Volume 5: Managing with Agility – Processes How to achieve ... · sustain outstanding levels of performance (2015) ... Kitshoff, J. and Gleaves, R (2013) “How to achieve and sustain

How to achieve and sustain outstanding levels of performance (2015)

Volume 5: Managing with Agility – ProcessesReport for the British Quality Foundation (BQF) by Manchester Business School | 2015

Volume 5: Managing with Agility – Processes


2 How to achieve and sustain outstanding levels of performance: MBS report for the BQF

Contents:

Page

1 Introduction 3

2 Managing Processes with Agility in the Case Study Companies 5

2.1 Process Quality Improvement Approaches and Techniques 6

2.2 Process Frameworks and Ownership 6

2.3 Identification of Improvement Opportunities 9

2.4 Implementation of Improvements 16

2.5 Social Media and Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM): e-Listening and e-Word of Mouth (eWOM) 19

3 Appendices 21

3.1 The Literature Review 21

3.2 The Case Study Companies 27

3.3 Glossary 31

3.4 Reference List 35

4 Acknowledgements 39

The BQF is extremely grateful to Circle Housing Wherry, Interserve Construction Limited, JPCS and Northumbrian Water and for sharing their excellent insights and information.

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1 IntroductionBetween 2012 and 2013 Manchester Business School (MBS) conducted an extensive Excellence research project on behalf of the British Quality Foundation (BQF), the community for every business seeking insights, tools and experiences to improve itself. The purpose of the research was to provide insights into contemporary business excellence practices to further develop understanding of what it looks and feels like and how it benefits business. The research was published in 2013a and was well received by the UK business community. The BQF subsequently commissioned this research, conducted from 2014-2015.

The work in both projects focused on emerging areas of business excellence comprising new ideas, concepts and practices identified in extensive reviews of current practitioner and academic literature.

In some cases these practices can be small things, appearing almost inconsequential to some, but combined together and driven by an uncompromising and consistent strategy, their accumulation gives the organisations involved an edge, something for which every business should be searching and striving.

Four research themes were identified for investigation:

1. Leading with Vision, Inspiration and Integrity (Leadership)

2. Adding Value for Customers (Customer)

3. Succeeding Through the Talent of People (People)

4. Managing with Agility (Processes)

These themes are four of the eight Fundamental Concepts of Excellence within the EFQM Excellence Model. Extensive in-depth literature reviews were conducted in the 2013 research for each of the four themes and a number of key emerging or recently emerged contemporary topics were identified within each of them. These topics are areas that are experiencing significant research interest or where practitioners are making significant improvements.

Following identification of the topics, four organisations, two B2B and two with a significant B2C focus were selected (both in 2013 and for this research in 2014-2015), to determine how these organisations are achieving excellent business practices within the topics identified across the four themes.

For this research the B2B companies were:

• Interserve Construction Limited (the UK Construction Division of Interserve plc)

• JPCS (a specialist in waterproofing tarmac)

And the companies with a B2C focus were:

• Circle Housing Wherry (CHW) (a Registered Provider of Social Housing)

• Northumbrian Water Limited (NWL) (a utility)

a Burton, J., Rickards, T., Hough, A., Holden, C., Kitshoff, J. and Gleaves, R (2013) “How to achieve and sustain outstanding levels of performance. Volume 3: Leading with Vision, Inspiration and Integrity”, London: British Quality Foundation, 10th June (Available at: www.bqf.org.uk/research/excellence-2013, accessed 11th June, 2013).

http://www.bqf.org.uk/research/excellence-2013



The current 2014-2015 report highlights the techniques and processes that help these organisations to excel, with implications for business in the UK and globally. More information about the four companies can be found in the Appendix. This report was produced by Dr Jamie Burton, Head of the Marketing Group, Dawn Holmes, Visiting Academic (both at Manchester Business School, the University of Manchester) and Cheryl Holden, PhD Scholar at the University of Manchester.

This report builds on the expert content direction and contribution under the four themes provided for the 2013 report by:

• Customer: The MBS Customer Management Leadership Group (CMLG) team: Professor John Murphy, Dr Jamie Burton, Visiting Fellows Jan Kitshoff and Robin Gleaves

• Leadership: MBS Emeritus Professor Tudor Rickards

• People: MBS Professor David Holman

• Process: MBS Professors Ruth Boaden and Peter Kawalek

The BQF has undertaken this project to support UK businesses by providing them with access to leading edge insights and experiences from excellent companies.

The findings contained in this report provide examples of how the four individual companies strive to develop unique capabilities in the areas of the four research themes in order to achieve outstanding levels of performance. Sometimes the changes and improvements may appear minor but they are incremental and each contributes to the overall edge that the individual business is developing in their sector. By showcasing holistic examples of how these companies strive for excellence, we challenge other organisations to aspire to greater levels of achievement.

The BQF can provide companies with help and advice to improve their performance, particularly around the EFQM Excellence Model which, by streamlining operations and improving productivity and efficiency, improves business performance and profitability.

This, Volume 5, deals with Processes.

The findings from this 2014-2015 research have been published in five volumes:

1. Executive Summary

2. Leading with Vision, Inspiration and Integrity

3. Adding Value for Customers

4. Succeeding Through the Talent of People

5. Managing with Agility (Processes)



2 Managing Processes with Agility in the Case Study CompaniesExcellent organisations are widely recognised for their ability to identify and respond effectively and efficiently to opportunities and threats. Being able to adapt quickly to change allows organisations to be agile, accommodating new customer requirements and responding to changes in the wider environment. For this to happen, organisations need to have the following in place:

• A scanning process that enables the identification of changes that will impact on the business

• A business management system that allows processes and procedures to be updated or amended quickly

• A review system that ensures the amended or new processes are compliant and fit for purpose

“Processes” covers a wide range of issues and topics and it is frequently common practice for an organisation to document processes in all areas of its business. As the external environment and customer requirements change, organisations must review and

amend their processes to ensure that they remain compliant and fit for purpose. It is important that effective scanning processes exist to identify changing needs and that a suitable procedure for incorporating change is established.

Most of the topics identified in recent research could be observed to varying degrees in the four organisations as discussed below. Where no information is presented, it should not be assumed that the topic under discussion was not present in the organisation, but rather that the topic was not discussed in sufficient detail during the interview process to provide substantive evidence. The case study material, where available, is presented against the following subject headings (see table below):

Research Theme Key Topics

Process Quality Improvements Process quality improvements highlights

Case study material grouped by:

Process frameworks and ownership• Management systems• Process ownership

Identification of improvement opportunities• Process review• Process measurement• Improvement suggestions• Improvements through new technology• Learning from mistakes• R&D• Benchmarking• Customer input

Implementation of improvements• Change management• Improvement approvals• Improvement testing (pilot schemes)

Social CRM and eWOM and E-listening Social CRM and eWOM and E-listening highlights



2.1 Process Quality Improvement Approaches and TechniquesThe literature review (reproduced in the Appendices) highlights the development of process improvement from an internal discipline primarily focused on the efficiency of work tasks and the creation of value exchange, to one of continuous improvement. This focus on continuous improvement includes changes to service delivery and incorporates external improvement suggestions and customer co-creation.

As organisations concerned with achieving excellence, all four study companies have systems in place for identifying, managing and improving processes throughout their businesses.

Three main groups of activity were identified in this subject area, and this report is structured using these activities:

• Process frameworks and ownership – how the organisations structure and manage their business process systems

• Identification of improvement opportunities – the techniques and sources used to find and communicate improvement suggestions

• Implementation of improvements – the management of changes to process

2.2 Process Frameworks and OwnershipFor processes to be effectively managed and improved, there needs to be some form of system or framework in place to record the processes, manage the auditing of processes and track any changes. Although this topic was not covered in detail for all of the case study companies, they each had a system in place.

2.2.1 Highlights – Process quality improvement approaches and techniques

The following highlights were evidenced in most of the organisations:

• The existence of a holistic business management system

• A clear definition of process ownership

• An overall plan with priorities for process improvements



2.2.2 Circle Housing Wherry (CHW)

Management systems:The housing sector is very process driven, with many procedures governed by legislation, regulation or best practice guidelines. This legislative framework acts as the standard for service delivery, with local processes detailing how the services are delivered by each organisation. Processes are varied and include: the handing of a property to a new tenant; the interaction between the housing association and the district authorities; the handling of house swaps; the assignment of tenancies to another family member; and how breaches of tenancy agreements are handled. CHW has process maps and charts for each of its processes, many of which are included in the Circle Standard. This document is issued

by the Circle Group (the holding company of CHW and eight other housing associations), and defines standards, processes and service level agreements. Policies and procedures in this document are drafted by the Group Policy Team.

Process ownership:For repairs and maintenance, processes are owned by the technical experts, surveyors and senior surveyors, who cover specific areas such as asbestos, electrical safety, fire safety, gas, legionella, water safety and so on. The Contract Statutory Manager has overall responsibility for these processes, which are the ones most frequently affected by legislation changes.

2.2.3 Interserve Construction

Management systems:Interserve Construction has an intranet based business management system which is accessible to everyone within the organisation, and contains all of the business processes. All of the processes are mapped and have process tools attached to them (such as databases and systems that drive these processes and the procurement system).

Process ownership:Process ownership at Interserve Construction is very structured and involves several layers, including very senior managers:

• Process Sponsor – generally a main board director

• Process Owner – usually a department head or a member of the Executive Board

• Process Manager – the manager of the team that runs the process

• Process Users – the team that runs the process

Richard Jones, Associate Director for Sustainable Business, is responsible for the business process system and its administration. Richard’s team includes a Business Systems Implementation Manager who ensures that the system is in place and mentors staff in order that the system is maintained and managed effectively across the organisation.

Process ownership has been devolved to business teams (rather than being the remit of a Quality Assurance Department) for around a decade. Richard explains that this works well adding “People believe in the processes because they designed them”.

Interserve Construction has thirteen business units, each with a named Business Improvement Manager (who may be responsible for multiple business units). It is the role of the Business Improvement Manager to ensure processes are enacted. This is achieved through both a mentoring approach and formal internal audits.



