Book excerpt: DRIVE SUSTAINABILITY AND GROWTH WITH A PROCESS FOCUSED ENTERPRISE You can execute a world-class business improvement plan, but if its effects don't reach the customer--is it really of value? In this groundbreaking book, business innovation expert David Hamme reveals a powerful and proven method for connecting your company’s valuecreation processes to customer-desired products--forging a direct link between strategic intentions and everyday business activities. The goal is to systematize innovation in your company--and Customer Focused Process Innovation takes you step-by-step through the details to accomplish this goal. With Hamme as your guide, you'll transform your organization into a Process Focused Enterprise--one in which organizational silos, command-andcontrol management, guesswork, and information inadequacies cease to exist--and where intuitive, simplified, fact-based, customer-connected, efficient approaches are the rule, not the exception. Customer Focused Process Innovation shows you how to: Assess your current operational capabilities by visually depicting work streams and building a conceptual blueprint from your core value chain to the end consumer Drive customer-focused improvements by building rich feedback loops from the front lines and by actively managing the customer's processes Implement a powerful new system that embeds process management practices to ensure every process delivers the greatest financial benefit “When designed, managed, and utilized correctly, business processes are the foundational framework for innovation,” Hamme writes. You don't have to hope that innovation will just happen. You now have the knowledge, insight, and tools to drive it. With Customer Focused Process Innovation you have everything you need to revamp your processes to innovate, grow, and outpace the competition. PRAISE FOR CUSTOMER FOCUSED PROCESS INNOVATION: "Hamme's approach is not a pie-in-the-sky set of big ideas, but rather an expertly woven and intuitively practical framework of concepts and tools that bridge the gap between visions and strategies." -- Steve Jegier, Head of Strategy, Wealth, Brokerage, and Retirement, Wells Fargo "Hamme's emphasis on using a process focus and initiative management to drive long-term, real improvement to an organization is spot on. It's the only way to really bring about the adaptation needed to survive." -- Richard Maltsbarger, Business Development Executive, Lowe's Companies, Inc. "Finally a business book that not only provides great thought-provoking insight into how a business operates, but also gives the step-by-step instructions to create a blueprint that everyone in the organization can follow to take the guesswork out of execution." -- Don Smith, VP of Marketing, Family Dollar Stores "Having a 'great idea' is easy--driving it to execution is the hard part. We all talk about it, and now David has it documented." -- Caroline M. Kolman, P.E., Managing Director, Prism Healthcare Partners LTD "Ninety-nine percent of the innovation books published don't address the part of the process where ninety-nine percent of the value is created: implementation. However, David addresses this complex issue head on. If you want to make innovation a reality, get this book." -- Stephen M. Shapiro, author, Best Practices Are Stupid