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Some Dis-Assembly Required

On my sweet sixteenth, my high school boyfriend presented me with an interesting birthday gift – a tool set wrapped in a brown grocery sack. Yes, you read that correctly – a tool set – comprised of a hammer, a drill and a flat head and Phillips head screwdriver. Needless to say, his romantic gesture displeased me immensely.

But when Justin later pleaded his case, I learned that his odd choice of gift actually had some degree of thought behind it...some degree.

You see, when I was bored, I spent much of my spare time taking things around the house apart, simply to see if I could figure out how to piece them back together. I took apart ceiling fans, electric can openers, vacuum cleaners, and more. It was a pastime that aggravated my parents tremendously (especially considering that my attempts at reconstruction were not always successful), but it was one of my quirky habits that my boyfriend enjoyed most.

And over time, I grew to enjoy the tool set, and I put it to good use on many a household appliance. (Note to all the boyfriends and husbands out there: Despite growing to it enjoy it, I do NOT recommend giving tool sets to your ladies on their birthdays.)

This habit of dissecting things just to piece them back together is one that has stuck with me over the years. Only now, the focus of my efforts isn’t household appliances. My focus is business processes.

I recently spoke with a prospect, for example, that has implemented consolidated invoicing practices by collecting invoices from each of its dealers. The goal was to simplify the payment process for their commercial customers and gain a better understanding of what customers were purchasing, but the implementation has resulted in lots of transaction disputes, which are taxing internal resources for the prospect.

When we looked at the reasons for so many disputes, a majority were caused by the fact that the buyer did not have corporate approval to make their purchase in the first place. With an understanding that corporate approval is required for most purchases made by their commercial customers, the company is now looking to introduce a new step into the transaction process.

By requiring a P.O. Number at the time of authorization, the company will see fewer disputes on invoices, a decrease of time spent managing disputes internally, and quicker payments from their commercial clients.

I spend my weekdays now learning how companies transact with their commercial customers. And once I have an intimate understanding of the process, I tear it all apart, and piece it back together more effectively. Admittedly, deconstructing and reconstructing billing and payment processes isn’t “sexy” any more so than my boyfriend’s gift was a great romantic gesture. But, thankfully, our clients tend to appreciate the value of process improvement more easily than I adjusted to my first set of tools. And I think it’s pretty cool to see the results.