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In today’s economy, the interaction with the customer has drastically changed: for each service or product the customer has a substantial amount of options to…

Where and how to get started?   Often the best way to find out what works is to give it a try. If you want to learn…

My first love And this brings me to my first love. As a young graduate engineer and assistant at the University of Ghent, I was…

A need for smart & data-driven organizations Core competencies for incumbent organizations are fundamentally different than those of the digitally enabled organizations. Consider brand-awareness creation:…

Digital biomarkers are characteristics that can be objectively measured and evaluated as an indicator of normal biologic processes or pathologic processes. Being collected through digital…

Challenge 1: How to engage and activate all layers within the organization to be aware of and understand the CX vision / strategy? The rush…

In October 2019, we organized a round table with medical directors of Belgian hospitals about AI in healthcare. At this round table we outlined recent breakthroughs in AI technologies and their medical applications,…

During the past 5 years, I have seen the healthcare sector evolve rapidly. More focus on patient needs, digitization, efficiency, financing of care … But what struck me the most…

Immersion workshop at Interface…

Why is sustainability at the strategic agenda of Knauf? Knauf is a special kind of company – a family business. As such we do not…

The world celebrated a little holiday called Valentine’s day last week. An excellent occasion to discuss what we’re most passionate about: our customers. Möbius and…

When talking to people about lean (or continuous improvement, operational excellence…), it’s possible waste hunting (or the 7+1 wastes) comes up. But I’ve noticed that…

Whether you are starting your customer service from scratch or you have been managing a team for a while and want to ensure it is…

Just like in other industries, the patient is behaving increasingly more like a consumer. The traditional medical process has now taken on an extra dimension:…

Exotic customer journeys: from chatting with local wine growers in Argentina to the ultimate app in China.

Operational Excellence has been continuously evolving over the past decades and it is still not running out of steam. But vying for attention of COOs…

Augmented Reality is booming. Leading companies have already implemented AR in their supply chain. This article aims to provide clarifying examples on how this up-and-coming…

Technology and data are getting more attention, while integration and cooperation are finally well framed. The healthcare sector is adapting and embracing most changes. But…

A brand is the sum of all interactions a customers has with it. Instead of looking at your product or services separately, you should consider…

After so many years of inventory improvement initiatives, how come that industrial supply chains are still searching for more optimal inventories? Can the optimum be…

The less a GPS is followed, the more it needs to recalculate. This is what I decided to call the GPS paradox. Next to decision…

An update with some major trends in robotic surgery for the coming years as well as several promising 'new kids on the block' that could…

Getting the basics right today will drastically improve the financial viability of current robotics programs – and help to build capabilities that will be a…

The purpose of Hoshin Kanri is to translate your strategic challenges into tangible goals first, and then into initiatives, projects and actions at all levels…

Hospital networks and new primary care zones are ‘top of mind’ among care centres and care providers considering that they have far-reaching consequences for the…

Pharmaceutical and MedTech companies are known to service a wide variety of customers. They provide medication to pharmacists, implants to surgeons, technology for testing to…

In healthcare, things have changed quite a lot throughout the years. We could ask ourselves the question to what extent we are still equally concerned…

Why is there such a big gap between today's private and professional use of technology in clinical practice?…

Why do many S&OP’s fail or are companies not satisfied with them? Why do most attempts to collaborate in logistics services fail? Why do many…

See the four step cycle below, you should remember to shape, deliver and enhance customer experiences! As explained by Denise Lee Yohn in her bestseller…

NPS or Net Promoter Score is a powerful metric that is used to gauge the loyalty of your clients to your organization. The Net Promotor Score is…

I would like to start this blog post with defining employee engagement. According to professor W. Kahn (Pr. Organizational behavior at Boston University) and his…

Today’s customers are changing but so are your employees.  According to professor Nick Kemsley, co-director of the Henley Business School Centre for HR Excellence,  we should…

Human-centric services means that the company is committed to providing you tailor-made services and solving your issue through understanding your business and what you need. This…

Over the past years, customers became more connected, hence more and better informed. The more they are socially connected and informed, the lower their brand…

We enjoyed reading Brian Solis’ research on common mistakes in culture & HR. We believe these are spot on and like to share them with…

The digital era afflicts all sectors and still leads to a lot of insecurity and questions in today’s boardrooms. It’s our human nature to show…

A while ago during a round table with Belgian leading customer experience experts, a colleague of mine dropped the following line: “Treat employees better than…

Everyone can agree at this point: the patient must be the focus. However, this does come with some major challenges……

The success of managing a successful sustainability program is a mix of why you do it, how you do it and eventually what you do.

