The world of BPM implementation is liberally sprinkled with several stories – of roaring successes, miserable failures and a myriad of experiences in between. Strangely different organisations following the same strategy may get rather different results even from simple implementation projects. Projects under the wide banner of BPM can mean anything from a simple or a complex case of process transformation (BPT) to setting up of large or multiple independent service centres (BPC).

So why would results vary in implementing similar projects across different companies or even within the same company at different points in time? Clearly in the BPM strategy too, as in the case of any other business strategy, it is folly to even assume that any two situations are ever the same. Strategies may fail because they are too complex to set in motion, or too vague for effective implementation. They may fail because of wrong assumptions or wrong choice of technology or, for that matter, not having an effective leader to own the strategy.

In fact, most cases of BPM strategy gone awry are those of poor leadership at the top. Any BPM strategy which is larger than a simple process simplification exercise should be handled by an independent leader who is both capable and at the same time sensitive. The ‘process’ of Process Management should not be taken lightly and should be given its due share of corporate respect.

We have heard Stephen Covey saying, “The leader is the one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation, and yells, ‘Wrong jungle!’ ... Busy, efficient producers and managers often respond... ‘Shut up! We’re making progress!” The next question that is simply begging to be asked is, that having found the leader who points us to the right jungle, is he good enough to take us to it?

A leader who leads the BPM strategy has to be both the tree climbing leader as well as the efficient manager all rolled into one.

1. The Leader should be Disruptive

This term is not as bad as it sounds. The leader should not go about pushing a bull in a china shop just to watch the fun, but as Rajesh Venkat says, “You need disruptive leaders who are dissatisfied with current process and can visualize better and simpler ways of running the process. Such leaders use BPM to push the boundaries of the process. Daily oversight keeps you in control of the process; disruptive thinking keeps you ahead of everyone else.”

Successful implementers of the BPM strategy with some of the
largest initiatives in Global India have commented on the
traits that would help in identifying such a ‘magician’

Complacence can be rather illusionary. Even if things are going well, there may be an opportunity for improvement. Krish Venkat refines that by saying, “There must be scope for new ideas and radical changes. This does not mean reinventing the wheel, but often re-invigorating the zeal. It sometimes means a Zero–base approach to ensure that we are in the right ‘jungle’.”

2. The Leader should be an Architect

Deepak Dhawan believes that the role of a BPM leader is that of the organization designer who has an eye on capability building and performance enhancement - the architect. A function that knows how to deliver value in the marketplace and recognizes the relationship between structures and business processes. A function which understands the role which middle management plays in enabling this performance and how information is processed and used to create value. It is the Architect who must build the filters of cost and customer service, and then review the legacy processes and couple them with appropriate technologies. And yes, variety of processes can be managed within the same framework.

3. The Leader should be able to simultaneously Share and Control

Just like an orchestra conductor, a good leader needs to be able to balance the several moving parts (in this case, stakeholders). Shantanu Ghosh believes that one of the most important skills that is required at the management level while implementing BPM is how to synchronize and align accountability and responsibility. Similarly, aligning individual leadership target setting within the overall corporate goals too is a crucial feature.

4. The Leader should be a Business Manager

Mere skills in transformation are not enough. A process leader leading a large BPM initiative should first be a business manager. P Y Gurav says, “He must possess specific skills/ attributes, apart from normal leadership capabilities, such as:

  • Strong Business acumen - This will include thorough understanding of the business and industry and dynamics of the value drivers
  • Knowledge- Thorough functional knowledge of process inter-linkages
  • Understanding of sources of competitive advantage of the industry and evolution thereof
  • IT Savvy – Information technology has been a major facilitator of BPM implementation. The leader must have an in-depth knowledge of its enabling technology.”

Ramesh Sharma feels that the BPM leader should be ‘grounded’ to extract the true value from BPM – should have grown from operations. He should understand transactions at the root level. “We do not encourage ‘paratroopers’ who come in, without personally experiencing issues while servicing ransactions. The best leaders are those who can view the business both from 5 feet and 500 feet at the same time. Domain can be embedded, but practicality has to be nurtured.”

