The team at Manufacturing Focus provide a wide range of business-improvement expertise, catering especially to the manufacturing sector. Based in Adelaide, South Australia, Manufacturing Focus are an independent process engineering consultancy who improve the competitiveness of their customers, from well established enterprises through to businesses managing rapid growth.

Initially, the team will be deploying PROBE for Manufacturing with their customers, but there are already plans to expand to other PROBE ‘flavours’ later this year.

“Probe for Manufacturing provides us with a link to current global manufacturing performance data that is invaluable for our clients that are competing in a global market. The process quickly engages a team and the questions based on sound manufacturing principles and provide excellent focus for improvement opportunities. We have found often it is the areas outside of the direct operation that can hold back good performance. This process aligns both product development and stakeholder focus with manufacturing performance for a more holistic view”. Mark Fusco, Managing Director of Manufacturing Focus

Whilst in the Republic of Cameroon we will be training local Business Advisors to use PROBE as part of a wider benchmarking methodology, collectively called the UNIDO SPX Supplier Benchmarking Tool. The Republic of Cameroon will be the seventh African Subcontracting and Partnership Exchange (SPX), following South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Ethiopia, and Kenya to carry out the benchmarking training as part of this UNIDO  initiative.

The goal of the initiative is to support small and medium sized African businesses by facilitating linkages between local industrial suppliers and buyer networks. In regions such as the African sub-Saharan, this activity is invaluable in helping to build a sustainable supply chain and strengthen the economy in the longer term. Working with a range of local and national organizations and agencies, UNIDO SPX’s across Africa are implementing a framework for the program to achieve scale and impact, particularly for the manufacturing sector.  Part of that support framework is the use of best practice benchmarking, of which PROBE plays a significant role.

The benchmarking provides UNIDO with a new dimension to its service. The tool is used to objectively assess SME performance, enabling the pinpointing of areas that need development to supply the buyers identified. The benchmarking element of the project is proving to be a huge success. In South Africa alone, over 200 businesses have already taken part, with many more planned over the coming years.

“The South African SPX has been implementing the UNIDO SPX Supplier Benchmarking Tool in the manufacturing sector in South Africa. The overall response is very positive with specific reference to the inclusiveness of the process, the quality of the reports and the value that the individual companies derived from it. This benchmarking tool certainly assisted the SA SPX programme to focus our supplier development initiatives.” (Richard Bean, Chief Technical Advisor, SPX South Africa)

We’d like to wish our clients, partners and friends our best wishes at this festive and reflective time of year.

As the PROBE Network continues to build so does the reward of working with so many fine individuals and organisations around the world. We’d like to extend our wishes to your families and communities wishing much Peace, Prosperity and Joy for the coming year ahead.

All the festive best,

Dave, Jeff & Neil

We are pleased to announce that we have just switched our Promoting Business Excellence Network Linkedin Group to an open status.

The group, created more than a year ago, is intended for PROBE Network licensees and trained facilitators who use our best practice benchmarking products in their services. The primary purpose of this group is to connect an international network of professionals who share and are engaged with the transfer of best practices and promote the drive for business excellence. While the group membership is still by approval we think the discussions of best practice benchmarking as a learning, engagement and performance improvement management process can benefit many.

Please note that in converting this group to an Open status LinkedIn archives all previous discussion for members only. All new discussions will be open and available for viewing to the public.

PROBE for Sustainable Business Facilitator Training Course

March 13 & 14 2012

Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Click here to book your place

Course Objectives

To prepare experienced business advisors and change facilitators to use the PROBE for Sustainable Business (‘PSB’) best practice benchmarking tool to enhance and support their work with organisations, focusing on opportunities to enhance sustainability and to achieve financial and other benefits.

By the end of this two day course, participants will be familiar with the PROBE methodology, and will have practised facilitating PROBE assessments. They will be equipped to use the ‘Lite’, ‘Standard’ and ‘Advanced’ versions of PSB.

Course content

• PROBE background, aims & benefits, methodology
• PROBE and the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (the ‘Natural Step Framework’)*
• Facilitation, analysis & feedback exercises
• Reporting, action planning & quality assurance
• Facilitator’s documentation kit & software features
• Integration with your approaches to advice and change
• Business models, marketing and deployment  to ensure PROBE adds value for you and your clients
• Review and next steps

Participant Profile

Broad familiarity with sustainability issues is helpful, but support to broaden knowledge can be provided.

* Knowledge of the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development  (‘The Natural Step Framework’) is required.    A short eLearning module is recommended as pre-course preparation if you are not familiar with the FSSD – details available here .

PROBE for Sustainable Business is a practical tool that helps organisations to engage with the FSSD and understand the relevance and opportunities that sustainability offers. If you wish to develop a deeper understanding of the FSSD, an ideal combination with this PROBE course is the TNS Sustainability for Leaders course – details available here . These two courses complement one another, and can be attended in any sequence.