2.2.4 Northumbrian Water (NWL)

Management systems:The need for a process management system was identified as an area for improvement during NWL’s 2012 Recognised for Excellence assessment.

Subsequently a hierarchy of 180 key business processes has recently been put in place, structured by business area. These are outlined below:

Supplying water

Removal of waste water

Customer management:

• Billing and receipting cash • Debt collection • Customer contact • Account management

Support:

• People (Human Resources) • Financial management • Procurement • Information management • Stakeholder management • Governance and risk

Process ownership:Matthew Grant, Head of Business Process Improvement, and his team are responsible for designing and implementing a management system for processes.

Each process has one process owner and one or more process managers. Process owners are responsible for the performance of the process and for evaluating and implementing proposed changes to the process whilst process managers support the process owner to manage the processes.

As a new system, this is not yet fully embedded in the organisation and process owners and managers are currently involved in developing an optimum method of system management.

In addition to process managers and owners, there is an Asset Policy Steering Group, which reviews policies affecting services.



2.3 Identification of Improvement OpportunitiesAll four organisations in the study were concerned with continual improvement of processes and sought improvement suggestions from a wide range of sources. There were many similarities in the approaches to process improvement.

2.3.1 Highlights – Identification of improvement opportunities

The following themes were evidenced in all of the case study companies:

• A framework for process reviews based on differing time periods for groups of processes but with the flexibility to incorporate changes as required outside of these set timeframes

• The use of industry networks and trade press as sources of information and opinion

• A desire to learn from mistakes and improve processes to prevent repetition of issues

• A value placed on customer suggestions for improvement

• The identification of individual responsibility for tracking changes to legislation and regulation

• Process improvements often resulted from the influence of four key drivers (see figure below):

Other themes exist but were not universally evidenced in the study, including:

• The use of customer co-creation for process improvement

• The use of improvement suggestions from suppliers

• Investment in research and development (R&D)

• Benchmarking processes and measurements across industries

CHANGES IN LEGISLATION OR

REGULATION

INTERNAL DRIVE TO IMPROVE

EFFECTIVENESS OR EFFICIENCY

CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS

AVAILABILITY OF NEW

TECHNOLOGY

PROCESS IMPROVEMENT

DRIVERS




Process review:CHW has recently completed a governance review investigating everything relating to statutory compliance. This resulted in changes to policies such as eradicating contradictions and ensuring legal compliance. The updated policies were issued to the teams enacting them to review and raise any questions. Policies are enhanced by the addition of links to the latest legislation.

CHW stays up to date with legislation and best practice through professional publications such as the Law Society Gazette and the Housing Law Monitor, and with updates from industry experts including Butterworths and Arden Chambers. Changes in legislation trigger updates to policies and processes and widespread changes will be communicated to all relevant staff through training programmes. Contractors are also used as a source of information on changing regulations.

Performance metrics are measured and changes or underperformance can trigger a review. Reviews can involve a whole team setting aside a day, mapping out the process and suggesting improvements. The Business Excellence Team helps with reviews as requested, providing a different perspective.

Audits are in place, with an annual audit plan conducted by internal and external auditors. Audits are augmented by the use of random case sampling, conducted by managers to ensure teams are following procedures correctly. Compliance with policies and procedures forms part of every individual’s appraisal objectives.

Process measurement:The Senior Management Team (SMT) tracks a suite of key performance metrics. Operational managers measure performance against these metrics and provide the information to the SMT, where it is used to plan workloads, allocate resources and benchmark with other associations in the Circle Group.

Jodie Cunnington-Brock, Assistant Director of Housing Services explains that in addition to the suite of performance metrics, process measures are put in place for all new processes detailing how often various actions are completed successfully and within given timeframes.

Once the steps of a process have become engrained, Jodie says that measurement is often stopped, as the information gained is no longer useful.

Some measures do continue to be monitored and these form a set of local measures outside of the Group’s performance management framework. They may relate to areas of service which are not standard across the Group due to differences in how direct labour is managed or contracted in each association.

Customer feedback is analysed to provide an alternative view of how well processes are working. The SMT holds a monthly review of all feedback received for each patch (residential area) and team. Feedback includes complaints, compliments and satisfaction ratings. Themes emerging from the feedback and large differences between patches are used to initiate investigations into underlying causes.

Improvement suggestions:Improvement suggestions to processes are welcomed from any source. The requirement for continuous improvement is discussed frequently, which encourages employee suggestions.

Jared Myers, Head of Housing, Sustainable Communities, explains how one member of the income team suggested a way to make it easier for foreign tenants to deal with managing their rent accounts. By having translations of the most frequently used phrases in the most common languages, tenants are able to understand and answer basic questions and can also request an appropriate interpreter. The option for a tenant to nominate a family member or friend as an interpreter was also included. These changes allow the income management team to deal with most issues in a single visit to the tenant, greatly improving the process.

The operational managers hold team meetings and have a specific agenda item for anyone looking for a solution to a problem. Jared says this works particularly well as issues are often interrelated and having a multi-disciplinary team provides “shared brain power and experience”.



Benchmarking:Benchmarking is not a formalised process, but conducted through networking and attending industry events such as those held by the Chartered Institute of Housing.

Learning from mistakes / issues:Underperformance leads to an investigation of underlying causes so that they can be rectified. Action plans are put in place as part of a performance improvement framework. Becky Leonard, Surveying Manager, explains that when similar issues occur in several of the associations in the Circle Group they are investigated as part of one project, which can involve external consultants as well as Group members. If issues relate primarily to only one association, then they are investigated locally.

Wendy White, Head of Customer Services, Operations and Partnerships, cites one specific case with repairs, where long waiting times and poor appointment availability were causing issues. The review uncovered a high proportion of repairs being carried out for vulnerable tenants. These have a target time of 3 days for completion, much shorter than the usual target of 28 days for other tenants, and this prioritisation had the knock on effect of delaying other work. Contractors having to meet the shorter deadlines felt some of the tenants did not merit this quick turnaround of service and questioned the categorisation of vulnerability.

Wendy and her team decided to review the triage questions used to determine this vulnerable categorisation. As their starting point they took the triage questions used by the out of hours help desk to determine whether a call constitutes an emergency and an out-of-hours response. The aim is to have a set of questions which allow the contact centre to determine whether the nature of a tenant’s vulnerability is directly affected by the repair requested, so that only appropriate repairs are expedited.

Customer input:Customer feedback can be the first source of information when issues arise. Individual pieces of feedback are actioned and tracked and an overview of feedback is generated to help identify trends and themes.

For specific projects, such as community training courses, direct feedback is essential. Lisa Whatnall, Fundraising and Partnership Manager, conducts training needs analysis with tenants every couple of years to determine the types of training that CHW will offer to tenants. As training is developed and delivered in-house, feedback on each course is essential to make improvements for future courses. For example, the employment skills course has been delivered three times in the last two years, but has evolved with each round of feedback received.



2.3.3 Interserve Construction Limited

Process review:Richard Jones’, (Associate Director for Sustainable Business) team of Business Improvement Managers monitors processes to ensure that they are being adhered to. As part of this survey process, the team also identifies areas for improvement. These may arise because the process is no longer fit for purpose due to business or legislative changes, evolving requirements, or changes in other processes such as procurement, which may have a knock on impact.

The timetable for conducting surveys allows for some degree of flexibility, but is ultimately based on the assessment of risk. Processes which carry a high business risk are assessed more frequently than others. Business risks are considered high when there is an impact on the client such as an incorrect or incomplete delivery of stated requirements.

Legislative issues are monitored by the legal department of Interserve plc (the Group) which advises on changes to legislation including finance and taxation, through the Risk Committee. Richard sits on the Risk Committee and ensures any changes are reflected in the business processes. The Risk Committee has identified 21 prime risk areas for the business, and periodically reviews processes against these to ensure that they are still fit for purpose.

Improvement suggestions:Improvement suggestions from employees are encouraged in order that processes can be improved or streamlined. Everyone with access to the management system can provide online feedback on any process. This feedback is automatically routed to the process owner for comment and any necessary action.

Clients are surveyed by the business units on completion of projects and are asked specifically for improvement suggestions. These are fed into the business process management systems.

360 degree performance appraisals with supply chain members are carried out on all but the smallest projects. Feedback from these may also be used to inform process improvement.

Improvements through new technology:Advances in technology provide opportunities for process improvement. Interserve Construction is currently investigating the impact of Building Information Modelling (BIM) which changes methods and processes around building design and management from analogue to digital. In this new world, workflows are radically different and the chain of paper approvals no longer exists. Processes are being rewritten in order to accommodate this different style of working.

Learning from mistakes:When issues arise, Interserve Construction determines the cause of failure and a plan of action is put in place to prevent recurrences. It is important to assess whether the processes and protocols in place remain inadequate, and whether they are being followed correctly.



2.3.4 JPCS

Process review:Commitment to continuous improvement is well embedded within JPCS’s culture.

JPCS’s vision and values embody partnering principles, continuous improvement and innovation. Continuous improvement is driven by measurement against key performance indicator targets.

Working with clients, the supply chain and subcontractors, JPCS identifies areas for improvement, measures and reviews business methods and processes, and encourages innovation in the drive for improvement. This approach has enabled the company to develop different products, solutions, services and approaches, and leads to the measurement and management of performance to identify areas for process improvement.

Improvement suggestions:Suggestions on process improvements from employees are encouraged and obtained from a constant stream of dialogue, especially discussions about significant issues. A culture of contributing ideas exists, with a common understanding of the company’s objectives to improve cash flow, profitability, margin, safety and productivity.

External input is important, with clients feeding into improvement suggestions and suppliers introducing new products. Senior staff keep up to date with current trends and legislation through trade press and industry contacts. This combination has led to new product development in the past; the creation of Rejuvopatch, a material for repairing potholes and footpaths that does not involve the use of hot tar, arose from the availability of new materials and the application of suggestions to process improvement.




Process measurement:Process output (effectiveness) measures are in place, which form the business Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Matthew Grant, Head of Business Process Improvement, is currently working with process owners on improving the efficiency measures for processes, in order to identify and measure future improvements.

