افزایش بهره وری در شرکت های جهانی: چالش مدیر عامل شرکت

In a highly competitive environment global firms face the challenge of increasing productivity to compete with firms sourcing production in low-wage developing countries. This paper presents a new paradigm of production which provides a solution to the productivity challenge. The new paradigm is both a philosophy of management and a set of methods that draw upon the experiences of firms employing quality management and lean production. This approach has proven to yield substantial gains in quality, productivity, and competitiveness. The methods and the requirements to successfully implement it are discussed. How to transplant these systems to developing countries is also considered. The role of the CEO in successful implementation of the New Productivity Paradigm is discussed in the final section.

CEO's of global firms face multiple challenges and one of the most daunting is keeping their firms competitive. They face pressure to lower costs and increase profitability while needing to innovate and improve product design and quality to compete in an increasingly global arena. A natural solution to the lower cost–higher profitability dilemma would be to increase productivity in their firms. Yet productivity growth, which picked up in the 1990s, has slowed in the last few years. From 2000 to 2006 U.S. labor productivity growth is estimated at 2.9% a year, exceeding the long-run average of 1.9% a year from 1970 to 2006 (Feldstein, 2008). However, recent data suggest that the rate has slowed to 1.5% from 2005 to 2007 (Blackstone, 2008) and a forecast for the next decade of 2.4% a year also predicts a slowdown (Jorgenson et al., 2008). These are aggregate data for the U.S. economy and reflect the secular pattern of other industrialized countries. Of course firms are concerned more with their own individual productivity growth than aggregate figures. This paper will focus on methods that have been successfully used at the firm level to increase labor productivity, and also improve quality and product design to foster global competitiveness. The liberalization of trade and the rapid industrial development of countries like China and India have presented a challenge to global firms: how to compete with firms from emerging markets with much lower labor and other costs of production? The response of many firms in the developed world is to outsource production and business processes to these countries to capture their cost advantages (i.e. offshoring). However, this is not the only response, or even necessarily the best one, to the challenge of the newly emerging industrial countries. Some firms instead have refocused efforts on increasing the quality and productivity of production processes in their home countries, and they have managed to retain their competitiveness with the additional advantages of being more flexible and faster in response to customer demand. How they have achieved this is the subject of this paper. It will examine the modern theory of production which draws heavily on lean production and quality management principles and practices to create world class production systems. Of course, these same methods can be used in a production system anywhere in the world, but the economic necessity is less compelling in the low-wage countries. Therefore, the imperative to improve productivity may not be as strong in these countries, but for global firms with operations there, if they can do so, they will have the dual advantages of low wages and high productivity. This paper will examine methods of transferring best-practice methods to firms and subsidiaries in other countries, including developing countries, as well as improving it at home. A recent McKinsey study found that a single point increase on a scale of management practice (rated from 1 to 5) was equivalent to a 25% increase in labor productivity or a 65% increase in invested capital in improving real business performance.(Bloom et al., 2007). This research looked at over 4000 mid-sized firms in 12 developing and developed countries (included were the U.S., eight European Union countries, Japan, and India and China. Multinational firms performed better than domestic firms regardless of the country in this study. The rating of management performance was based on three areas including shop floor operations (use of modern production approaches such as JIT, flexible manufacturing, continuous process improvement, and employee involvement), talent management, and performance management. The management practice rating was based on interviews with managers to ascertain firm practices in each area. Interestingly, although the U.S. was rated tops in overall management performance, it fell behind Germany, Sweden and Japan in shop floor operations management, exactly the place where most productivity improvements occur. This paper focuses on productivity improvement primarily at the operational level. The next section briefly reviews the development of management thinking on productivity from the end of the 19th century until the present. The third section will develop the New Productivity Paradigm explaining its key precepts and tools, in particular the synergy between quality and productivity improvement. The fourth section discusses practical approaches for firms to increase productivity using methods such as lean and JIT methods, TQM and Six Sigma, supply chain collaboration, information technology, and selective outsourcing. The fifth section will consider barriers to implementation of these methods that are frequently encountered and ways to overcome them. The sixth section looks at the challenge of transplanting modern production theory to emerging markets and methods to achieve this. The final section will summarize and draw some implications for CEO's of global firms.