5. The Leader should be Charismatic and Persuasive

Many BPM projects are not very easy to implement without complete support of the entire leadership. In the modern corporate world too, there are several old timers who would scoff at these newfangled ideas as mere flights of fancy. The ability to convince the leadership and in fact the entire organisation on the eventual benefits of the project is an invaluable asset in a leader.

“The most important leadership trait or skill required to leverage the benefits of BPM is to be able to effectively sell the same to all stakeholders, particularly the internal ones. This power of persuasion can be acquired only by honesty of purpose, integrity of data and actions, and a genuine empathy with the people”, recalls Anand Maheshwari.

6. The Leader should be convincing to the Top Management

B Jayaraman believes that to enhance the value of BPM, it is imperative to set the tone from the very TOP. It is important to set the BPM strategy (centralization, outsourcing, tools and technology) and have meaningful short term and long-term goals. While business leaders would focus their energies on the CORE, it is quite possible that they might not be able to devote enough time. Hence, leaders managing business processes should have effective influencing skills and be able to demand a seat on the table.

Having said that, the leader needs to be more than just convincing to the top management. As Nitin Sahni observes, “the leader needs to create a good level of engagement at the top to reap benefits from BPM”. He needs to be aware of the pressures that may be unsaid. Arun Mehra feels that many times discussions of process change bring out deeply vested interests that CEOs/ top management are unwilling to tackle. The BPM leader should be sensitive to this and be adept in handling the consequence.

7. The Leader should be an Orchestrator

For a BPM culture to flourish in an organisation, it needs inclusiveness, openness and creativity. The courage to challenge existing ways of working must be appreciated as a value. Of course, a clear framework and a disciplined approach is a must, with concrete focus on business objectives. He or she is an orchestrator who has the ability to build and nurture a team that will have multiple symbiotic and complementary skills. Deepak Dhawan reinforces,” (these are) key skills for understanding of processes and the concept of process discipline. Operations management as a horizontal, appreciation of the role of technology, and most importantly the whole new challenge of people management within a whole new organizational set up with the emergence of a whole new career model.”

As Krish Venkat describes, “In music, each raag has a rule. If one chooses that raag, the specific rules have to be followed. But that does not mean the lack of creativity since, within each raag, great composers have managed to create thousands of songs using just those seven or less notes”. Whether it is global operations or India operations, they also need to deploy and manage teams who are well versed with, as well as, enabling possible cultural differences.

Ramanan K. Sangam, however, puts the same thing a bit differently. “Leaders of change should have a bold, yet open mind set” and must, amongst other things, demonstrate the following tough combinations:

  • having a map of where to take the organization and the means to achieve it,
  • swimming against the tide of inertia normally accumulated in the organization,
  • inspiring people

8. The Leader should be able to Manage Ambiguities

Enough is written about the importance of change management. It still, however, continues to dominate the scene in large scale BPM implementation projects, given greater levels of anxiety. It brings both ambiguities and opportunities – the leader needs to have ‘realistic optimism’, ensuring to deal with the impact due to ambiguities while converting the challenges into opportunities.

Punit Jain believes that the biggest shift required is in the paradigms of the people. Adapting to change may be the single biggest roadblock to best of the BPM initiatives. People fear loss of control and power. People fear inferior customer experience.

Raja Jain, on the other hand, believes that the biggest shift is the movement from execution to monitoring. “There has to be a robust process review mechanism, capturing analysing and utilization of data points, creating strong communication channels, and keeping your eye on the end objective - whether it is cost, profitability or capability enhancement.”

Adding to all of the above is the importance of adjusting to shifting skills and talent imbalances. “The impact of technology is making some skills obsolete and at the same time creating more connected and newer work models, including work from home and part time work”, adds Harpreet Duggal.

Srinivas Koppolu believes implementation of BPM and a robust change management program go hand- in-hand. Resistance to change is usually an outcome of uncertainty. “My advice to the managers of BPM is to communicate, communicate, communicate!”

9. The Leader should be able to read the signs and symptoms of the minefields

The leader should be able to deftly combine ability to analyse and synthesize information. Review information and metrics to assess whether things are progressing as per plans or not, get to the root of the issues that lies under the surface and pick up signals that can detect a catastrophe before it happens.