The company’s set of Balanced Scorecards provides performance targets and the Information Systems Team defines the data and parameters to be measured. This provides consistency of measurement across the company’s two operating areas, Northumbrian Water and Essex and Suffolk Water. Results from the two areas are also compared to provide internal benchmarking.

Audits and compliance are the responsibility of an Audit Committee and a Regulations Team. By auditing processes the team ensures compliance and provides an assurance to both the board and the regulator (Ofwat) that information is accurate and complete. Over the last four or five years, the scope of audits has extended to cover all areas of the business, not just finance. This change has been driven by Ofwat requirements for self-assurance in the water industry.

Process Review:The business planning process sets targets for the following year to achieve the company’s vision of being the leading water and sewerage company, based on comparing NWL’s performance to the other companies. Business Unit Managers identify where improvements are needed to achieve these targets and develop projects to deliver the required process improvements. Process reviews are also triggered by changes in legislation or regulatory standards. Many employees (senior managers and operational staff) are involved in industry wide groups and professional organisations, and use these as a source of information regarding regulation changes and best practice.

Specific people within business units (typically in technical groups) have the responsibility to work closely with Ofwat and other regulatory bodies (such as the Drinking Water Inspectorate), to follow the development of new standards, and feed information in to the business processes review procedure.

Improvement suggestions:Industry magazines and trade press provide a commentary on changes and are regularly monitored by NWL’s technical and specialist teams. Technical briefs and notices from statutory bodies (such as the Health and Safety Executive) add to this knowledge bank. The implementation of changes may be imminent or long term, with many amends to regulations being announced up to five years in advance.

When statutory targets are announced, NWL’s management team defines its own targets, often going beyond the legal requirements in order to meet the organisation’s objective of being the best in the industry. These internal targets are then incorporated into processes to deliver new levels of service.

Improvements through new technology:Big data has provided an opportunity to develop new processes at NWL. Telemetry systems monitor multiple parameters at each of the company’s water treatment works, at most of its sewage treatment works and at critical locations throughout the water and sewerage networks. These streams of data feed into a trigger management system. An alert is triggered when any of the parameters falls into a critical range, signifying a potential problem. Teams are dispatched to investigate the cause of triggers, and can resolve potential issues before they develop into incidents. This helps to prevent water quality failures, flooding, malfunctions and pollution.

As NWL has over four hundred standalone (unmanned) water and waste water works, this proactivity optimises the use of resources. This approach replaces the previous system of weekly manual inspections, the results of which were reviewed alongside outcomes from laboratory tests and other monitoring processes – often in a large range of spreadsheets. Graham Neave, Operations Director, describes this as the classic “not seeing the wood for the trees” scenario. Now operators can clearly see a red dot in the data stream whenever anything is amiss.

New technology is also being used to manage people and jobs, with the introduction of an automated planning and scheduling system for the network based field teams.



This reduces the risk of errors inherent in the manual spreadsheet based process. Tablet computers are being issued to employees in the field, replacing the Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) currently used. The tablets have bigger screens and provide additional capabilities, such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS), giving access to mapping tools for the whole water and sewerage network.

Research and Development (R&D):NWL has an in-house R&D team and also participates in UK and international research through The United Kingdom Water Industry Research body (UKWIR). UKWIR is funded by the UK’s water utilities and conducts strategic research on their behalf, pooling resources and sharing results. Commissioned research is conducted by consultants or other research bodies and is often international in scope.

Benchmarking:NWL pursues a number of benchmarking initiatives. It is a member of both the British Quality Foundation (BQF) and the North of England Excellence (NoEE) organisation, a not-for-profit organisation working in partnership with the BQF to promote excellence in businesses in the North of England. The NoEE conducts company assessments, using the EFQM Excellence Model. It also provides opportunities for businesses to benchmark against companies who perform particularly well in selected areas. Through this initiative, NWL conducted a benchmarking exercise with Siemens, originally around a single business issue, but subsequent benchmarking visits have covered other areas.

Graham Neave, Operations Director, stresses that the water industry is open to sharing technical knowledge. There are ten water and sewerage companies in the UK and collaboration between them is commonplace. As the market is becoming more competitive, utilities are becoming less open about certain areas of their business. There remains, however, an incentive to share information on technical issues which improve the environment and on customer service standards which improve the performance of the industry.

NWL is owned by the Cheung Kong Infrastructure (CKI) Group, a Hong Kong based infrastructure company which also owns Northern Gas Networks, Wales and West Networks, and UK Power Networks.

This provides NWL with access to gas and electricity utilities, sharing best practices around maintenance standards and asset planning in a non-competitive environment.

Matthew Grant, Head of Business Process Improvement, has been promoting benchmarking as an improvement tool comparing NWL with other water utilities and other industries. The company is involved in the European Benchmarking Project for water and sewerage companies, and has joined the Corven Network, a benchmarking club of blue-chip companies. The Corven Network provides useful information and delivers tailored programmes - NWL is investigating field force productivity and tapping into companies such as Virgin Media and National Grid.

Learning from mistakes / issues:Incidents provide useful learning points, according to Graham Neave, Operations Director. Graham explains that when an alarm is triggered at a water plant or waste water treatment works there is usually an underlying reason. Identifying this issue and resolving it may prevent the same issue arising at other plants.

Spotting failure trends and fixing them is an important improvement activity for Matthew Grant, Head of Business Process Improvement. Understanding the reasons behind scheduled jobs being delayed or rescheduled is crucial as it creates inefficiencies and customer dissatisfaction. Removing the causes of delays eradicates duplicate visits for the same job, decreases the overall time to resolve the issue, and is much more beneficial for the customer.

As an example, many of the sewer maintenance crews raised an issue that they should be able to carry out their own CCTV inspections after clearing blockages rather than passing the inspections to contractors. This feedback led to the insourcing of CCTV equipment allowing crews to carry out their own pipe inspections instead of waiting for a specialist contractor which could take weeks. Using this technology, blockages which create overflows and flooding can be identified and cleared efficiently and any necessary repair work (such as removing roots or replacing collapsed pipes) can be scheduled and resolved much more quickly.



Customer input:Customer feedback is important and is fed into the business improvement programme as appropriate. Customer input is even more crucial when developing new ideas for commercial customers. Maxine Mayhew, Group Commercial Director, gathers information from account managers and from the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System to help with the design of new products and services.

“If you just create a product yourself you’re not going to really get it to land in the right way, whereas understanding what it is that’s important to customers means we can change what we do and that gives us an opportunity to sell things to a wider customer base”

2.4 Implementation of ImprovementsThe case study companies have structured processes for implementing and reviewing changes. Approvals for changes differ based on the size or business impact of a change – small amends are implemented by the process owner or manager, with more significant changes requiring approvals from either a quality team, management team or the board.

2.4.1 Highlights – Implementation of improvements


Change management:Changes are communicated through the organisation using team talks to cascade information. These are in the form of Toolbox Talks for external staff. A network of involved residents with a specific remit to scrutinise the services and processes assists with this communication effort, attending Toolbox Talks and spreading information to the community.

For major changes a network of change champions is used. This group is trained in change management techniques and support the SMT with the communication of change. This allows employees to have peer to peer discussions, raising anxieties or concerns without confronting management. Change champions also feed into the staff representative group, Wherry Voice, to ensure that concerns are raised effectively.

The following themes were evidenced in all of the case study companies:

• A prioritisation for reviews, focusing on business critical processes

• A process for approving changes, adaptable to the scale of change involved

Other themes exist but were not universally evidenced in the study, including:

• The use of pilot schemes for testing proposed changes

• The use of employee groups to review the impact of significant changes



Improvement testing (pilot schemes):When major changes occur, as with the proposed introduction of Universal Credit (which will see tenants responsible for their own payment of rents as opposed to the housing association being paid directly by the government) CHW may elect to conduct a pilot scheme to test the new processes that will be required and discover what additional support tenants will need.

CHW has introduced a pilot scheme, Housing Benefit to You, which encourages tenants to receive their own housing benefit and take responsibility for paying their own rent (as would happen under Universal Credit). This scheme may be redundant, as it is not certain if Universal Credit will be rolled out across the UK, but Jared Myers suggests the pilot scheme has provided other useful information in any case. Gathering data about on-line connectivity for the scheme (for bank transfers and managing accounts on-line) has opened up avenues for digital engagement in other areas, such as the feasibility of residents sending photographs of problems with their housing instead of an inspector being sent out.


Change management:The business process system contains a feedback loop allowing process users to flag up issues or changes. These changes are reviewed by the appropriate process

owner who also implements any incremental changes. Larger scale changes are referred for review by the quality team which consults a number of process managers about the change.

Improvement approvals:As part of the change management process, approvals must be acquired for any major process alterations. Depending on the nature and size of change this may be

done by the Business Improvement Team, the Health and Safety Team, or it may require board approval. Revised processes are tested for compliance with certifications and legislation.

Quality team review & implement as

appropriate

Large scale changes referred to quality team

Small changes implemented by process owner

Process owner reviews

Process user flags up issues or

changes



2.4.4 JPCS

Change management:High level mapping of improvement plans are in place which consists of around twenty five target areas each year. The key areas from these target groups are given priority.

The company’s Waste Wise programme provides a structure for improvement processes with a focus on Lean techniques to minimise costs and waste. Improvement plans have been successfully introduced and are continually developing. Peter Shone, Managing Director, is excited by the improvements being made.

Teach them the methodology

Establish ownership to gain

engagement (which plans

belong to whom)

Recognise the contributions

(and share the benefit)

Teach them new processes, procedures

and practices

Put resources in place

(you need people to change anything)

Take the right measures

(monitor what you’re doing, identify improvement)

Govern the programme and

review it

Prioritise activities

(linking the kpis to drive strategy)

The company utilises the following process for improvements to programme implementation:




Change management:Prioritising the areas for review is one of the biggest challenges, according to Graham Neave, Operations Director. Reviewing and improving processes utilises resources and the company must choose where to direct its efforts, in order to have the greatest effect. External consultants are used for some projects, but this still requires input from employees. “We have to decide which are the challenging topics that we need external help with and which are the ones we do perfectly well internally”, Graham says.