Course fee:

£750 (+Tax if applicable)

Course fee includes:

As is customary at the end of the year it is time to reflect on the many highs and lows we have experienced over the last 12 months. This year we have reached the highs of seeing PROBE provide best practice support through initiatives in countries and regions that we have never been to before,  new and improved ‘flavours’ of PROBE, the launch of our new website, a thriving and lively community on LinkedIn and a significant growth in the number of members of the PROBE Network. Of course for every high there are lows and we experienced the lowest of lows recently with the loss of our friend and one of the driving forces of PROBE, Gerry Oates.

Overall, despite the challenges of the unpredictable economies, particularly in Europe and America, 2011 has been a good year for those of us who believe that improved business performance comes from the adoption of best practice. Over the last twelve months we have seen PROBE support new business improvement initiatives in South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, France, and parts of the USA, among others, and national and state organisations in Australia, Brazil, Ireland and Canada have renewed or enhanced their usage of PROBE. 2011 also saw PROBE’s contribution to the work of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) strengthen and expand, and UNIDO provided us with our end of year cheer by confirming their plans to expand the work they are currently doing with PROBE in Africa to other countries around the world.

2011 saw the release of the new and improved PROBE for Sustainable Business (PSB). In addition to improvements to the original version of this PROBE ‘flavour’ we saw the release of new ‘Lite’ and ‘Standard’ versions both of which have been well received by PROBE’s Sustainability-focused users. Wherever an organisation is on its sustainability journey, there is now a PROBE diagnostic tool ready to support them on to the next stage. In fact the idea of ‘Lite’, ‘Standard’ and ‘Advanced’ versions of PROBE is proving so popular that we have plans to expand the three tier system to some of the other tools in 2012.

PROBE for Sustainable Business also gave us the opportunity to embed a new expansive PROBE model into our outputs and report templates. This allows users to examine the data in new ways and express the findings with new and improved graphical outputs. Again, what started in PSB will flow to the other flavours of PROBE. This new PROBE framework and the new style graphs have already become part of the PROBE for Small Business tool which is playing a significant role in the work UNIDO are currently expanding across Africa.

Over the last 12 months the PROBE Network User Community has grown. We are very close to having 100 PROBE users from all over the world in the PROBE LinkedIn Group, many of whom actively participate in sharing experiences and ideas and improving PROBE products and services.   Our ‘Tweets’, whilst still being too infrequent, are being followed by an increasing number of business improvement professionals.

For every success that 2011 has brought we must not sit on our laurels and assume 2012 will be the same. There are still so many things for us to do. We, the core team at the hub of the PROBE Network, will continue to develop our social networking and increase our communications with PROBE Network members in a more frequent and meaningful way. The Promoting Business Excellence Linkedin Group will become an ‘open’ forum before the end of this year thus widening the discussions beyond the existing PROBE facilitators. The next 12 months will see some significant improvements to the existing PROBE tools, the first of which will be a new ‘Lite’ version of PROBE for Manufacturing set for release early in 2012. Our PROBE Network family is set to grow further in 2012. PROBE facilitators in Cameroon, Iraq, Vietnam, Greece, France and the Netherlands will be joining us shortly and they will be followed by other new PROBE users from across the Globe as the year progresses.

Finally, a review of the past 12 months wouldn’t be complete without thanking all PROBE facilitators and supporters for their continued efforts to develop the Network and get the benefits of PROBE into businesses and organisations all over the world.  Thank you for your contributions during 2011 and we look forward to seeing even more of you in 2012.

A Happy New Year from all at PROBE Network.

This also brings up for me the issues we quite often come up against when trying to differentiate what PROBE Best Practice benchmarking is all about. Quite often in presentations I like to point out how benchmarking and the data it generates has an unfortunate tendency to be used predominantly as a ranking system rather than as a learning and improvement system. As the Business Week article comments “It’s in our collective American culture to rate.”

We are perhaps in a confusing and somewhat ugly process of emergence when it comes to issues of sustainability. When we created the PROBE for Sustainable Business best practice benchmarking product we had to navigate the rabbit warren of rating systems. It was perhaps one of the toughest tasks in building the product. I think the question for organizations who are faced with this issue is “what is it you are seeking to learn and how do you intend use it.” Collecting data for regulatory compliance issues be they local/industry, regional or international is fairly straightforward to understand. You comply with what you must comply with. Yet the more important aspect in collecting sustainability data is perhaps how do you intend to use it to develop your organization, expand the learning gained from it and maintain your competitiveness?” In this regard perhaps not all rating systems and approaches are equal or as valuable. Like manufacturing commonly shared principles, practices and measurements will emerge on a global basis. Such I believe is true in the world of sustainability but it will take time. What’s true for me though is now and in the future you’re better to get out of “rating” and get into “learning.” That’s where the value equation gets clearer.

