 "Adding agility to decision making")
Decisiveness has always been the hallmark of a great leader. But with ever-changing technology, an increasingly competitive landscape, digital-savvy consumer and a volatile market, the need for speed is yoked to decision making for all companies today. The message is - Cut the flab and make decision making "agile" and "visible".
For Nestle India, faster decision making was an upshot of the company emerging out of the crisis in the aftermath of the ban on its Maggi noodles brand last year by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. The fast-moving consumer goods company is undergoing a transformation in its commercial structure and decision making. In a recent interview, Nestle India chairman and managing director Suresh Narayanan told Business Standard, "Earlier, there used to be different points of taking a decision. Now we are simplifying it. Today, fewer people take key decisions. That is the first realignment we have effected."
Clearly, the focus is on cutting down layers of decision making and reaching conclusions faster. Nestle India hopes to be in a stronger position to judge and manage the business environment better in the process. It is not alone in regrouping and coming up with a strategy to fast-track decision making. Organisations across industries are stepping up to revamp their established systems and processes to speed up decision making, ensuring it's business as usual during normal times and it is well prepared to take on crisis.
"One of the key initiatives to encourage agile decision making is to have a non-hierarchical organisation structure," says Pankaj Bansal, co-founder and chief executive officer of PeopleStrong HR Services. Organisations are then able to empower employees by educating them about the key decisions they can take and providing them enough support to ensure that they get it right. "It's often called devolution of power. Such a clear structure and process along with a review structure removes any kind of ambiguity from the system and helps things move fast," points out Bansal.
Depending on the industry they are in, their size and structure, organisations can pursue this devolution of power in various ways. For instance, Coca-Cola, in its bid to simplify decision making further, has created a cross-functional core committee of employees encouraging more discussions and expanding the understanding of areas of development and improvement from the larger set of employees. "The move is aimed at facilitating agility by providing more empowerment and quick decision making for employees. The core team is working with all the functions to simplify routines and processes, thereby reducing the time taken for decision making significantly," says Sameer Wadhawan, vice-president, HR India and South West Asia, Coca-Cola India.
Similarly, as part of its corporate strategic initiatives unit, Infosys has rolled out a number of processes, systems and policy simplification measures across business functions. For example, the company's HR department started an initiative called Launchpad, a global on-boarding programme. As part of this, a mobile portal was launched which would be accessed by candidates on the go before joining the company. An "Ask Me Anything" help desk was also set up to help joiners get on board. "One of the immediate impacts of this has been a 20 per cent reduction in data correction requests since the integration of joining systems," says UB Pravin Rao, chief operating officer, Infosys.
The tech giant has also taken the lead in deploying automation internally to effect significant improvements across the organisation in terms of reducing effort and cycle time. Technology is turning out to be a great tool in the hands of the leaders as they attempt to weed out unnecessary processes in a department or across functions.
Sonica Malhotra, joint managing director of publishing company MBD Group, points out: "The success of any organisation depends on two interlinked functions - planning and timely execution. For us transition was critical with alteration in organisational structure and, therefore, we involved our senior management in this change." Hero MotoCorp, too, is deploying technology to cut down on unwarranted processes and save time and human resources. This year, the two-wheeler manufacturer has provided customers the option of converting the paper-based free service coupons at the time of vehicle sale to digital ones. This has significantly reduced paper flow through the system, making the process hassle-free and fast, thus benefiting all stakeholders - customers, dealers and the company. For the project, the key policy decisions were taken by the functional heads, while operational decisions were taken by the working team members, and it resulted in launching the project quickly.
At BookMyShow, the path to agile decision making is paved by the management's commitment to be flexible in structuring branch offices. It has repurposed the roles of some of its senior members at the regional offices for more comprehensive governance. According to Shamita Ghosh, deputy general manager-HR, "The move has led to increased ownership and motivation, majorly due to the widely decisive nature of senior members' new roles, which would also steadily turn them from good managers into great leaders."
Leaders and managers agree that empowering people and delegation of authority is the key to agile decision making.
"At MBD Group, each individual clearly knows what work or initiative one owns. Hence, each one has the authority to decide their own style of work for achieving desired results," says Malhotra.
Every change involves pain as it challenges the status quo and involves a huge cultural shift. Also, any change movement has to be gradual as it requires engagement with the key stakeholders to understand the pain areas, and calls for mutually working towards revamping the functions and processes. "One must remember that most of the changes are being made mid-flight without impacting everyone's day jobs and commitments," points out Rao of Infosys.
What are the road blocks to agile decision making process? According to Bansal, most of the times people don't have the right information to take a decision or there are no set processes defining who decided what. Also, no ring-fencing is done for first-time decision makers or young managers, leading to dependency on the immediate higher layer and delaying the process.
It's important that these two things are defined in an organisation for quicker decisions. Most importantly, while attempting quick decision making organisations must consider all possibilities. Because leaders caution that quick decisions, if miscalculated, could prove impulsive and cause damage to the brand and organisation.
Innovate for better decision making, productivity: Uli Gwinner
Organisations can take a few steps to encourage better decision making and increased productivity at the workplace.
Co-working space: Most work today is done in collaboration with others versus individually. For many companies, it now appears that there is too much emphasis on open spaces. However, it facilitates collaboration and fails to offer privacy which is vital for discussions, quiet phone calls etc. Hence, a mix of (enclosed) "I" spaces and (shared) "We" spaces is suggested as this will not only speed up decision making capacity but also increase productivity.
Real-time sharing: Today while teams are distributed, they work together with their clients and colleagues, who are situated in different countries. Here, the idea should not only be connecting with each other via videoconferencing or a text or email but also sharing a physical space with each other for spontaneous interactions. Organisations should install real-time sharing equipments that integrate technology and furniture to bring people, space and information together for greater collaboration, faster decision making and more productivity than ever before.