The management team is supported in the development of the business change programme by Matthew Grant and his team. Matthew, Head of Business Process Improvement, also helps develop the business planning process which drives the projects for the coming year.

A defined change management process is in place to ensure that consultation takes place where changes will affect employees roles so any impacts are considered. A critical part of the change management process is the learning review. After a change has been made the process is reviewed by managers and employee representatives. There is a focus on things that worked well and things that could be improved. These learning points are then fed back into the change management process.

Improvement approvals:Where changes impact on operating practices, or require investment decisions, they need to be approved by the Asset Policy Steering Group. The Asset Planning Team updates the relevant asset policy, stipulating how it will impact on the measures on the balance scorecard, and submits this as a business case to the Group for approval.

2.5 Social Media and Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM): e-Listening and e-Word of Mouth (eWOM)In the literature review (reproduced in the Appendices), Social CRM and eWOM are identified as increasingly important methods for an organisation to raise its brand image and awareness. eWOM is closely linked to the use of independent reviewers and bloggers promoting a brand to their network. People generally put a great deal of trust in independent recommendations.

All of the organisations maintain and monitor their own internet presence, but Social CRM activity was generally limited as might be expected where the organisations are not high involvement FMC (fast moving consumer goods) Business to Consumer brands.

In summary:

• All the organisations have a corporate presence across several social media platforms, (mainly Facebook and Twitter). This is used to promote good news and for customer feedback

• LinkedIn and Twitter groups are used for professional networking and as information sources

• There is limited evidence of monitoring activity for social media sites not ‘owned’ by the organisations themselves, (with the exception of NWL)




The Business Excellence Team monitors Facebook during office hours, with a rota of staff providing cover during holiday periods. The widespread use of Blackberries and smartphones means that feeds are, in effect, monitored most of the time.

Customer posts such as complaints about hot water systems not working are acknowledged and a repair request will be logged. More general comments are analysed to provide trends or specific suggestions which feed into improvement plans.

Jared Myers, Head of Housing, Sustainable Communities, cites one example of a customer complaining about an aspect of the rent arrears process. After twelve months of rent arrears, CHW can serve a notice of seeking possession. After a further twelve months, the notice can be re-served, and so on every year until the debt is cleared. Following a customer complaint on Facebook, the process of automatically serving these notices has been reviewed and they are now looked at on a case by case basis. Jared says, “They are hardly ever served now, as, if tenants are in the process of repaying their debt it doesn’t add anything to any relationship with them, although it was correct legally”.


At a global level, Interserve plc maintains a corporate social media presence, which is managed by a central communications team.

Interserve Construction uses the Considerate Contractors Scheme on all its projects over 6 weeks in duration, and this involves keeping the public informed and giving them the ability to provide feedback. Sometimes, this is done using Twitter or Facebook, in addition to the traditional “dropping a note through the letterbox” - and for these purposes each project would have its own social media accounts (e.g. a specific Facebook page).

Richard Jones, Associate Director for Sustainable Business, manages a team which also has access to twitter feeds from industry sources, such as Construction News and other building agencies, providing information on projects from all construction companies. Richard says this is useful for monitoring the temperature within the construction industry, and for understanding success stories.

Internally, the company also uses Yammer – not only as a social media tool, but also as a method of collecting improvement ideas.

2.5.3 JPCS

Social media feeds for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are monitored. Analysing click rates by themes, time and users allows JPCS to understand hot topics and build profiles of key individuals. These can be used to improve communications and to personalise offerings as appropriate.

As a business to business organisation there is relatively little interaction with end consumers on social media

which is predominantly utilised for sharing industry news, examples of successful projects and business updates. Facebook and Twitter have also been used for successful recruitment campaigns.

Client feedback suggests that relationships are strengthened as their knowledge of JPCS has increased through monitoring the company’s social media.




Social media entries are monitored and mined for key text strings so that NWL can intervene as appropriate. Judging when to join in a conversation and when to stay quiet can be tricky, suggests Graham Neave, Operations Director. “The need to track social media is increasing rapidly”, Graham adds, “as that is what our customers are using more and more.”

Other social media internet sites with high degrees of relevance have been identified, such as those providing local traffic and travel information. NWL looks out for traffic issues caused by burst water mains, or where people report excess surface water on the road. Teams can be dispatched to investigate and fix problems, sometimes before they are reported by householders with an interrupted water supply.

3 Appendices

3.1 The Literature ReviewThe following review of the Customer Literature is reproduced from Volume 5 of the 2013 BQF research, on Processes:

Burton, J., Rickards, T., Hough, A., Holden, C., Kitshoff, J. and Gleaves, R (2013) “How to achieve and sustain outstanding levels of performance. Volume 5: Managing

Processes with Agility”, London: British Quality Foundation, 10th June (Available at: www.bqf.org.uk/research/excellence-2013, accessed 11th June, 2013).

‘Processes’ covers a wide range of issues and concepts. In business schools it is generally taught within the remit of operations management, but the process concept is used in many areas and at differing levels, including specific tools such as service design and service blueprinting, a wider emerging focus on co-creation of value with customers, the all-encompassing concept of organisational change, and also as a key component within approaches involving quality models. Co-creation of value is considered under the customer theme. The process of change management is one that is increasingly significant as firms strive to become more flexible and quicker to react to opportunities in their markets. While change management is not studied in this research, it is likely to become even more significant as businesses come to terms with (and attempt to manage the risk associated with) the need to reinvent the way in which they do things so that their processes become sustainable from an environmental perspective1. Change and risk are unavoidable as they attempt to

exploit opportunities created by exponential increases in technological development2 to improve processes, tools and IT systems; develop new products, services and operations (including new channels); and reduce costs via process optimisation3.

The case study data was analysed in order to identify examples of excellent practices within the identified topics of the process theme. Following an extensive literature review, the topics are outlined briefly below. They are followed by examples of excellent practices from the four case companies listed in alphabetical order.

A process-focused area of research of contemporary interest encompasses the concept of Business Process Reengineering (BPR), and raises the question of how BPR is being influenced by social media. Processes associated with/resulting from Social CRM include electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), e-Listening and integration with existing processes.





TQMNon Standard

Processes

BPR 1.0

Intra Company Processes

BPR 3.0

Non Standard Processes

1980’s 1990’s 2000’s 2010’s

Scop

e : C

apab

ilitie

s

BPR Evolution

Evolving response

to Social Media

2012

BPR 2.0

SCM CRM

PLMSRM

Key SCM Supplier Relationship Management CRM Customer Relationship Management SRM Supplier Relationship Management PLM Product Lifecycle Management

Figure 1: Evolution of BPR

1. Business Process Reengineering in recent researchThere is no academic agreement on whether emerging social CRM processes will represent a new wave of BPR, further integration of CRM systems etc. (associated with BPR wave 2 - see below) or perhaps the evolution of social media processes as a new distinct field of study. The terminology used is preliminary and part of this work will investigate the practitioner terms in use.

The potential significance of social media as a process-influencing phenomenon is highlighted by a definition4 incorporating the concept of events initiating processes which can be reconciled with the original input-output concept of the BPR wave.

More significant are both the transformational nature of social media and the notion of information as a key “product” that is produced from a process5. This notion of a key event applies to the emergence of all social media, which in terms of our definition includes key sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Skype, LinkedIn and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and e-Listening. In order to articulate this evolution we build on the work of process theory (see Figure 1).



Process theory truly came into its own as a recognised managerial movement in the early 1990s6 with a call to view an enterprise through the perspective of its business processes in order to expose inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement and cost savings. Researchers advocated “radical” efforts to re-imagine the corporation along the lines of its key processes to increase competitive advantage and reduce inefficiencies. The mechanism they promoted to achieve these efficiencies and improvements, was collectively labelled “Business Process Re-engineering” (BPR) by Michael Hammer.

• “The aim of BPR is to make discontinuous, major improvements. This invariably means organisational change, the extent of which depends on the scope of the process reengineered.” 7

• “BPR is not intended to preserve the status quo, but to fundamentally and radically change what is done.” 8

Word9 structures the evolution BPR movement in terms of waves. The first wave (BPR 1.0) focused primarily on intra-company “context” processes such as accounting, finance, manufacturing, procurement and fulfilment. Substantial evidence has emerged about the lack of ROI and exaggerated expectations.

Having learned the lessons of the first wave of BPR, companies focused their efforts on adjacent processes that were newer and less embedded in the organisation, for example supply chain management (BPR 2.0). This reduced the cultural impact of the software adoption and allowed much faster and cheaper projects to be completed.

The ‘modern’ conceptualisation of processes has expanded to include previously overlooked processes that are defined by characteristics including importance to the firm and importance of group knowledge to their execution, dubbed office processes by some rather than the production and operational processes that were the traditional focus of BPR projects. Office processes usually involve more senior employees than production and operational processes and are more collaborative. This relative success has led enterprises to begin looking for the third wave of BPR which focuses on the processes that were not addressed in the first two waves10, often seen as ad hoc processes. Certain processes that cross between the inter-company processes in BPR 1.0 and the intracompany processes in BPR 2.0 have escaped both process improvement initiatives and system enablement. Thus, the relevance of processes that exist

between departmental silos and outside of packaged or standalone systems has increased due to their relative lack of automation and importance in tying together other processes inside and outside the company.

2. Service research in marketingIn parallel with the BPR literature, contributions from marketing, particularly services marketing, have highlighted a change in thinking about the way markets and the discipline of marketing operates. There has been a shift from a product-dominant logic to a service-dominant logic11 which increases the focus on market orientation, and moves the understanding of how value is created away from value-in-exchange to a more collaborative understanding of value co-creation. These changes are being witnessed in dynamic shifts in the offerings that traditional manufacturers of tangible products are now bringing to market: combinations of tangible product and intangible services, with the latter extending beyond the traditional bounds of the business in attempts to offer more holistic, customer focused solutions. This process is often dubbed ‘servitization’ or ‘service infusion’ in the literature.

