Chief Process Officer Need, Definition, and Consulting Assistance.

Is There a Need for a Chief Process Officer? Is your organization under pressure to reduce expenses while at the same time, improve quality and service? Have past process improvement initiatives lacked sustainability and coordinated direction? Can issues (defects) in products or services result in customer service, liability, or regulatory issues? Does your organization need to innovate to be competitive? Is there a benefit to have process risks and improvement objectively measured? Is a Chief Process Officer the answer?

What is a Chief Process Officer? According to Wikipedia, “A CPO is an executive responsible for business process management at the highest level of an organization.” CPOs usually report directly to the chief executive officer (CEO) or board of directors. The CPO oversees business process activities and is responsible for defining process rules, policies, framework, procedures, and guidelines to ensure that the main objectives follow the company strategy as well as establishing control, governance, and measurement mechanisms.

Why Can’t the Other Chiefs Handle This Role? Realistically, other Chiefs do not have the time, and background to continuously improve complex enterprise, cross-functional, department and group processes. As there is a need for Chiefs to be supported by a CTO/CIO to provide technology support/direction, a CHRO to provide human resource support, and a CFO to provide finance and accounting support and operations, a CPO will work with Chiefs to help ensure organizational improvement goals are set, achieved, measured, and sustained. A CPO will also help ensure that technology ROI, governance, and compliance goals are supported by organizational processes.

How do you know if a CPO will help your organization? We at CRE8 can conduct an objective assessment of your organization’s structure, process risks, improvement goals, information governance needs, and develop an assessment of need for a CPO. As requested, we can formally or informally function as a part or full-time CPO for your organization, or assist with the CPO job definition, search and interview process.

Since 1995, we have assisted hundreds of organizations with process improvement across all industries, ranging in size from 25 to 250,000 employees. For a free phone consultation to discuss your CPO needs and how CRE8 Independent Consultants can be of help, contact us.