Why mention this now? In preparation for the presentation I pulled upon several pieces of data that came from that first study. The data, that we use in training, discusses the impact of poor customer service impact issues such as time to resolve a problem, how many people a customer has to deal with in resolving that problem, etc.). Yet this was data from the late 90′s and my concern was how the audience might view this information given the age of the research. While our PROBE for Service product is current and relevant for today’s issues was the data that formed the basis for it still relevant itself? Off to Google I went!

To my astonishment not only is the basic premise derived from the original research data still relevant it seems things might be worse. What I found was a particularly good piece of research by Genesys on “The Cost of Poor Customer Service” which is study of the issue in 16 economies. This extensive piece of research published in 2009 found that $338.5 billion (US) could be attributed in losses to poor customer service when measured across 16 economies. An average of $243 p/customer p/year is either lost to a competitor or simply abandoned. The #1 satisfier across all countries was competent people to assist in any channel.

You can find this research study online at: http://enterprise.alcatel-lucent.com/docs/?id=20346. In addition to a global view the research is also broken out for each of the 16 countries. If you’re interested in the presentation made or would like to contact me for more information you can reach me at neil.cambridge@comparisonna.com.

During the last week of September an enthusiastic group of thirty business advisors attended training in Nairobi, Kenya, adding the UNIDO SPX Supplier Benchmarking Tool to the toolkit they use with Small-to-Medium Enterprises in five East African countries.

The UNIDO SPX Supplier Benchmarking Tool is a powerful combination of PROBE for Small Business with the ‘Winning Measures’ performance benchmarking tool.  It has been used very successfully in South Africa and its deployment is now extending to Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia and Ethiopia. The SPX network will benchmark hundreds of SMEs in these countries, helping to identify their capabilities to meet the demands of supply chain opportunities and, where appropriate, to pinpoint and address opportunities to strengthen their processes and performance.

SPX is the Subcontracting & Partnership eXchange Programme of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation.  SPX helps local enterprises to successfully meet the challenges of globalisation and to take advantage of the emerging opportunities that evolve from industrial subcontracting, outsourcing and supply chain opportunities.

PROBE trainer David Yarrow comments “The abilities and enthusiasm of these growing SPX teams convinces me that they will put the benchmarking tool to very good use and accelerate their positive impact on supplier capabilities in East Africa.  The SPX programme is an impressive and highly effective initiative, and it is a pleasure to help to embed PROBE at the heart of its work”.

It is with great sadness that we record the passing of Gerry Oates during October 2011.

Gerry was a friend and an inspiration to many members of the worldwide PROBE Network, as many messages of condolence have confirmed over the last few weeks

The last time we heard from Gerry he said “I’m feeling a lot better” which, considering it was only a few days before his untimely passing, seems to sum up the essence of our dear friend and colleague. At a time when all of his family and friends were fighting to come to terms with how Cancer had stealthily spread around his body, Gerry was still looking forward, still planning his next overseas trip, still being the enthusiastic ‘Duracell bunny’. Gerry would never slow down; he was always working on the next sales strategy, planning the next presentation, making the next phone call. He was totally committed to the work we were doing and that commitment transmitted itself to everyone Gerry met. Of the numerous comments and tributes we received from around the world, two seemed to resonate as the embodiment of how we all feel.

“The world is moved forward by the risk-takers, not of the bungie jumping or mountain climbing variety but of the little risks that move things along a step: those who say yes when others might say no, those that reach out to others and say “How can we make this happen?” [Those] that are generous with their precious time because that is indeed what none of us is rich enough in.  Gerry was all this and also so blazingly calm and centered. Gerry was an important person to me: unusually generous, kind, open, a believer in people and ideas”

Lily Kelly

“Gerry was an Irish gentleman. My memories of him are of one who is passionate about his work and benchmarking in general. He is also gentle, considerate, helpful and has a good sense of fun.  He was one of the most important drivers of the benchmarking community in Europe. It is our loss that we did not tell him this when he was alive. Gerry will be missed by his many friends. His memory will live on with his positive attitude and his desire for viable solutions”

Mike Nolan

Gerry will be missed by everyone involved with the PROBE Network. Replacing his skills, commitment and enthusiasm we cannot fully hope to achieve but we are inspired by them as we seek to move forward. Gerry was one of those people who, when things appeared to be at their lowest point,  he never worried. He’d just get up and brush himself down because tomorrow would present a whole bunch of new opportunities and even today, at our lowest point, we will do the same.

We lost our dear Gerry on Thursday 6^th October, the day after Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Gerry lived by bold visions and it is an irony that he shared such a sad and auspicious date. Knowing Gerry we like to smile thinking he’s advising Steve now on things he could have done better and bigger…….all followed by the wink and a hearty, hearty laugh.

Rest In Peace Gerry