The New Productivity Paradigm provides a systematic approach to improving productivity in a global firm. Although on the surface it may appear that it should be easy to implement process improvement methods using lean production and quality management, it is not. Experience shows that to successfully adopt these productivity enhancing methods, managers first must essentially change their philosophy of management. The role of manager as boss with the sole responsibility for improving the production system will not work in the new paradigm. It demands production managers who enlist the employees in continually improving the processes in which they work and adopt a mentoring/coaching style of management. This is very difficult for most managers who have not been trained and have no experience in this role. This is the first hurdle for a firm to clear if it is going to implement a self-reinforcing system of continuous improvement. Many of the methods discussed in this paper will lead to positive productivity results, but they will not be sustainable unless they are used as a system and become embedded into the organizational culture. If this does not happen, in a few years the firm will once again be facing a productivity challenge. It is essential to install a system of production that will be self-sustaining and lead to ongoing productivity growth. There are four essential components for the CEO of a firm to successfully adopt the New Productivity Paradigm (NPP): 1. Belief: in the NPP 2. Commitment: to implement it 3. Involvement: in the implementation 4. Patience: to wait for results Belief that the NPP will work is a necessary first, but not sufficient, condition for a CEO to begin a sustainable long term productivity program. He or she must believe this approach will work and is superior to the traditional way of organizing and managing a production system. But belief alone is not enough. The CEO must be committed to doing what it takes to implement it. This is likely to be difficult in most organizations with many skeptics who do not believe this approach will work in their organization, even though it might in others. Organizational change is never easy, and this will be particularly difficult, as philosophies and roles must change. Only a strong CEO such as Jack Welch at GE is able to force such changes on a recalcitrant organization. If the CEO is successful in beginning the implementation process, his or her role is not over. He or she must stay involved in the implementation continually urging others to commit and be involved visibly as well as monitor progress. Incorporating measures of success in implementation in performance evaluation of managers is a particularly effective way to accomplish this. For example, tying a manager's bonus or salary increase to the percentage improvement in productivity or reduction in defects in his/her department is likely to get their attention and commitment. The measures of organizational performance must also be adjusted. If the metrics are strictly financial there is likely to be little sustained commitment to improvement of productivity. More explicit measures of productivity and quality improvement must be incorporated into the metrics provided to stakeholders, internal and external. Such measures could include increase in market share (a measure of value provided to customers), improvement in customer satisfaction rankings, quality awards, and productivity increases (e.g. products produced or customers served per employee). The last essential element in successful implementation of the NPP is patience. This may be the most difficult virtue of all for many CEOs used to an environment stressing quarterly financial results. Implementation of a sustainable productivity program is a long term proposition with large up front costs and delayed benefits. In that sense it is much like research and development expenditures, but with a higher probability of success. The upfront costs include extensive training of personnel and release time from jobs both for training and to carry out projects. As the employees are learning how to use their newly acquired process improvement skills, results will be meager. For several years the costs may outweigh the benefits of the program. Without patience to see the program through the first several years, it will likely flounder and be dropped. But if the patience, and the commitment that underlies it, persist the program should begin to pay off and become self-sustaining. The major barriers to success in increasing productivity are the ingrained organizational resistance to change and inertia. The best way to overcome these is to obtain the commitment and involvement of the CEO and the top management team. One way in which this has been achieved is for them to visit successful firms using the New Productivity Paradigm. Observing the results first hand is a good initial step to overcoming skepticism. Many executives have changed their views after such visits (Spear, 2004). The benefit of this is to obtain the management commitment to provide the resources necessary to carry out implementation. Once the commitment is in place, the long arduous task of training and developing the program can begin. Looking ahead, more empirical research is needed on how to successfully implement the New Productivity Paradigm, and how the many organizational barriers can be overcome. Another fruitful area for future research is how to adapt these methods for the emerging market context. New and unique obstacles can arise in the business and cultural environments of these markets, but their rapidly growing economic influence in the world economy necessitates transference of best-practice methods to these countries, both as markets and sources of production. Also it may be that new approaches to productivity improvement will arise in the emerging markets as their technology and management skills improve. Global firms may be looking to their own affiliates in these countries for new ideas on how to raise productivity in the years ahead.