Advisory & Planning

Today, Lucidity offers much more than quality software implementation.  Lucidity has created an organization within Lucidity, the Business Advisory & Planning Group, that is designed to advise clients regarding business processes and technology options that ensure the fabric of operations, strategy and the various business systems are consistently in harmony or appropriately adapted as the client’s business model changes.  Key service offerings for our Advisory & Planning Group consist of:

• Advisement

  • Discovery
    • In many instances, the stated or expressed problem is not the real root cause. Through investigation and interviewing, we will understand the root cause of a reported or stated issue.In some cases, a problem may not be quantifiable or known. In these cases, we can engage an assessment team to audit a process for capability and provide recommendations. These audits can be as specific as a detailed work instruction or as wide reaching as an ISO-9000 readiness assessment.Health checking is another useful discovery activity. Analogous to a general practitioner, we hear numerous cases of” this process is just not quite right” or” we would like to leverage our platform better”. Engaging in a health check of a process or software platform can deliver a summarized set of outline recommendations for further discussion or investigation.

   

  • Business Case
    • Once understood, the business case is prepared. This can be cost avoidance, quality improvement, efficiency gain, working capital improvement. This business case forms not only the justification for further services but as a baseline in which to measure performance.

   

  • External Coach & Trusted Advisor
    • It is our objective to be that trusted advisor. Our recommendations are based on many years of tried and tested experience in addition to a solid foundation of analysis. It’s a partnership and while we appreciate that you may not like the news being presented, it’s our role to make sure you are presented with what you need to hear and not what we think you want to hear.

   

  • Roadmaps
    • Businesses conduct short, medium and long range plans. Our experience is not only to facilitate these and coach our clients through production but also to harmonize these with other support activities that occur-plant expansion, Information Technology upgrades, new business systems implementation etc.

• Planning

  • PMO
    • Creating, managing or measuring a project or program management office. The creation of scorecards to enable continuous harmonization of business objectives to any project activity is critical to efficient and realistic return on investment.

   

  • Organizational Readiness Plan
    • What are you preparing for? A new IT backbone? A new plant or distribution center? We help you to develop, manage and execute the conversion activities whatever they may be.

   

  • Strategic Assessment & Planning
    • The business is “broke”. Operations are not performing. Competition has changed. These inflection points hit every business and a new paradigm needs a new perspective or point of view. We can help by planning a “New World Order” for your business.

• Management

  • Operational Execution
    • When plans are developed, it’s now time to implement and manage. Our project teams assist in executing those plans and measuring and acting on changes as they occur. We use a variety of tools and methods to track and monitor progress

   

  • Efficiencies
    • Making the best use of contemporary process management tools and techniques, projective effectiveness, process yields, product quality or whatever is being measured for efficiency or yield. Leveraging an existing software platform, recommending a new, or creating a custom solution, developing measurements for both admin and production/distribution efficiency is key to monitoring performance to baseline.

   

  • Enablement
    • Connecting the dots with strategy, planning, measurements, and tactical activity… we now take a look at the rest of the organization. Training, development, skills analysis and ongoing performance management closes the loop on project activity

• Continuance

  • Business Process Optimization
    • Business Process Optimization (BPO) describes an activity set or set of methods where an ongoing continuous improvement culture is implemented within our client organization. Utilization of numerous tools, Six Sigma, SPC, QS, ISO and others, we continue to cycle (plan-do-check-act) to optimize a process or activity. At the management level, we implement continuous monitoring tools to identify the ‘big hitters’ and direct our efforts toward the biggest opportunity for return.

   

  • Business Case Realization
    • We start business case realization at discovery and continue throughout the lifecycle of the project. We continuously check to ensure that the assumptions and hypotheses of the business benefits are being met and at the end of every cycle. In a culture of continuous improvement, this type of analysis should never end.

   

  • Continuous Improvement
    • Continuous improvement is not a job, it’s a culture. Our primary and principle goal for anything falling under this auspice is to help to create and develop a culture of continuous improvement. We implement management tools for this, not direct line quality control.

   

  • Close The Loop… Advise
    • Everything we do we requires a method to close the loop. For each project, activity or task, we have a hypothesis for expected results. Closing the loop either confirms or refutes the hypothesis. This is a cornerstone of our advisory group.

For more information on how our Advisory & Planning group can help you plan and optimize your business, please contact us for an assessment.