We were into April of 1991 and at that time I was working for a small consulting company in Ottawa. When I left Canada Post at the end of 1990, the two projects that I had initiated under Mike Wallace’s leadership were still there. David was managing one of those projects and I was still making money on that assignment.
If I remember correctly, in June 1990 I bought the Cadillac from David. David was interested in having a BMW. He was leasing the Cadillac and instead of returning it to the dealership, he sold it to me. It was a reasonable price and the car was well maintained.
Adam passed grade 12 with high marks in 1990. He had chosen science in grade 11 and 12 with Biology, and he was accepted in a number of universities outside of Ottawa. He decided to go to the University of Ottawa (Ottawa U). He wanted to be a medical doctor. He managed to get admitted to Biochemistry at Ottawa U without any difficulty.
While things were going reasonably well at Canada Post, I decided to make a move and went to work for a small consulting company called IOTA. I got a couple of contracts with Supply and Services for the company, as I was marketing as well as working as a consultant. These contracts were for only a few months. Then I had an offer from a medium-sized consulting company in Ottawa. I was offered a relatively senior position with the company. I marketed the company to various departments and assigned consultants to a number of projects. There was a time when I was responsible for five projects. I moved from one department to another to ensure those projects were on time and under budget.
I knew that my 50th birthday was coming up soon but never realized that Lynda, with the help of her sorority sisters, had organized a party for me. She managed to invite my boss and a couple of my colleagues, too.
Lynda rented a party room where they all hid. She came up with some excuse to get me there. All of a sudden everybody and his brother came out to say happy birthday. The food was nice. I had no clue about it.
My current boss from the consulting company I was working for was also invited to my birthday party. She had no direct experience with the services the company offered. She hired me based on my references and I was hoping that they would be interested in promoting and establishing a set of services to offer EDI- (Electronic Data Interchange) related services.
EDI is the computer-to-computer exchange of business data between companies in a standard electronic format; things like orders, delivery slip, and invoices.
I had published several articles on the subject to promote the replacement of the faxing and mailing of paper business documents. Manual exchange of paper business documents introduces errors and slows down exchange of the documents.
I guess I failed to convince the organization that sooner or later this concept would take off and if they wanted to be the leaders, they needed to act right away. Generally, organizations are interested in technologies that are not necessarily expensive but guarantee the benefits of data accuracy, speed, efficiency, and visibility.
I left the company to join a group of so-called independent management consultants who didn’t have appropriate experience to support the services they were offering. One of the associated consultants approached me with a proposal, suggesting that he wanted to work with me. He offered his home for the office without any rent and he wanted me to be the president of the company based on my extensive experience.
I liked the idea and when he took me to show me his house (a bungalow); I was impressed with the location and the space he was going to allocate for our office.
His name was Mark. He had been married before and had two kids who lived with their mother. Mark and his current wife had no children. They didn’t need a lot of the space in their house. Plus his wife was working and we had the house to ourselves all day. Therefore, Mark suggested we use one of the bedrooms for our office and use their living room for meetings, which was a very generous offer.
I suggested we buy furniture including two desks, chairs and filing cabinets. I also suggested that we should pay for the cleaning service initially and eventually pay a reasonable monthly rent depending upon how successful we became.
We incorporated the company as AIM – Automated Information Management – with me being the president and Mark Bow as vice-president.
I had been publishing articles on the subject of Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) for a while and desperately tried to get a project or two to demonstrate the associated benefits. However, it was hard to promote the concept as we were an almost unknown company in Ottawa. Therefore, I decided to change my way of thinking and to approach big companies like IBM, Texas Instruments, CGI, Systems House, etc.
Just as a background, BPR is a strategic management approach. It is centred on fundamentally rethinking and redesigning core business processes to achieve significant improvements in performance and efficiency.
BPR focuses on optimizing end-to-end processes and eliminating redundancies. By critically examining and redesigning business processes, BPR improves efficiency, effectiveness, and performance. These improvements can impact various aspects of the business including cost, output, service, speed, and quality. BPR is not a one-time project, but a continuous journey of innovation and optimization. Organizations must continuously evaluate and refine their processes to adapt to evolving business environments and maintain a competitive edge.
