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Is C-Level Clarity right for you? Here are examples of how C-Level Clarity can help both large and small companies. These examples are derived from real world experiences and are presented here as examples of how C-Level Clarity is used to identify problems in the business and drive business improvement. The businesses used in these examples are fictitious.

Use Cases

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Large Company Use Case

Small Company Use Case

Background:

A company with 85 employees in the heavy equipment rental business is experiencing high growth but a lot of problems. Customers are complaining, money is tight, and there always seems to be one crisis after another. The owner installed C-Level Clarity in order to get a better handle on the myriad of problems occurring in the business.

After installing C-Level Clarity the company made the following discoveries:

Discovery #1

Problem: The owner is in constant fire-fighting mode. As one problem is solved another immediately springs up in its place. Every day brings a new surprise, usually bad. Additionally, the problems are never really solved. They are just patched or reduced. There is never enough time to properly correct the true cause of the problem, just deal with the symptoms. Consequently the same problems keep popping up over and over again.

After C-Level Clarity: The owner now has a place where he/she can go to see everything going on in the company, easily and in real-time. The C-Level Clarity dashboard shows the status of the operations first at a high level and then at a detailed drill down as necessary. C-Level Clarity shows if a problem exists, when it occurred, what sections of the business are affected, and the progress to date to resolve the problem by those responsible. With C-Level Clarity, problems are identified before they become critical, while they are still small and easily repaired. Also, C-Level Clarity automatically priorities problems by severity and importance to the business. C-Level Clarity also shows the route causes and interconnections of problems. All this allows the business to proactively plan and implement process improvements instead of lurching from one crisis to the next.

Discovery #2

Problem: A problem was found that was affecting the company’s cash flow. There were two places in the order-to-cash process that extended the cash cycle by 3 – 5 weeks. One problem occurred when rentals were being returned. Customers were not being invoiced until the returned item was checked back in by the equipment yard. Unfortunately, the equipment yard did not realize their part in the overall process and would regularly delay checking the equipment back in. Check-ins were treated as a low priority task and performed only when the equipment yard had spare time. The second major delay in the cash flow cycle dealt with the prepping and mailing of invoices. The process was completed as a batch activity and ran only twice a month. This resulted in weeks added to the cash cycle and errors created in the invoices.

After C-Level Clarity: Both of these problems were easily identified and corrected once C-Level Clarity was installed. C-Level Clarity automatically identified the two problems because both problems have the same basic characteristic, they create delays in the workflow and release completed work in clumps. This type of process control is error-prone and bad for business consistency.

Discovery #3

Problem: The company suffered overall from a lack of consistency and predictability. All parts of the business were erratic and error-prone. Each employee was doing their work in whatever manner they liked, varying from day-to-day. The result was the work being created was not what management or the customers expected. There was a complete breakdown in work management with the resultant problems for the customers.

After C-Level Clarity: The company discovered that in the rush to hire people during the last growth period, employees had not been properly trained in the correct procedures to complete their jobs. C-Level Clarity enabled the company to define and document the best practice for each critical area in the business. The process documentation is used for current employees to understand and communicate on the correct procedures for completing the work of the business. This documentation will be used to re-train existing employees and also ensure that all new hires are properly trained from day one.

Large Company Use Case

Background:

A medical claims processing company has 400 employees and several branch processing centers. The company is considering taking on a new customer that will double the work and size of the business. The company wants to install C-Level Clarity in order to discover any operational issues that need to be addressed before significantly growing the business.

After installing C-Level Clarity, the company made the following discoveries:

Discovery #1

Problem: There were significant branch-to-branch variations in the claims processing area. These variations were due to personnel following the same general processes differently in the separate branches. One branch had significantly better performance because their processes were better in the details.

After C-Level Clarity: Following the implementation of C-Level Clarity, the best practices for each process were identified, documented, and transferred to all other branches. Having consistent, documented processes now frees management to manage to a single, best-of-breed process.

Discovery #2

Problem: It was discovered that errors in the claims processing were being caught at various stages of the processing, including stages that were well into the claims processing workflow. The company was spending large amounts of time, energy, and money solving problems that should not even exist at that stage of the workflow. Additional to the extra cost to correct errors, the errors were also delaying the time to complete the work and hence to time to be paid.

After C-Level Clarity: The company was able to identify the cause for the extra errors in the workflow. The measurement of the error handling at these later stages showed abnormal variation in the volume of the error handling workflow. An examination showed a regular grouping of errors that were occurring every morning. The problem was found to be the sub-process that performed the manual inputting of claims faxed in overnight from off-site agents. The manual input process was flawed in that it did not include the data validation and verification steps that were included in normal claims inputting. Because of this missing step, errors crept into the normal workflow causing unnecessary work and costly delays.

Discovery #3

Problem: Lastly, a problem was found in the accounting department of the company. Across multiple processes, workflow irregularities and high error rates showed that the majority of the department’s processes were broken and out of control. The day-to-day work was being completed, however getting it done required large amounts of rework and overtime. Additionally, the amount of time spent resolving errors was growing in proportion to the amount of regular work. This created a downward spiral where the time spent resolving errors was pulling time away from the regular workload, causing more errors.

After C-Level Clarity: Once C-Level Clarity identified the department as a weak structure in the company then the company was able to mitigate the problem. The company allocate extra additional resources on a temporary basis to shore up the work done in the department. The company then corrected the processes in the department as the long term solution. The whole time that the short and long term solutions were being implemented the company was able to monitor the performance of the department in real-time to ensure the integrity of the work was complete.

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