New Business Development

Frazier Technologies worked with a pre-launch telecommunications company to plan their primary processes. As a member of the product planning teams, we mapped the sales, order fulfillment and billing processes for the company's core products.
The maps were living documents, changing frequently as the product teams resolved process issues in preparation for launch of the company. These process "snapshots" allowed diverse functional groups to work effectively in parallel because each group had the same view of the overall process scope and the key hand-offs within the process.

Process planning outputs included process maps and supporting system business requirements documentation.

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Product Development

In preparation for the deployment of a new Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) "voice plus data" product, Frazier Technologies worked with a DSL provider to design the order fulfillment process. The new product was collaboration between the DSL provider, an Internet Service Provider and a Competitive Local Exchange Company (a local telephone service provider).

The process maps allowed the DSL provider to integrate the fulfillment processes of all three partners into a single "voice plus data" order fulfillment process. The process maps clearly identified the partner, work group and system handoffs within the order flow from customer request to customer receipt of product. While the initial order fulfillment map was quite large, after conversion to drilldown maps, the DSL provider was able to communicate the maps electronically and use them to train the company's process participants.

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Systems Development

Frazier Technologies helped an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to define the business requirements for a new software problem tracking and reporting application.
We first mapped the existing problem resolution processes that would use the tool. We then illustrated how the processes would change with tool implementation using "future method" process maps.

One major goal was to define the future process in a way that would minimize tool customization requests in order to control implementation and upgrade costs. To support the maps, we documented the business rules affecting tool use.

As implementation drew near, we interfaced with tool vendor, using the process maps and business rule documents to define the minimal tool customizations required. As a final step we helped the employee trainers and procedure developers create tool-use training based on the maps.

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Web Development

A global Internet infrastructure company had lost control of its sales processes. The processes were not documented, work groups had widely differing views of what was happening, and data was redundantly stored across the sales systems leading to reporting inaccuracies.

Frazier Technologies, Inc. (FTI) investigated the total spectrum of sales activities from goaling and forecasting to sales force hiring and incentive programs. We interviewed key sales personnel at all levels of the international sales organization and documented current processes. We then worked with company planners to identify where redundancies could be eliminated and processes streamlined.

FTI documented the proposed improved processes, developed drilldown process maps, and directed the deployment of the maps on the company's intranet. Web publishing enabled the global sales groups to view current information, access appropriate levels of detail for their particular organizations, and communicate upgrades and corrections back to the company planners.

The web-based swimlanes provided ancillary benefits. In addition to enhancing communication about the present processes, the intranet documents established a central foundation for auditing the process improvement effort that could be referenced and repeated in other areas of the business.

Before completing the contract, we were able to train a combined task force of Sales and IT managers in the drill-down technique and to identify with them an expanded scope for use and deployment of the technique.

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Process Improvement

Frazier Technologies helped a small telecommunications company to improve its product development process.
First, we mapped the existing process. We then worked with a cross-functional improvement team, using Frazier Technologies' structured improvement approach to identify problems with the current process and set goals for the improved process. Goals were based on key considerations such as enterprise strategies, customer requirements and competitive benchmarking. Given a thorough understanding of problems and goals, the team created an improved process, illustrated in a "future method" process map.

Improvement outputs included:

- Existing process map
- Original problem list
- Final problem analysis
- Strategies and goals document
- Future process map
- Future process support needs (employee procedures, - system enhancements, training, policy decisions, etc.)
- Recommended next steps

FTI approach to Business Process Improvement:

Frazier Technologies' structured approach treats the improvement of a process like a project. Specific roles are assigned and tasks performed with an objective of improving a single, cross-functional process.

The approach is based on a belief that the knowledge and skills to improve a process reside in the employees of the enterprise who perform roles in the process (or who have sufficient knowledge to represent those roles).

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Employee Procedure Development

A fast-growing, global e-commerce company asked Frazier Technologies to map processes that had no current documentation. We worked with "process experts" in the enterprise to identify the roles (system or person) within the processes and to map each process using a customer-focused scope.

For example, for the Help Desk process, we created a large map that included all roles and tasks required to resolve a customer's problem. The scope was from the time the customer called to report the problem until the customer confirmed resolution. We then created drilldown maps that allowed the large process map to be reconfigured into one-screen views. These maps were deployed as employee procedures on the company's intranet.

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Process Definition

A large local-service telecommunications company initiated a joint work effort with a long-distance service provider to integrate their customer order fulfillment processes. Frazier Technologies facilitated a series of process definition sessions that included members of both companies. Multiple departmental work groups were represented and session participation often exceeded twenty people.

After each initial session, we created a swimlane process map depicting the desired process. Subsequent validation sessions refined the process until the companies were confident that the major roles, tasks and hand-offs had been clearly identified. The final process maps, along with detailed product descriptions provided by each company, became input to the formal joint work agreements between the companies.

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