Elisa Eesti, a subsidiary of leading Finnish telecommunications group, Elisa Corporation, was the first GSM operator in Estonia to offer fast data speeds.
To develop its organisation, Elisa decided in 2007 to make business process management a critical part of its strategic business plan. A ‘top-down’ approach was taken involving board members and all employees.
Kristel Leisalu, Business Process Management Project Manager, Elisa Eesti explains what they did …
“We identified and began to develop 10 critical processes but then the project became stuck – we realised we didn’t actually know if we were on the right path. We didn’t know what to do next or how to go about implementing a process-centric, organisation-wide BPM initiative.
We also realised that if we really wanted to implement BPM, everyone would need to understand the rationale for BPM and speak the same language.
“The answer was BPM training – we focussed on BPM methodology training with workshops for 45 people and we wanted the best possible trainer. Following an exhaustive global search, we appointed Torque Management to do the job. They devised and proposed the most coherent training programme involving three different courses that addressed the different needs of our business.
“Torque management’s two-month training programme in 2009 empowered us ‘to go it alone’. Since then we created a structure that is providing real results. Our initial process improvement projects have been successful and we continue to add more to the ‘process improvement pipeline’.
“Torque Management’s training programme gave us a very good basis for creating a single BPM language and for implementing a common process improvement methodology. .
“We now have a way to identify obstacles and opportunities for process improvement. We also have a roadmap for continuous process improvement. Our understanding of BPM enables us to analyse, connect and improve cross-functional and cross-departmental processes.”
Elisa achieved its goal …. BPM helped transform and make the organisation successful. With 354,300 customers and 320 staff, it continues to be a national leader in telecommunications in the areas of retail network build and network operations.