One needs people who will review the health of the process every day, watch out for issues and use quality tools to drive incremental improvements. “A successful BPM implementation must have triangulated metrics. We must tune in to the voice of the process through dashboards, stay connected with customers for getting a RAG flag on the process, and listen to our teams since they are closest to the process. Doing one of these and not the others is not good enough to stay in control of the process. If any source of information does not triangulate with the others, it is time to take a closer look,” says Rajesh Venkat.

10. The Leader should be a People Leader

Last but not the least, this trait is obvious and demanding, since many of the BPM leaders may be leading larger teams or wider spans of control for the first time, when they step beyond their current roles. Also, in this knowledge worker era, engaging people and getting them to carry out value adding work or improve processes is an absolute must. BPM has increased focus on ‘Skilling’ rather than ‘Scaling’. This creates specialization into work groups with business insight, domain experts and technology partners. All of these working in tandem is the only ‘mantra’ to run such projects.

In addition, BPM strategy has to be integrated with the firm’s People Strategy. Since organizations are becoming more and more global and culturally diverse, the binding force of an organization will have to be its Values, and BPM strategy will have to be integrated with them.

Now, with all these 10 traits, one can decide whether we need to have a magician or a champion or both. Simply put, the Leader will have to leverage his strengths to combine ‘seemingly conflicting’ skills to make his customer, his business, his team and his own career to achieve success.

The quoted Leaders (in alphabetical order)

Anand Maheshwari – A Chartered Accountant and a Company Secretary with over three decades of experience in the F&A Shared Services Industry in India

Arun Mehra – Senior Vice President at Standard Chartered Bank’s shared service centre in India. His previous BPM assignments include American Express and Barclays

Deepak Dhawan – Founder & CEO of Talentonic HR Solutions Private Limited. He has over 35 years of experience in HR, communication and strategic processes across public and private sectors in Steel, Automotive and ITES sectors

Harpreet Duggal – Business leader at Genpact. He has over 25 years of experience in the area of Business Development and Marketing

Jayaraman B – Vice President at United States Pharmacopeia India Pvt. Ltd with around 20 years of experience, out of which he has been actively leading Business Process Management initiatives for about 7 years at various companies

Krish Venkat – A Chartered Accountant with an MBA in HR and a master’s in psychology. He has 23 years of experience with large organisations

Nitin Sahni – A Chartered Accountant with over 19 years of work experience in Business Process Outsourcing, Finance & Assurance and Risk Advisory. Currently with Serco

P Y Gurav – A qualified accountant with more than 35 years of experience. He led the implementation of Shared Services in Tata Motors in the role of Senior Vice President Corporate Finance at Tata Motors

Punit Jain – 25 years’ experience largely in the IT and BPO industry in key verticals of Banking, Insurance and Manufacturing

Raja Jain – Responsible for multimillion-dollar account management relationships with business delivery from India, Philippines and China with Interglobe Technologies.

Rajesh Venkat – Leader at Sundaram Business Services, serving clients in Australia, UK, Singapore and India in the domains of Accounting, Lending & Insurance back office

Ramanan K Sangam – Experience of over 30 years in large multinational organizations. Has been involved in several BPM projects in his capacity of Associate Director at Ernst & Young – GSS

Ramesh Sharma – Over 21 years of Finance & Operations experience of which around 17 at GE & Genpact. He has been in Global leadership roles in Shared Services/ BPO space for the last 13 years

Shantanu Ghosh – Senior Vice President at Genpact leading CFO Services, Solutions, Transitions and the Lean Six Sigma organization

Srinivas Koppolu – Head of BPO Services at Steria, managing over 2500 employees across 3 locations in India. He is a member of the Corporate Group driving business growth and strategy for BPO across the globe

The comments and views of each of the leaders expressed above have been extracted from their contributions in the publication “BPM in Global India: The Inflection Point for Competitive Advantage” published by Shared Service Forum in October 2013. Readers are advised to go through the complete publication for a comprehensive understanding of the context in which they were written.