Collaboration can occur within and across organisational boundaries, linking processes across organisations’ supply chain networks. Flexibility and dynamism are fundamental. The dynamic capabilities of organisations are key to industrial distribution and more significant than static operational effectiveness and strategic positioning.12 Dynamic approaches can be used to aid integration of goods and services as complete solutions to customer needs through management and utilisation of key relationships.13

The restructuring of mass markets is in part leading to process-to-process integration, the shared risk and optimisation of the supply chain as the participants strive to work more closely together as ‘partners’ to drive out value from smaller and increasingly competitive markets by getting more focused at delivering customer solutions. As a result, businesses are interacting and collaborating more and searching for more flexible, business-to-business (B2B) connective process methods and integration of existing information systems into new technologies and platforms (Enterprise Application Integration (EAI))14 Market orientation is dependent upon integration of resources across supply chains and embedding knowledge and people resources, while resource orientation is related to the co-creation of value, resource integration, and embedding knowledge and people resources15.



Technology then, is a key facilitator to the B2B interaction in both the second and third BPR waves. However, it is also playing a potentially more impactful role in interactions between organisations and the entire network of social interactions that are now enabled across its web of stakeholders.

3. Process quality improvement approaches and techniquesThe study of work as a process has a long history, going as far back as Adam Smith’s (1776) work on the production process, with Taylor (1911) further developing this using a ‘scientific’ measurement approach and managerial oversight. Although it can be argued that true process orientation is only possible through the use of information technology, the use of improvement approaches that do not explicitly include such technology remain important in many areas of business. Process orientation remains a fundamental in understanding how organisations, networks and systems operate, change and improve.

Many change and improvement approaches use the term ‘quality’ and, as the study of quality as a concept and the management of quality within organisations have developed, a number of academic disciplines have made contributions, including services marketing, organisation studies, human resource management and organisational behaviour, especially change management. It is important that a multi-disciplinary perspective is used in order to understand the complexities and dynamics of processes within and between organisations. However, the appeal of the term quality may be that, “It can be used to legitimise all sorts of measures and changes in the name of a self-evident good” although the diverse meanings of the term make it “An elusive topic of study.”16

Steven Spear notes that process models such as Total Quality Management (TQM), Lean Six Sigma and the Toyota Production System (TPS) arise from different sources but share common approaches because they are all responses to the same challenge: “managing the design, operation, and improvement of complex systems of work – many people, spanning many disciplines, using multiple technologies, to deliver value to the market.” Spear argues that the commonality of problems, “Supports the idea that there is a basic science in managing the design, operation, and improvement of complex systems.” 17

This is fundamentally challenging because people, who are inherently ‘imperfect’ in nature, are responsible for the design of complex systems, with the consequence that initial designs require constant improvement.

All the approaches have elements of rigour in:

• Work designed to reduce variation and help distinguish between everyday ‘noise’ and real problems

• The improvement of work to reduce the size and impact of noise and frequency

• Leadership engagement18

There is a clear link to the leadership theme here, as leaders need to keep organisations focused on doing things as simply as possible; simple systems are quicker to establish, more flexible in the face of change and more satisfying for the operator.

Professor Boaden19 draws a distinction here between:

• Approaches: something promoted as a way of working, which may include a variety of different tools, sometimes to be used at specific points along a methodological ‘roadmap’. They may be applied to the organisational system as a whole, and may also be applied to systems spanning organisations.

• Tools: techniques used for improvement which may be used alone, or in combination with others. More than one approach may suggest the use of the same tool.” 20

4. Social media, interactions and customisation for organisational valueProfessor Kawalek comments that discussions with industry suggest that the rapid external growth and associated impact of social media facilitates the growing focus on collaboration and co-creation. This is supported by recent research by IBM with Chief Marketing Officers, which identified customer collaboration as the factor having the greatest impact on marketing.21 However, social media should not to be regarded as the emergence of a full new BPR wave (Figure 1) but rather the all-encompassing, continued expansion of digital technology across the whole of society: something that was only partly chronicled in BPR. This industry view of BPR recognises that the ideas in response to social media are tied to progress in IT and some of the very big platform systems (Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)) that we have today.



The culmination of this thinking is with Brynjolfsson & McAfee’s book22 ‘Race Against the Machine’, and other studies such as Andreessen’s ‘Software is Eating the World’, as reported in The Wall Street Journal. These writers do not make an explicit link to BPR, but articulate BPR-like effects in the economy, with the outcome that the world’s biggest bookstore is software-based, as is the world’s biggest music store etc. Relatively small software corporations are having huge global effects and the degree of automation is affecting the provision and nature of jobs. At the same time it is enabling targeted solutions for individual customers, creating cross and up-sell solutions provision by identifying the next best offer (NBO) for a customer making a specific purchase.

The key idea in Brynjolfsson & McAfee’s book is that the development of technology and its application in society is not linear but exponential. Hence, commentators continually underestimate its effects and businesses are vulnerable to its changes. An example of this is the automated car, now only a few years from the market after high-profile testing by Google in the USA. Once it was thought that navigation through busy traffic would be beyond the capability of computers, but now we know that it is not. Businesses of many types can begin to anticipate driver-free delivery and the change to the cost of processes that this will bring. In such conditions of technological acceleration, market leadership becomes synonymous with technology leadership.

The advent of ‘the Cloud’ is a very significant point in this exponential progression of technology, notes Professor Kawalek. It allows pervasive and networked access to storage and applications. Many consumers are already encountering some of its early effects, for example through iTunes, Facebook, Apple TV and iCloud. The application is always available to the user, no matter where he or she is, nor what machine he or she uses. The consequences for the operational aspects of business are still greater. It will become increasingly outmoded for businesses to buy a software application and locate it on a machine owned by the company. Instead, software will be leased from Cloud providers. This will change the capital costs of IT, potentially allowing faster evolution between software versions and concomitant faster evolution of processes with greater potential for more open-sourcing of ideas. Moreover, massive data-sets will become available to providers of

Cloudbased services, in the way that we already see with Facebook. Hence, Cloud-based companies will have operational and comparative data about the companies they serve, and will be able to suggest improvements as a form of real-time consultancy. Meanwhile, these ’big data’ sets will allow the development of new services for both consumer and business markets e.g. in areas of healthcare for consumers and supply-chain for business.

‘The Cloud’ is a good example of how technology assists the growth of services in the economy, claims Professor Kawalek. The software product’ becomes rarer and instead the software as service dominates (servitization or service infusion). Classic cases like that of Rolls-Royce’s civil aerospace division show that the trend affects many sectors. In this one, the advanced telemetry of the engine allows the manufacturer to move from product sales to product leasing based on its use (e.g. higher charges for more aggressive take-off procedures). Information technology provides advanced telemetry to many product types, and social media can be understood to be telemetry for consumer markets. As computing becomes ever more pervasive, for example with the ‘Internet of Things’ allowing objects of many types to possess an IP address, the telemetry will become increasingly effective.

The manufacturing that will remain is likely to become increasingly tailored, moving away from a mass market model. Additive manufacturing techniques, sometimes termed ‘3D printing’, are now gaining attention in specialist publications. This technology will further hasten the dramatic changes in processes and systems available to business, suggests Professor Kawalek. These machines are not expensive and yet can allow the manufacturing of three-dimensional objects that are too sophisticated for conventional manufacturing. Moreover, they are completely customisable. The ‘printing’ process can produce individual versions of a product as cheaply as it produces a single version. There is no economic need for any two pairs of shoes to look the same. This is because 3D printing interprets a computer design through CAD or similar systems. The only cost of each customisation is in the design process. The Economist has noted that 3D printing inverts the logic of our industrial system with its pursuit of scale economies. The logic is inescapable: the future will be personalised.



4.1 Social CRM and eWOMWord-of-mouth (WOM) communication based on social networking and trust facilitates information exchange between people and plays a major role in customer buying decisions. The concept and its effect on consumer behaviour have been around for more than 50 years. Information exchanged using electronic channels (internet, phones etc.) is known as electronic WOM (eWOM).

The ability to reach many people at the same time and the longevity of comment availability make this a powerful channel which can influence brand image and perceptions. Research indicates that people trust seemingly disinterested opinions from people outside their immediate social network, such as online reviews23, before making an informed decision. eWOM, therefore, has the ability to influence long-term perceptions of products, post purchase, and use.

Individuals’ susceptibility to the eWOM opinions of review writers increases as they become more involved with a community24. These community forums promote ‘tie strength’ (strong ties are those in which individuals are closely affiliated, while weak ties involve less intimate connections) between users and promote relational behaviours (through trust and social norms) that generate more effective eWOM25. Up to 90% of marketing spend goes to advertising and retail promotions, yet the single most powerful impetus to buy is often someone else’s advocacy.

Whilst blogs have traditionally been used to express individual opinions and concerns, the emergence of micro blogging sites like Twitter has taken the power of sharing to a new level. The increasing number of recognised channels adds a growing level of complexity to the opportunities offered by social media, as was recently demonstrated by a recent graphic from Luma Partners26.

Although direct social media communication between consumers and organisations enables organisations to counter rumours, if not handled properly it can negatively impact corporate image and consumers can choose to broadcast dissatisfaction in creative and impactful ways. Under the stress of a crisis, the immediacy of digital communication can result in false or inflammatory information being communicated to stakeholders. Social media also facilitates dialogue between every employee and stakeholders, facilitating co-creation and flattening of business structures27. The case of United Airlines28 and more recently the Twitter mishap at McDonalds29 reveal the impact of the medium.

However Cook30 warns that individuals’ roles are becoming blurred between business and social, and that technology strips the focus back to the core of ‘people’; “it is not a technological revolution at all, but a truly social one”.

4.2 Social CRM and e-ListeningOnline participation is all about contributing a voice31. Listening is just the opposite of eWOM which focuses on understanding what individuals or organisations say about a product, service or people who provide that product or service. Whilst a lot of research has been conducted on various forms of participation, there is little research on the area of listening. Although corporations acknowledge the power of listening, not many have embraced it as part of their service strategy. Some have employed professional firms to listen on their behalf which does not ensure direct learning about customers. Listening-in and the use of analytical software such as text mining, fills a gap in existing research methods by making it feasible to use inexpensively sourced and readily available data to search large numbers of customer needs in order to and find desired value not currently fulfilled by existing offers.

