A leading skill development organization partnering with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) in India engaged Parikar to create and maintain a Business Process Management System (BPMS). The organization has a mandate to train a very large number of job seekers by providing skill development training and placement; the target population being educated but unemployable people and talented unskilled workers.
This mandate meant that the organization would have to penetrate many rural and urban locations in various parts of the country where supporting infrastructure is difficult to set up. The business model adopted by the organization had to ensure that all key areas of the program starting from acquisition of business to placement were supported by strong processes that set the ground for effective and efficient operations.
By engaging Parikar, the organization wanted to strengthen its operational capability by identifying and rigorously defining its major processes. This exercise also had to be supported with analysis of risks inherent in carrying out day to day activities and a complete framework for measurement of performance in order to proactively take corrective action.
The organization was at its nascent stage when Parikar was engaged to develop a core operational framework that was aligned to its business goals. Each of the business processes such as business acquisition, training delivery, placement; content development and student certification were broken down into their respective sub-components and tasks. The team then partnered with the process owners to create a sound operational process along with performance measurement criteria in the form of metrics and Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Detailed cross functional process maps were created to show hand offs and interdependencies between the various departments in the organization. A data tracking mechanism was set in place to enable regular reporting and to identify performance lags.
The project team worked with the client to create a market identification and prioritization framework to reduce costs involved in sales and business development. This included development of an action plan to acquire and train students, especially in rural areas where there is limited connectivity, electricity issues and no access to banks. Different strategies for acquiring candidates, handling logistics and course fees were debated upon to arrive at a cost effective optimal approach to gain a breakthrough in the rural sector.
The team also assessed the potential for failures within the processes and their impact on internal customers, employees and the organization. The team partnered with the process owners in identifying methods to eliminate these failure points by changing the manner in which critical process steps were executed or by mitigating the impact of these failures, should they occur, by incorporating stronger checks and controls.
By the end of the engagement, the client had more clarity on the 'what', 'when' and 'how' of each of their core business processes, besides being equipped to manage everyday operations in a seamless manner. This exercise also enabled the client organization to become automation ready by deploying a suitable BPMS suite at a later point in time.