Business Operations become inflexible, bloated and a competitive disadvantage over time.

Companies win in the marketplace by doing two things; creating winning products and creating winning operations that get the product to the customer. The focus of this book is on the latter. It posits that there is a framework to create operations which become a perpetual competitive advantage.

The issue with the business processes of every company—product development, production, manufacturing, sales, finance, information systems, human resources, and so on—is that they quickly get obsolete due to ongoing changes in the marketplaces, technology, workplaces, and many other factors. These business processes grow more complex, rigid, and siloed over time. Unfortunately, current approaches to updating and improving these business processes fail because they are usually one-time changes via transformation projects. That doesn’t fully annihilate company silos or create ongoing, self-improving, transformation.

Our book addresses this issue of the limited shelf-life of most business transformations. To design sustained, dynamic business transformation, business processes within the company must play by certain rules (called drivers).

First, every business process must be driven by “open market rules”. Unfortunately, many business processes are operated as a monopoly. If you need to hire an employee or pay a supplier, it is true that there is no other option but to comply with the given business process. However, despite this, it is possible to create an open market mindset, where every process is run as if it were a business (rather than a monopoly).

Secondly, the main killer of business process performance is organizational siloes. Even as we organize the many, large processes within a company, could we assign “Unified Accountability”, so that business process performance is de-siloed? The book shows how to design for unified accountability.

The final driver is called “dynamic operating engine”. This addresses the core issue of the obsolescence of business processes, by designing superior structures and methods of operations. By building organization structures and methodologies to constantly improve current business processes, sustained business process superiority can be attained.

In summary, the book shows you how to deliver a dynamic business process transformation, which keeps building upon business process superiority, systemically.