Effective listening strategies benefit companies in three main ways:

• Being seen to participate in a community and hearing people’s opinions

• Utilising a rapid and relatively lower-cost form of customer support

• Gaining a dispersed global awareness of how a brand is discussed along with patterns of consumer use and satisfaction

The second benefit has the associated added value of potential opportunities for selling solutions to customers.

According to IBM, the biggest challenges for Chief Marketing Officers (of which over 60% report being underprepared) lie in data explosion, use of social media, growth of channel/device choices and shifts in consumer demographics32. The social practices and normative frameworks for listening in networked media are in their early stages, but the rapid uptake of social media services will result in an accelerated development change in norms, habits and conventions33.Many practitioners across multiple industries have informed the research team that they are responding to, planning to respond to or at least monitoring opportunities and threats resulting from the growth of social media.



3.2 The Case Study Companies


Interserve is one of the world’s foremost support services and construction companies. Interserve Construction offer advice, design, construction, equipment, facilities management and frontline public services. It is headquartered in the UK, listed in the FTSE 250 index, has gross revenues of £3.4 billion and a workforce of over 80,000 people worldwide.

The group’s vision is to redefine the future for people and places. It lists four core values as:

• Everyone has a voice – so we listen and encourage openness. We value all views and opinions, we welcome discussion and we treat people as we, ourselves, would want to be treated – with respect and patience

• Take pride in what you do – Whatever the task in hand, everybody can and should take pride in a job well done – a job undertaken with care and done to the best of our abilities

• Do the right thing – Doing the right thing means not accepting ‘that will do’, and not walking by when you could make a positive difference. The right thing also means the safe thing and the sustainable thing

• Bring better to life – We are all about believing we can do better. Asking questions, thinking differently, seeking solutions and creating ideas to support our customers and adding value

Interserve Construction, which is headquartered in Birmingham, provides bespoke, turnkey construction services including financing, design, development, construction, after-care and facilities management. It has around 2,100 employees and operates throughout the UK mainland. The company has 13 discrete business units.

Major works include:

• Manchester’s Christie Hospital

• New headquarters for the West Yorkshire Police

• The Haymarket, Edinburgh

• The James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough

• Building of the A43 Corby Link Road

The company was named Contractor of the Year at the Construction News Awards in July 2014, with the company’s CEO, Adrian Ringrose, being given the Roll of Honour Award. The company was commended for its project delivery and innovation, whilst Adrian was recognised for his leadership and contribution in the UK Construction Industry, as well as his work promoting skills development and innovation within the sector.

Interserve Construction won the UK Excellence Award in 2012 and the BQF Gold Medal for Excellence in 2013.

Key Contributors: • Julie Bradley, Associate Director of HR

• Michele Curran, Head of Corporate Business Development (UK)

• Richard Jones, Associate Director for Sustainable Business

• Ian Renhard, Managing Director of UK Construction

http://www.interserve.com/how-we-help/construction#.VQ70NvmsWmw





3.2.2 JPCS

JPCS is a nationwide contractor, delivering safe and sustainable civil engineering and maintenance services to the public and private sectors, across the highways, rail and energy markets. Creating sustainable energy and infrastructure over the last 20 years, JPCS maintains the UK’s roads and pavements as well as providing innovative ground engineering solutions and developing pioneering surface treatment products. It maintains highway assets using innovative methods, such as installing Groundscrews®, and developing exclusive surface treatment products, like the Rejuvo range. The company was set up by Peter Shone in 1993 when he was 25, and now services clients including Balfour Beatty, the Highways Agency, British Gas, Carillion, Eurovia and local authorities across the UK. JPCS has an annual turnover of around £10m.

JPCS was one of the first highway maintenance and civil engineering companies in the UK to gain Investors in People status and was awarded a 5 star EFQM Levels of Excellence rating in 2013, in addition to previous ratings and commendations.

The company’s vision is stated as, “We create the difference to sustain the environment, with our clients, our team, and our suppliers.”

• We create: we engineer, make, manufacture, construct, maintain and refurbish

• The difference: we provide best value and added value through understanding our clients’ needs and providing differentiation through innovative and efficient products and services

• To sustain the environment: we believe in positive environmental management and investing in communities through delivering supply chain and employment opportunities. We make places nicer, better and easier to live in

Awards and recognitionThrough a commitment to excellence and customer satisfaction JPCS has achieved significant industry recognition for culture, safety focus, products, and services, including:

• CIHT North Western Branch Awards – Highly Commended for ‘Safety Project of the Year’ and Shortlisted for ‘Best Practice’ category

• British Quality Foundation – Jury Commendation for Innovation

• EFQM – Recognised for Excellence – 5 star rating

• Road Surface Treatments Association (RSTA) Health and Safety Award (Behavioural Safety) – Winner

• Road Surface Treatments Association (RSTA) Health and Safety Award (Innovations) – Runner-up

• Green Business of the Year (Cheshire Business Awards) – Highly Commended and Finalist

• British Quality Foundation – Jury Commendation for Leadership

• Investors in People – Accreditation

• Award for ‘speed of fixing’ and ‘quality of repairs’

• Highways Magazine Excellence Awards – shortlisted finalist

Key Contributors: • Rachel Boothman, Financial support

• Helen Castelli-Burke, Bid support

• Lisa Orme, People support

• Rosie Shanks, Director

• Peter Shone, Director

http://www.jpcs.co.uk/

http://www.jpcs.co.uk/



3.2.3 Northumbrian Water

Northumbrian Water Limited (NWL) provides water and waste water services in the North East of England, and water services in Essex and Suffolk (where it trades as Essex and Suffolk Water). It has about 4.5 million customers, covering both the domestic and commercial/industrial sectors.

NWL is part of the Northumbrian Water Group (NWG), who also supplies water services in Scotland, Ireland and Gibraltar. This report deals with NWL, not the wider group.

There are about 700 staff in the customer contact centre, who make up part of the 1,600 strong front line team. There are 3,000 staff in total, who are responsible for:

• 44 impounding reservoirs

• 57 water treatment works

• 344 water pumping stations

• 338 water service reservoirs

• 25,545 km water mains

• 418 sewage treatment works

• 765 sewage pumping stations

• 29,724 km sewers

The company operates in an industry regulated by the Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat), who set pricing and measure performance in relation to operating costs, capital programmes and financing as well as their general operations.

NWL’s mission is to be the national leader in the provision of sustainable water and waste water services. There is a strong set of values in place, as follows:

• Customer focused – We aim to exceed the expectations of our external and internal customers

• Results-driven – We take personal responsibility for achieving excellent business results

• Ethical – We are open and honest and meet our commitments with a responsible approach to the environment and our communities

• Creative – We continuously strive for innovative and better ways to deliver our business

• One team – We work together consistently, promoting co-operation and mutual support, to achieve our corporate objectives

Northumbrian Water has been awarded 5 stars in the EFQM Recognised for Excellence programme.

Key Contributors: • Ian Donald, Customer Services Director

• Matthew Grant, Head of Business Process Improvement

• Maxine Mayhew, Group Commercial Director

• Heidi Mottram, Chief Executive

• Graham Neave, Operations Director

• Sarah Salter, Group HR Director

https://www.nwl.co.uk/

https://www.nwl.co.uk/




Circle Housing Wherry (CHW) is one of nine housing associations that form the Circle Group. CHW looks after 6,000 tenants directly, and also shares responsibility for sheltered housing and supported housing schemes, in total managing 7,200 homes across 18 Local Authority Areas in Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire.

There are 9 people on the board (2 residents and 7 independent people) and a Governance Manager. The day to day operations are run by the Managing Director and a Senior Management Team.

Since merging to become part of Circle Housing, Circle Housing Wherry has developed a clear vision that goes beyond delivering decent homes and excellent services to creating safe attractive neighbourhoods with communities that work. It is proud to have retained a clear local identify whilst using its national profile to deliver improvements for residents.

CHW achieved certification in the EFQM Recognised for Excellence programme at 5-star level on its first application.

History of Circle Housing WherryWherry Housing Association was formed following the transfer of 3,715 homes from Broadland District Council in 1990. It now owns and manages 7,200 homes across 18 Local Authority Areas in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Hertfordshire.

In 1995 Wherry formed part of the Anglia Housing Group, the first group structure in the country, which then merged with Circle 33 Housing Trust to become Circle Anglia (now Circle Housing) in 2005, managing homes across Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, London, Kent, Sussex, Surrey and beyond. Circle Housing Wherry is one of 9 housing associations in Circle Housing.

Since merging to become part of Circle Housing, Circle Housing Wherry has developed a clear vision that goes beyond delivering decent homes and excellent services to creating safe attractive neighbourhoods with communities that work. It is proud to have retained a clear local identify whilst using its national profile to deliver improvements for residents.

Key Contributors: • Jodie Cunnington-Brock, Assistant Director

of Housing Services

• Sue Lake, Head of Customer Services

• Becky Leonard, Surveying Manager for CHW and Roddons

• Jared Myers, Head of Housing, Sustainable Communities

• Sue Stavers, Managing Director

• Lisa Whatnall, Fundraising and Partnership Manager

• Wendy White, Head of Customer Services, Operations and Partnerships

http://www.circlegroup.org.uk/our-group/social-housing/Circle_Housing_Wherry





3.3 GlossaryBalanced Scorecard: A conceptual framework to measure financial and non-financial performance. It considers financial metrics as the main indicators for company success, but supplements them with three additional measures: customer, internal processes and learning and growth (Kaplan and Norton, 1992)a.

B2B: Business-to-business.

B2C: Business-to-consumer.

Blogs: A blog (a portmanteau of the words web and log) is a personal journal published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries (“posts”) typically displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first. Blogs are usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and are often themed on a single subject. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

BPR: Business process re-engineering involves the analysis and (radical) re-design of workflows and processes within an organisation to achieve dramatic improvementb. It began as a private sector technique to help organisations fundamentally rethink how they do their work in order to dramatically improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors. A key stimulus for re-engineering has been the continuing development and deployment of sophisticated information systems and networks. Leading organisations are becoming bolder in using this technology to support innovative business processes, rather than refining current ways of doing work.