For Nestle India, faster decision making was an upshot of the company emerging out of the crisis in the aftermath of the ban on its Maggi noodles brand last year by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. The fast-moving consumer goods company is undergoing a transformation in its commercial structure and decision making. In a recent interview, Nestle India chairman and managing director Suresh Narayanan told Business Standard, "Earlier, there used to be different points of taking a decision. Now we are simplifying it. Today, fewer people take key decisions. That is the first realignment we have effected."
Clearly, the focus is on cutting down layers of decision making and reaching conclusions faster. Nestle India hopes to be in a stronger position to judge and manage the business environment better in the process. It is not alone in regrouping and coming up with a strategy to fast-track decision making. Organisations across industries are stepping up to revamp their established systems and processes to speed up decision making, ensuring it's business as usual during normal times and it is well prepared to take on crisis.
"One of the key initiatives to encourage agile decision making is to have a non-hierarchical organisation structure," says Pankaj Bansal, co-founder and chief executive officer of PeopleStrong HR Services. Organisations are then able to empower employees by educating them about the key decisions they can take and providing them enough support to ensure that they get it right. "It's often called devolution of power. Such a clear structure and process along with a review structure removes any kind of ambiguity from the system and helps things move fast," points out Bansal.
Depending on the industry they are in, their size and structure, organisations can pursue this devolution of power in various ways. For instance, Coca-Cola, in its bid to simplify decision making further, has created a cross-functional core committee of employees encouraging more discussions and expanding the understanding of areas of development and improvement from the larger set of employees. "The move is aimed at facilitating agility by providing more empowerment and quick decision making for employees. The core team is working with all the functions to simplify routines and processes, thereby reducing the time taken for decision making significantly," says Sameer Wadhawan, vice-president, HR India and South West Asia, Coca-Cola India.
Similarly, as part of its corporate strategic initiatives unit, Infosys has rolled out a number of processes, systems and policy simplification measures across business functions. For example, the company's HR department started an initiative called Launchpad, a global on-boarding programme. As part of this, a mobile portal was launched which would be accessed by candidates on the go before joining the company. An "Ask Me Anything" help desk was also set up to help joiners get on board. "One of the immediate impacts of this has been a 20 per cent reduction in data correction requests since the integration of joining systems," says UB Pravin Rao, chief operating officer, Infosys.
The tech giant has also taken the lead in deploying automation internally to effect significant improvements across the organisation in terms of reducing effort and cycle time. Technology is turning out to be a great tool in the hands of the leaders as they attempt to weed out unnecessary processes in a department or across functions.
Sonica Malhotra, joint managing director of publishing company MBD Group, points out: "The success of any organisation depends on two interlinked functions - planning and timely execution. For us transition was critical with alteration in organisational structure and, therefore, we involved our senior management in this change." Hero MotoCorp, too, is deploying technology to cut down on unwarranted processes and save time and human resources. This year, the two-wheeler manufacturer has provided customers the option of converting the paper-based free service coupons at the time of vehicle sale to digital ones. This has significantly reduced paper flow through the system, making the process hassle-free and fast, thus benefiting all stakeholders - customers, dealers and the company. For the project, the key policy decisions were taken by the functional heads, while operational decisions were taken by the working team members, and it resulted in launching the project quickly.
At BookMyShow, the path to agile decision making is paved by the management's commitment to be flexible in structuring branch offices. It has repurposed the roles of some of its senior members at the regional offices for more comprehensive governance. According to Shamita Ghosh, deputy general manager-HR, "The move has led to increased ownership and motivation, majorly due to the widely decisive nature of senior members' new roles, which would also steadily turn them from good managers into great leaders."
Leaders and managers agree that empowering people and delegation of authority is the key to agile decision making.
"At MBD Group, each individual clearly knows what work or initiative one owns. Hence, each one has the authority to decide their own style of work for achieving desired results," says Malhotra.
Every change involves pain as it challenges the status quo and involves a huge cultural shift. Also, any change movement has to be gradual as it requires engagement with the key stakeholders to understand the pain areas, and calls for mutually working towards revamping the functions and processes. "One must remember that most of the changes are being made mid-flight without impacting everyone's day jobs and commitments," points out Rao of Infosys.
What are the road blocks to agile decision making process? According to Bansal, most of the times people don't have the right information to take a decision or there are no set processes defining who decided what. Also, no ring-fencing is done for first-time decision makers or young managers, leading to dependency on the immediate higher layer and delaying the process.
It's important that these two things are defined in an organisation for quicker decisions. Most importantly, while attempting quick decision making organisations must consider all possibilities. Because leaders caution that quick decisions, if miscalculated, could prove impulsive and cause damage to the brand and organisation.
Innovate for better decision making, productivity: Uli Gwinner
Organisations can take a few steps to encourage better decision making and increased productivity at the workplace.
Co-working space: Most work today is done in collaboration with others versus individually. For many companies, it now appears that there is too much emphasis on open spaces. However, it facilitates collaboration and fails to offer privacy which is vital for discussions, quiet phone calls etc. Hence, a mix of (enclosed) "I" spaces and (shared) "We" spaces is suggested as this will not only speed up decision making capacity but also increase productivity.
Real-time sharing: Today while teams are distributed, they work together with their clients and colleagues, who are situated in different countries. Here, the idea should not only be connecting with each other via videoconferencing or a text or email but also sharing a physical space with each other for spontaneous interactions. Organisations should install real-time sharing equipments that integrate technology and furniture to bring people, space and information together for greater collaboration, faster decision making and more productivity than ever before.
Uli Gwinner
President, Steelcase, APAC
President, Steelcase, APAC