Learning from Context to Improve Business Processes

Have you lately been standing in a check-in line during a national holiday and wondered why the airline staff could not handle the queue more efficiently? While we assume our day to day operations run smoothly, they are actually subject to frequent variations. The main source of these variations is our environment, which introduces changing conditions. If we insist on keeping our processes as if nothing has changed, we may get poor performance or even worse. Changing environmental conditions may include the season, and how it affects the check-in process; the falling commodity prices; or expected or unexpected local or global events (e.g., a drop in the national interest rate, a new president). You may want to change your shipment processes as fuel prices go up and transportation becomes very costly. Differing exchange rates of foreign currencies may affect the way you select your suppliers.