BQF: British Quality Foundation: www.bqf.org.uk

CIPD: The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development: www.cipd.co.uk

Considerate Constructors Scheme: According to the website, an independent organisation founded in 1997 by the construction industry to improve its image. The scheme is a voluntary code designed to encourage best practice beyond statutory measures. http://www.ccscheme.org.uk/

Consumer behaviour: Is the study of when, why, how, and where people do or do not buy a product. It blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology and economics. It attempts to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in groups. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics and behavioural variables in an attempt to understand people’s wants. It also tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends, reference groups, and society in general.

COSHH: The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002, is a piece of legislation which requires employers to protect employees and other persons from the hazards of substances used at work, through the means of risk assessments, control of exposure, health surveillance and incident planning.

Customer Effort Score (CES): Dixon et al. (2010) outline that CES is measured by asking a single question: “How much effort did you personally have to put forth to handle your request?” It is scored on a scale from 1 (very low effort) to 5 (very high effort). Subsequently the authors propose that CES is a greater metric and predictor of consumer behaviour than customer satisfaction (CSAT) and the Net Promoter Score (NPS).

CMLG: Customer Management Leadership Group. A non-competing customer management best practice benchmarking group chaired by Professor John Murphy, United Utilities Professor of Customer management at Manchester Business School. Dr Jamie Burton is the Research Director for the CMLG and Dawn Holmes provides consultancy support. More information on the group can be found at: https://research.mbs.ac.uk/customer-leadership/


http://www.cipd.co.uk

https://research.mbs.ac.uk/customer-leadership/



CSR: Corporate Social Responsibilityc is a process that is concerned with treating the stakeholders of a company or institution ethically or in a responsible manner. ‘Ethically or responsible’ means treating key stakeholders in a manner deemed acceptable according to international norms. Social includes economic and environmental responsibility. Stakeholders exist both within a firm or institution and outside. The wider aim of social responsibility is to create higher and higher standards of sustainable living, while preserving the profitability of the corporation or the integrity of the institution, for peoples both within and outside these entities. CSR is a process to achieve sustainable development in societies.

Crowd Sourcing: Is a distributed problem-solving and production model. In the classic use of the term, problems are broadcast to an unknown group of solvers in the form of an open call for solutions. Users – also known as the crowd – typically form into online communities, and the crowd submits solutions. The crowd also sorts through the solutions, finding the best ones. These best solutions are then owned by the entity that broadcast the problem in the first place – the crowd sourcer – and the winning individuals in the crowd are sometimes rewarded. In some cases, this labour is well compensated, either monetarily, with prizes, or with recognition. In other cases, the only rewards may be kudos or intellectual satisfaction.

Customer-centric: Describing an organisation that is operated from its customers’ point of view, conceptualising value as ‘value in use’ by the customer, rather than the traditional view of value in exchange. For example, the organisation makes certain it can be easily contacted by its customers. It is about creating a positive consumer experience at every point of interaction but also pre- and post-interactions. A customer-centric approach can add value to a company by enabling it to differentiate itself from competitors who do not offer the same experience.

EFQM: Proprietors of the EFQM Excellence Model: www.efqm.org

e-Listening: Is the process of listening and tracking conversations and opinions of customers about an organisation and then using it to address a specific problem or opportunity. It is also used to understand and track competitor activity and exposure.

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI): A computing term concerning the integration of business information systems, generally involving consolidation and integration of legacy applications with new platforms (Liu et al. 2008d).

Employer of Choice: “An employer of choice is one who inspires highly talented workers to join them and stay within them”. This definition comes from the book “How to become an Employer of Choice” by Herman & Gioiae

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): Computer systems managing business information systems across whole organisations. These reach beyond organisational silos and outside the organisation to external touch points.

Employee Voice: Is the ability of employees to participate in the decisions related to their jobs, and the possibility to give their opinions about work-related issues. It is considered an important driver of employee engagement (Alfes et al., 2010f).

Exponential Engagement: According to Towers and Watson, fluctuating economic trends and environmental or organisational changes can make employees inefficient even if they are engaged. Therefore they propose the concept of “Exponential Engagement”, which includes three elements: empowerment, teamwork and cooperation, and leadership (Towers-Watson, 2011g).

eWOM: Electronic Word of Mouth, according to Hennig–Thurau et al.’s (2004, p.39) definition: “Any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual, or former customers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the Internet”h.

Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG): Products which are sold quickly and generally at a low cost, including consumables, processed foods, soft drinks, over the counter medicines, toiletries and cleaning products. They are also known as Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG).

Geographical Information Systems (GIS): Software tools which enable the analysis and visualisation of map data, combining information (such as the location of pipes and sewers) with an appropriate map (such as a road layout or contour map).

http://www.efqm.org



Hashtag: Metadata or labels used to classify information on social media and prefixed by a hashtag symbol (#).

Intranet: A website or computer network designed to share information within an organisation.

IES Conference Board: According to the website, the Institute of Employment Studies (IES) was established in 1969 to be an independent, national centre of expertise on productivity, manpower planning and labour market change. Since that time it has expanded and diversified to become the UK’s leading independent centre for research and evidence-based consultancy in employment, labour market and human resource policy and practice. It is not-for-profit, its activities being funded through research and consultancy commissions, and from its corporate membership programme www.employment-studies.co.uk

Lean: According to the Lean Enterprise Institute, (www.lean.org) the core idea is to maximise customer value while minimising waste. Simply, lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources. A lean organisation understands customer value and focuses its key processes to continuously increase it. The ultimate goal is to provide perfect value to the customer through a perfect value creation process that has zero waste.

LinkedIn: A social media service aimed specifically at professional and business orientated networking. www.linkedin.com

LM3: Local Multiplier 3 is a method of understanding the local economic impact of procurement contracts and regeneration schemes. It was initially developed by the new economics forum (nef) and takes into consideration how a source of income is spent and re-spent within a defined geographical area.

Micro Blogs: Blogging broadcasts. Micro blog content is usually smaller in actual and aggregate file size. Micro blogs “allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video linksi”.

Milk Round: The informal term used to describe annual university careers fairs used by many large companies with graduate programmes as a method of recruiting talent direct from universities.

MBS: Manchester Business School: www.mbs.ac.uk

NBO: ‘Next Best Offer’: targeted offers to customers of products or services that they are likely to want and to buy. NBO’s can be created if organisations have a decent customer knowledge base that helps them understand customer wants, preferred product and service attributes and purchase context. The offers are made in real time by using complex analytical engines that track customer’s recent online movement and combine it past purchases and sites visited to identify a need even before the customer realises the need.

NEBOSH: (The National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health) www.nebosh.org.uk/About_Nebosh

NEETS: A term used by government departments and the media to describe young people “Not in Education, Employment or Training”, originally introduced in 1999 in the UK and now used widely in other countries.

Net Promoter Score (NPS): A metric developed by Reichheld j (2003) to gauge customer loyalty measured using a single question: “How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?” It is scored on a scale from 1 to 10; where customers are grouped into promoters (9-10 rating – extremely likely to recommend), passively satisfied (7-8 rating), and detractors (0-6 rating – extremely unlikely to recommend). To work out the NPS subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. Reichheld (2003) states that organisations with world class loyalty regularly receive a NPS greater than 75%. It is suggested that the NPS is a particularly prominent indicator of loyalty because if a customer recommends an organisation, they are putting their own reputation on the line; consequently, Reichheld (2003) asserts that a customer will only take that risk if they are intensely loyal to an organisation.

QR Codes: A form of 2D barcode developed by Denso Wave Incorporated in Japan in 1994 which can hold much larger amounts of data than standard barcodes. Often used to provide a quick method of accessing a specific web page to those with a suitable QR reader, freely available as an application for use on smartphones and other mobile devices. QR refers to Quick Response.

Registered Provider: A provider of social housing registered with the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), the government department responsible for regulating the social housing sector.

http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/

http://www.linkedin.com

http://www.nebosh.org.uk/About_Nebosh



Science, Engineering, Technology and Maths (STEM): The group of subjects identified by the government as a priority for secondary and higher education in the UK, in order to fulfil the requirements of employers for these skills and boost the UK economy.

Service Incentive Mechanism (SIM): A tool used by the water industry regulator (Ofwat) to improve the service that water utilities provide by incentivising them to perform against a quantitative measure (based on the number of complaints and unwanted contacts a company receives) and a qualitative measure (derived from a customer experience survey). More information can be found on the regulator’s website: http://www.ofwat.gov.uk/regulating/tools/sim/

Service Profit Chain Model: Developed by Harvard Business School in the 1990s establishes the links between profitability, customer loyalty and employee satisfaction, loyalty and productivity. Harvard Business Review published a full article on the model which is available at https://hbr.org/2008/07/putting-the- service-profit-chain-to-work Ofwat: The economic regulator of the water and sewerage sectors in England and Wales. Their role is to help the sector build trust and confidence with customers, the environment and wider society.

Servitization or Service Infusion: Servitizationk is a movement in which companies consciously drive their businesses into services to gain competitive ground (Vandermerwe & Rada, 1989).

Sharepoint: A collaboration and sharing platform provided by Microsoft. It provides a secure and structured way to share content within an organisation or network.

Simplyhealth: A healthcare company providing affordable healthcare to individuals and companies.

Six Sigma: Originally referred to the ability of manufacturing processes to produce a very high proportion of output within specification. Processes that operate with “six sigma quality” over the short term are assumed to produce long-term defect levels below 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO). Six Sigma’s implicit goal is to improve all processes to that level of quality or better.

Social CRM: Is the use of social media services, techniques and technology to enable organisations to engage with their customers. As an emerging discipline, interpretations of Social CRM vary, but the most frequently quoted definition is from Paul Greenberg,l: “Social CRM is a philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes and social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment. It’s the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.” Social CRM is often used as a synonym for Social Media Monitoring, where organisations watch services like Facebook, Twitter etc. for relevant mentions of their product and brand and react accordingly. However, this is too narrow an interpretation, as Social CRM also includes customer communities managed by the organisation themselves.

Social Values Act: The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 requires public authorities to consider the improvement of the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of any area in which procurements or projects take place.