BPR implementation can be effective in organizations of all sizes and industries. Its purpose is to streamline workflows, eliminate unnecessary steps and improve resource utilization to optimize efficiency and effectiveness. BPR involves radical changes that challenge existing norms and methods within an organization. It should not be confused with business process management (BPM) or business process improvement (BPI), which initiates more incremental change.
To implement BPR, companies first analyze processes to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement. Techniques such as artificial intelligence (AI)-powered process mining analyze information systems for insights. This assessment guides decision-making about how work should be performed, including consideration of using business process outsourcing (BPO) and redefining third-party roles. BPR aims to fundamentally reshape how work is carried out. Using IT for automation and integration to optimize workflows, BPR eliminates tasks that don’t add value and restructures or replaces existing processes.
Successful implementation of BPR requires strong leadership, effective change management and a commitment to continuous improvement. Leaders must champion the BPR initiative and provide the necessary resources, support, and direction to enable meaningful change. Also, organizations must invest in change management strategies to mitigate resistance and ensure that employees are engaged and empowered throughout the process.
I was not totally convinced that any of those companies were up to date with the use of BPR in their practices. Thus I was hoping that I could get connected with some of them.
Finally, somebody from Texas Instruments got in touch with me. He suggested we have coffee to discuss the possibility of promoting the use of BPR to their clients in the federal government.
I was excited about inviting him to our office a few miles away from downtown. He came to the meeting and was very impressed with our office: the huge living room as our meeting room, as well as the way we had organized the overall office space.
Mark was not strong technically, nor had he much experience in the field of management consulting. Hence he trusted me to take the lead in meetings with potential clients to explore the chances of working together. Nevertheless, Mark did have a bachelor’s degree in Arts from the University of Ottawa.
After chatting with the guy from Texas Instruments, I thought he was there to check me out. I figured he wanted to make sure that I knew enough about BPR. Without telling me anything more about his company or their service offerings, he concluded the meeting by saying that he would be in touch with us as soon as he found an appropriate opportunity.
He was also concerned whether I had any technical background. The application of BPR includes all business aspects and functions within an organization, including the Information Technology (IT) department.
He asked me if I had any experience dealing with a modeling tool. I had to be honest. I told him that I never ever worked with any modeling tools related to BPR or any other discipline. He ended our meeting by saying that he didn’t see any problem with getting me involved where a modeling tool could be used to promote the concept of BPR. He knew that I had spent my entire career dealing with IT and had managed reasonably complex situations in different organizations.
The next two weeks we spent making calls to various departments. We wanted to find out what the best way would be to get on their lists of consultants who had access to their requirements through a process of “Request for Proposal (RFP).
If I remember correctly, it didn’t take too long to hear from the guy from Texas Instruments. He basically asked me if I would like to make a brief presentation to a branch of Department of National Defence (DND) which dealt with scientific activities. My logical response to that question was YES. However, I didn’t hesitate to tell him that I didn’t know anything about the BPR modeling tool he was talking about.
He said he was going to set up a meeting with DND the following week. In the meantime, he would like to see me at our office to demonstrate the use of the modeling tool. As well, he wanted to load that software on our system so that I could play with it as many times as I liked before I made the presentation.
I was totally happy with the suggested approach. I spent a great deal of time working with that BPR modeling tool.
The presentation to DND went smoothly. At the end of it the guy who was in charge said he would let us know if there would be any opportunity for us to use the modeling tool in their department.
After a week I had a telephone call from Texas Instruments. They got a contract from DND. They wanted me to help them make presentations throughout the department to promote the tool.
Mark and I were delighted to hear about that. Mark suggested that even though they paid only me for the contract, he wanted to be with me all the time so he could learn the tool and help me to complete our first project successfully.
It was indeed an excellent opportunity to start working together.
