Further Exploration of the Quote to Cash Process

Last week I pointed out that a company is a collection of processes. And, these processes exist in support of a company’s ‘Quote to Cash’ process.

I stated that there were three views to your ‘Quote to Cash’ process: A cash flow perspective; A human activities perspective; and the Customer’s perspective.

A couple of weeks ago, I covered the Cash Flow perspective – this week the Human Activities perspective and then the Customer’s perspective.

Human Activities perspective

Within any process, including the ‘Quote to Cash’ process, there are activities that workers perform that make it all happen. What are the non-value added activities that can be eliminated? Are the hand-offs from one human performing an activity to another [break points] working properly?

Each company has its own ‘business rules’ governing processes and activities. Are those business rules optimum? Is there a better way to perform those activities? Often, activities are still performed like they were years ago and there may be new and better ways to perform them.

There are always some tangential processes that support a ‘Quote to Cash’ process. Do they add value to the process or impede its progress?

Metrics - It is extremely difficult to measure success if you don’t have a starting point so you can compare ‘what was’ with ‘what is’.

Change – A known constant for business today is that there will always be change. This makes business process management more important and an ongoing activity.

Your Thoughts…