Telemetry: The transmission and reception of data relating to measured quantities obtained through the monitoring of remote devices, often used for remotely monitoring plant and equipment or tracking environmental measures.

Times 100 best companies: Since 2001, the Sunday Times has published an annual list of the best companies to work for. The results are based on a staff satisfaction surveym.

Toolbox Talks: Short and informal discussions generally focusing on a specific health and safety issue. They are conducted at the workplace or job site (rather than in a training room).

http://www.ofwat.gov.uk/regulating/tools/sim/



TPS: Toyota Production System business improvement model. According to Steven Spearn, there are four rules and, “The rules rigidly specify how every activity – from the shop floor to the executive suite, from installing seat bolts to reconfiguring a manufacturing plant – should be performed. “Deviations from the specifications become instantly visible, prompting people to respond immediately with real-time experiments to eradicate problems in their own work. Result? A disciplined yet flexible and creative community of scientists who continually push Toyota closer to its zero-defects, just-in-time, no-waste ideal.”

TQM: Total Quality Management is a management approach focusing on the improvement of products and processes.

Twitter: An online social networking/micro blogging service enabling users to send and read “tweets”: text-based posts of up to 140 characters. Tweets can be made publicly available or restricted to just a sender’s ‘followers’ (‘subscribers’ to their tweets). Tweets can be made via the Twitter website, compatible external applications (e.g. apps for Smartphones), or by Short Message Service (SMS).

Universal Credit: Universal Credit is a welfare benefit launched in the UK in 2013 to replace six means-tested benefits and tax credits, including Jobseeker’s Allowance, Housing Benefit, Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, Employment and Support Allowance and Income Support. Currently, this scheme is still in its pilot phase, and full roll out across England is no longer certain, as there have been delays due to IT failures and widespread criticism of the scheme.

WiKi pages: A WiKi is an application, typically hosted on a web or intranet, which allows collaboration in building a database of information. It is a form of content management system, but is usually lacking in fixed structure, allowing content to be generated and amended freely. A WiKi page generally refers to one entry in such an application. WiKi is a Hawaiian word meaning “quick”.

WiSE: The campaign to encourage Women into Science and Engineering, established in 1984 as a collaboration between the Engineering Council and the Equal Opportunities Commission to highlight the career opportunities for girls and women in science and engineering.

Workers Education Authority: A charity founded in 1903 to provide adult education to those who want to improve their lives through the acquisition of new skills. http://www.wea.org.uk/

Yammer: A social networking platform for businesses, provided by Microsoft. It enables social networking and collaboration within an organisation or defined network.

YouTube: A website hosting user generated content in video format for private viewing or public sharing. It was founded in 2005 and is now owned by Google.

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3.4.1 Literature Review Reference Notes1 See for example the views of Simon Zadek (www.zadek.net).2 http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/winning-the-race-with-ever-smarter-machines/.3 Anonymous (2011). The Ernst & Young Business Risk Report 2011: The top 10 risks for business – A sector wide view of the risks facing businesses across the globe.4 Harmon (2003).5 Harmon (2003); Word (2011).6 With the work of Hammer (Hammer (1990): Hammer (1993): Hammer and Champy (1993): Hammer and Stanton (1999); Hammer and Stanton (1995)) and Davenport (Davenport and Short (1990); Davenport (1993); Davenport (1994); Davenport and Stoddard (1994)).7 Markus et al (2000).8 O’Neill and Sohal (1999).9 Word (2011).10 Word (2009); O’Connell et al (2006).11 Vargo and Lusch (2008).12 Abrahamsson and Brege (2004).13 Kirsila et al (2007).14 Zang et al (2004).15 Lin et al (2009).16 Wilkinson and Willmott (1995).17 www.stevenjspear.com.18 Spear (2012).19 Boaden et al (2008, pp 44).20 See appendix 10.4.4.21 Anonymous (2011).22 Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee’s new e-book, Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution Is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy (Digital Frontier Press, 2011).23 Duana, Gub, and Whinston (2008).24 Kozinets (1999).25 Burton and Khammash (2006).26 http://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-marketing-landscape-complicated-2012-5?IR=T.27 Cook (2008).

28 www.davecarrollmusic.com/music/ubg/song1.29 Bradshaw, T. and Rappeport, A. (2012). “Diners hijack McDonald’s Twitter ad campaign”. Financial Times, Companies and Markets, Wednesday, January, 25th, p.17. Available at: www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6de5a21e-46b3-11e1-bc5f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1uICwuQ4O30 Cook (2008), p.12.31 Karaganis (2007); Bruns (2008).32 Anonymous (2011).33 Crawford (2009).34 Customer, learning and growth, finance, processes35 Kaplan, R. and Norton, D. (1992).36 O’Neill and Sohal (1999).37 Liu, X. Zhang, W.J., Radhakrishan, R. and Tu, Y.L. (2008). “Manufacturing perspective of enterprise application integration: the state of the art review”. International Journal of Production Research, 46, (16).38 Hennig-Thurau, T., Gwinner, K.P., Walsh, G., and Gremler, D. D. (2004).“Electronic word-of-mouth via consumer-opinion platforms: What motivates consumers to articulate themselves on the Internet?” Journal of Interactive Marketing, 18 (1), Winter, pp.38-52.39 Tozawa, B. Japan Human Relations Association (1995). The improvement engine: creativity & innovation through employee involvement: the Kaizen teian system. Productivity Press, p.34.40 Kaplan, A.M, and Haenlein, M. (2011). The early bird catches the news: Nine things you should know about micro-blogging. Business Horizons, 54(2).41 Moen, R. and Norman, C. (n.d.). Evolution of the PDCA Cycle, p1.42 Ren, G. and Gregory, M. (2007). Servitization in Manufacturing Companies: Literature Review, Research Progress and Cambridge Service Research:, Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge, presentation Cranfield Product-Service Systems Seminar, Cranfield University, Wednesday 7 November 2007.43 http://the56group.typepad.com/pgreenblog/2009/07/time-to-put-a-stake-in-the-ground-on-social-crm.html.44 Spear, S. and Bowen, H.K. (1999). Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System. Harvard Business Review • September–October 1999, p1.

http://www.zadek.net

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/winning-the-race-with-ever-smarter-machines/

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/winning-the-race-with-ever-smarter-machines/

http://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-marketing-landscape-complicated-2012-5?IR=T

http://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-marketing-landscape-complicated-2012-5?IR=T

http://www.davecarrollmusic.com/music/ubg/song1



http://the56group.typepad.com/pgreenblog/2009/07/time-to-put-a-stake-in-the-ground-on-social-crm.html




4 AcknowledgementsJamie Burton, Dawn Holmes and Cheryl Holden acknowledge the work of the following co-researchers on the 2013 report: Kitshoff, J., Rickards, T., Kawalek, P., Boaden, R., Holman, D., Dougnac, P., Brooker, A., Hough, A., Daly, L., Gleaves, R., and Raghavan, R.

We would also like to thank Rebecca Ainley, Consultancy Manager at Manchester Business School, for her support throughout this project.

Finally, we would like to thank all of the contributors from each of the case study companies, without whom this research could not have taken place:

Circle Housing Wherry:• Becky Leonard, Surveying Manager

for Wherry and Roddons

• Jodie Cunnington-Brock, Assistant Director of Housing Services

• Jared Myers, Head of Housing, Sustainable Communities

• Lisa Whatnall, Fundraising and Partnership Manager

• Sue Lake, Head of Customer Services

• Sue Stavers, Managing Director

• Wendy White, Head of Customer Services, Operations and Partnerships

Interserve Construction Limited:• Ian Renhard, Managing Director of

UK Construction, Interserve

• Julie Bradley, Associate Director of HR, Interserve Construction Ltd

• Michele Curran, Head of Corporate Business Development (UK)

• Richard Jones, Associate Director for Sustainable Business for Interserve Construction

JPCS:• Rachel Boothman, Financial support

• Helen Castelli-Burke, Bid support

• Lisa Orme, People support

• Rosie Shanks, Director

• Peter Shone, Director

Northumbrian Water (NWL):• Graham Neave, Operations Director

• Heidi Mottram, Chief Executive

• Ian Donald, Customer Services Director (until November 2014)

• Matthew Grant, Head of Business Process Improvement

• Maxine Mayhew, Group Commercial Director

• Sarah Salter, Group HR Director

3.4.2 Glossary Referencesa Kaplan, R. and Norton, D. (1992).b O’Neill and Sohal (1999).c Hopkins, M. (MHCi). A Planetary Bargain: Corporate Social Responsibility Comes of Age. (Macmillan, UK, 1998) Updated by author July 2011.d Liu, X. Zhang, W.J., Radhakrishan, R. and Tu, Y.L. 2008. Manufacturing perspective of enterprise application integration: the state of the art review. International Journal of Production Research, 46, (16).e Herman, R.E. and Gioia, J.L. (2000). How to Become an Employer of Choice. Oakhill Press, Winchester, VA.f Alfes, K., Truss, K., Soane, E. C., Rees, C., and Gatenby, M. (2010). Creating an engaged workforce.g Watson, T. (2011). The power of three: Taking engagement to new heights.h Hennig-Thurau, T., Gwinner, K.P., Walsh, G., and Gremler, D. D. (2004). Electronic word-of-mouth via consumer-opinion platforms: What motivates consumers to articulate themselves on the Internet?. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 18 (1), Winter, pp.38-52.

i Kaplan, A.M. and Haenlein, M. (2011). The early bird catches the news: Nine things you should know about micro-blogging. Business Horizons, 54(2).j Reichheld, F. F. (2003). The one number you need to grow. Harvard business review, 81(12), 46-55.k Vandermerwe, S. and Rada, J. (1989). Servitization of business: adding value by adding services. European Management Journal, 6(4), pp.314-324.l http://the56group.typepad.com/pgreenblog/2009/07/ time-to-put-a-stake-in-the-ground-on-social-crm.html.m http://features.thesundaytimes.co.uk/public/best100companies/ live/template.n Spear, S. and Bowen, H.K., (1999). Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System. Harvard Business Review. September–October 1999, p1.



http://appointments.thesundaytimes.co.uk/article/best100companies/

http://appointments.thesundaytimes.co.uk/article/best100companies/

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