinking and Total Quality Management (TQM); information technology solutions, including enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM), and global sourcing, which is helping many businesses reduce costs.

Unless proper training and organizational change accompany implementation, the organization will never achieve the return on investment it is capable of achieving. Some companies are already recognizing the advantages of integrating multiple methodologies.

One trend is the use of Lean Sigma, combining Lean Thinking, which provides short-term results, with Six Sigma, which can have a more profound impact. It could take years, however, before the company achieves a positive ROI. Lean Thinking is about pulling waste out of a process; Six Sigma is about pulling defects out of a process.

It is even more common for SCM and CRM to be implemented as part of ERP. In fact, companies that fail to integrate these methodologies are unlikely to fully realize the benefits of ERP.

The foundation for EBI
A company is only as strong as its weakest process. If a company is implementing Lean Thinking to reduce waste, for example, it may still be at a competitive disadvantage unless it also implements Six Sigma to reduce defects or TQM to enhance quality.

EBI’s holistic approach considers all business processes concurrently, so there should no longer be any significant weak links when the methodologies are fully implemented.

So how does a company potentially implement many methodologies at once, even though any one of them, taken alone, is difficult to implement? The same factors that enable any project to succeed also enable to EBI succeed, such as:

Leadership
Organizational change management
Culture of discipline
Project management skills
IT platform and application training
A realistic budget

Project management is necessary to monitor scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communication, risk and procurement to ensure that organizational goals are met. As part of the process, cross-methodology teams should be established to coordinate integration.

IT needs must be considered throughout the EBI process. The enterprise’s technical team will require training to develop the proper architecture and to build and maintain the company’s IT systems. Employees throughout the company will require training to use the new applications. They must understand how to use the new technology as well as its purpose and what it can accomplish.

The EBI process
EBI is a process of processes. Like any process improvement project, successful EBI begins with a well-defined but realistic goal that states what the organization expects to achieve. The goal must be quantitative and should tie in with key financial or operational metrics.

Once the goal is defined, an in-depth business process analysis begins. The methodology may vary, but the analysis generally begins with the development of “as is” process maps, upon which the organization can indicate what improvements to make.

“As is” maps are compared with leading-practice benchmarks to identify gaps between existing practices and industry leading practices. Based on an analysis of the gaps, new processes are established and implemented using whichever methodologies best fit the organization’s needs. Finally, methods and metrics are developed for monitoring processes and controlling key variables to ensure that improvements are sustained.

EBI is complex and time-consuming, but consider the potential benefits:

Faster response to business opportunities
Better customer relationships
More control over business processes
Improved employee efficiency and morale
Increased growth and profitability
Increased business agility and intelligence

EBI can be implemented successfully only if your organization is ready for it. Readiness begins with the acquisition of knowledge and skills.