Perform a gap analysis and discover the potential that can be unlocked in an enterprise. Augment the analysis using risk mitigation to determine the areas of operation that are cause for concern. Such an analysis, via a question and answer session probing current situations and what is desired for the future, can reveal areas that should be improved. Ultimately, reduce the risks and, by mitigation, improve the prognosis for successful future operation.
- Instigate a gap analysis by comparing actual performance in any organization with that organization's potential performance. Spell out the Good, the Actual and the Potential by doing tests and analyzing results from those tests.
Gap can be applied to a business or to many other applications, including the commercial development of software. In the context of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), a typical analysis will include typical company goals, set against the current situation.
A good way of analyzing the status quo is to set it out in a spreadsheet, focusing on the current capabilities and future aspirations. For example: does the organization have email and Web capability for all employees now, and, if not, is this planned for the future?
Obviously, to encompass all of CRM, the analysis needs to concentrate on its more actionable elements such as the ability for self-service for customers via the Internet and selective exposure of account information. Other details would include the ability to send information to mobile devices, including the generation of alerts via email or text messaging if SLAs (Service Level Agreements) are missed, automatically assigning personnel to escalation issues. - For a CRM gap analysis, the focus is on how the customers are supported by the organization. So the questions surround the application of enabling technology, which includes communications, customer support and escalation via several means. If, however, another field of operation is implied by the need to run a gap analysis, questions need to be formulated along the lines of what is currently available and where the organization wants to be in twelve months. The CRM model is universal inasmuch as most businesses have a customer base and an operations model, into which all of the above concepts fit neatly. More specialized business requirements have their own needs which are easily visible when the organization has a work-study analysis completed. Also, business process management reveals many shortcomings in an organization and suggests immediate improvements. Some of these discoveries could easily be the basis for a gap analysis.
- A performance gap describes a difference between what is currently desired and what is ultimately needed. And this is what must be covered to reach any objective. The steps are the discovery of the shortcoming, the creation of the methodology to build a bridge across the gap, and ultimately to build the bridge over the gap. In any organization, business needs are assessed first. Then follows the gap analysis. After this has been carried out, certain tests have to be designed to check that the gap has indeed been bridged by a new strategy.
- If the gap still exists after analysis and a strategy to mitigate the risk, then it depends on why the gap is not bridged. It could be because of shortcomings in training, or it could be a performance issue which needs further analysis. Gap analysis can also be augmented by risk analysis.
- Risk analysis and mitigation seek to develop solutions to assessed areas of risk prior to these risks causing a failure or a disaster and which can be a turn-key solution for just such situations.
It also seeks to identify the prime areas of risk and the personnel who may be directly connected with them and work to reduce the possibility of such risk, either through retraining of personnel or by reorganization.
An assessment of the organization's vulnerability will compute the risk levels at each stage, and, by using this, create a successful risk mitigation strategy. Risk mitigation also seeks to reveal process gaps and redundant procedures which will ultimately make any organization much more efficient.
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