Extreme Business Agility ~ Part 3: Examples of Non-Agile vs. Agile Business Capabilities
I am a collector by nature. I freely confess it. When I was young I collected fossils from my grandparents' ranch. Well, I did at least until the attic of our house began to sag and my parents laid down the law (true story). I collected baseball cards — I had both Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in the famous 1961 homerun season. (Sadly they somehow disappeared when I went off to college.) In the late 1980s and early 1990s I collected business rules (yes, that's right!). Many but by no means all of them ended up in the two editions of The Business Rule Book (1994, 1997). These days I collect sand from every beach I go to. (Ever compare sands from different beaches? Fascinating!)
Recently, I've started a new collection. How can you understand what true business agility is about unless you have a rich set of examples to work from? So in this month's column, I've decided to share some of the best ones I've collected to date. Can you see patterns emerging? By the way, I always have room for more in my collection — fortunately, this one's digital, not rocks. So if you've got some good ones, send them along!
Airlines — Food Service
Source: Taken from "Branson's Flight Plan," Time Magazine, April 28, 2008, pp. 40-43.
Product Component |
Non-Agile |
Agile |
Delivery Method |
"… flight attendants dole [meals] out from a cart like gruel in an orphanage."
|
" … a touchscreen at each seat lets passengers pick would they want and pay by credit card …." You get what you want when you want it "freed from the … tyranny of the cart." |
Payment |
Cash only. |
Cash, credit card, or debit card. |
Timing |
By choice of the crew. |
By choice of the passenger. |
Out of Stock |
If they run out of the meal you want before they reach your seat, you're toast. |
When meals run out, they "… disappear from the screen so you're never disappointed." |
Comment: I can relate!
Financial Services — Credit Card Fraud Detection
The scoop:
- The bad guys pick up and move shop from Idaho to Manhattan.
- Transactions deemed suspicious by zip code yield a 10x increase in volume.
- Suspicious transactions are kicked out to fraud specialists for manual inspection.
- Fraud specialists are an expensive and non-scalable resource.
- Additional selection criteria (e.g., location of store, type of store, frequency of use, size of transaction, etc.) must be introduced to keep the volume of kick-outs relatively constant.
Product Component |
Non-Agile |
Agile |
Selection Criteria |
Elapsed time: 30-60 days |
Elapsed time: 3-6 days* |
*Testing of assumptions and simulation by the business side is still required.
Comment: This company told us that they have more than recouped the cost of a rules engine from the savings from this first application alone(!).
Insurance — Product Offerings
Product Component |
Non-Agile |
Agile |
Elapsed Time |
90 days from purchase to operational on large group plans. |
1 week or less. |
Identity of the Insured |
A spouse must be treated as a plan member, even in a spouse-only plan. |
A spouse is treated as a spouse, not a plan member, even in a spouse-only plan. |
Coverage |
Automatically starts at 100% when a given person enrolls. |
Augments incrementally toward 100% as the enrolled person reaches defined milestones (e.g., 6 mos., 1 yr, 2 yrs). |
Deductible |
Always a set amount for a single product (e.g., Life), given appropriate criteria about a given person. |
Can be a single calculated amount across multiple products (e.g., Life, Dental, AD&D, etc.), given appropriate criteria about a given person. |
Change in Regulatory Statute |
All insureds treated in the same manner. |
Insureds treated selectively based on kinship (e.g., plan member vs. dependent). |
Differential Treatment |
All members of a group plan treated alike, irrespective of changes in physical condition while covered. |
Members of a group plan treated selectively, based on changes in physical condition while covered. |
Conversion |
Plan members must be re-enrolled upon conversion of group to individual plan. No choice of conversion plan or related limits. |
Plan members rolled over automatically upon conversion of group to individual plan. Choices offered with respect to conversion plan and limits. |
Risk Sharing |
Can't mix & match risk-sharing options for the adjudicated services offered in a plan. |
Each adjudicated service within a plan can be associated with its own risk-sharing option. |
Comment: Management's goal is to become the "Dell Computer" of insurance, product-wise.
The next part of this six-part series examines two companies — one that lacks business agility, and one that's begun to achieve it. Find out for yourself how important the differences can be.# # #
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