…Or is it?

From BPM.com – This week at AppianWorld…

One of the first sessions was by CME Group, the world’s largest derivatives market place who manages more than “$1 Quadrillion” in annual transaction volume… CME runs its business on BPM. To make this happen, the team sold this idea to the senior leadership not as a cost-saving plan, but as growth strategy.

When cost justifying BPM [business process management] projects, it is common to look for the cost savings. We know that there is potential to increase revenues, but those numbers are not ‘hard’ numbers so we don’t spend a lot of time looking for the potential increase.

The CME approach

Using a Football analogy, CME didn’t spend time coming up with a game plan to ‘not lose’ the game. They came up with a game plan to ‘win’ the game.

By playing ‘not to lose’, companies will reduce their costs hoping that the revenue will stay where it is and the result will be increased profits. This certainly can work and has for many companies in the past.

I worked for Silicon Graphics during their decline and their game plan was ‘not to lose’.

By playing ‘to win’ the game, companies will develop a game plan [business plan] that they believe will increase revenues. They will positively embrace the plan and get their entire team on board with the game plan.  The will execute the game plan to achieve their end goals.

Apple is a good example of playing ‘to win’. I am guessing that their game plan is to lead with cool technologies that place them ahead of their competition.  Obviously, this is a risky strategy unless you are quite confident that you can execute on your game plan.

Cutting costs certainly makes sense, but winning the game is what will keep you in business for a long time and is likely to increase profits.

So, what is your game plan?

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