A customer manager from a service company recently asked me “How would you define Customer Experience and how would manage it?”. This question is twofold…

Hospitals have to manage with less financial means, want to or have to meet increasingly high-quality requirements and need new technologies as well as new…

More than half of the world's population lives in cities and is responsible for the consumption of 75% of the resources on earth and roughly…

A complex phenomenon like circularity, with such deep root causes in our economy and behavior, can only be “storytold” with so much clarity and rigor…

What will be the impact on our current processes or organizational structures and how will it eventually increase value for the patient?…

There are so many ways in which resources and products can be used more consciously. But it’s not only consumers who should take responsibility. Manufacturers…

The competencies and drives of each employee do constitute an important element in an organization’s success. Each organization is only as good as the people…

If you want to optimize the occupation of your outpatient clinic and reduce the patient waiting times, then it is important to have insight into…

So far, the formation of the hospital networks has proved to be a difficult and delicate equilibrium exercise. We have already come a long way,…

The length of stay can give insights needed to grow patient volume, and allow for a more predictable staffing and efficient scheduling.

We see businesses all around us putting a lot of effort in becoming customer centric. However, in all these transformation programs, one major key to…

Engaged employees direct their energy towards the right tasks and outcomes, driving customer advocacy. But when it comes to engagement, other aspects matter even more.

Customer expectations are rising at an exponential rate. They are adopting new technologies and tools faster than ever, expecting a certain level of convenience and…

When support is amazing, it has a value to the organization that is hard to quantify. Think of those companies that are consistently rated as…

The healthcare sector is incredibly diverse, with a wide spectrum of issues, challenges and opportunities. So, what exactly should we look out for?…

The legend goes that Eskimo have up to 100 different words for snow. We do not need 100 different words for inventory. But how can we…

An integrated EHR is essential to keep up the quality level of our work, to keep anticipating the expectations of both patients and care providers…

Stop searching for the missing ingredient for Enterprise Excellence. The missing ingredient has already been found in studies by the Shingo Institute among others.

Many organizations have been investing a lot in customer experience during the past year to better serve today’s and tomorrow’s customers. Taking your customers as…

The term omnichannel is all around us. For Gino Van Ossel, Marketing Professor at Vlerick Business School, it is seen as the only way to…

Omnichannel best practices succeed in offering one seamless experience for customers. In many cases, both digital and physical channels are in place to offer the…

It’s been 14 years since the Net Promotor Score appeared in a scientific article as 'The One Number You Need to Grow'. Nevertheless, the Customer Effort…

Results from the Digital Transformation Institute at Capgemini highlight several factors that point to a mismatch between changing customer expectations and the current physical retail…

Seeing the potential to grow, but missing the opportunity due to too little preparation too late. That is the risk a lot of businesses are…

Supply Chain Management finally takes over from Manufacturing! Being in supply chain management positions in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry for over 15 years, I’ve…

The reform of the sector covering primary healthcare and welfare is a highly participative project: six project teams have been involved, each with around 40…

Last weekend, during a dinner with long-term friends, the discussion shifted to work. The topic suddenly then narrowed to the value of organisations and what…

Predictive maintenance is one of the most obvious applications of big data and analytics in an industrial environment. The reason seems obvious. Manufacturing companies capture…

Disruptive innovations, by definition, create new markets and value networks. Eventually they disrupt the existing markets and value networks, displacing established industry leaders and alliances.

An exceptional customer experience is more than the sum of its parts: you need to orchestrate and architect every interaction, across all channels to create…

It is suspected that over 90% of disruptive innovations are the result of serendipity, and not of predictability and justifiable research.  …

After more than 15 years working with companies to improve their supply chains, I couldn't help wondering how the newly learnt Shingo principles could help…

Asking someone if they’ve heard of Big Data in 2016 is like asking someone whether they have a smartphone. The difference is that only a…

Have you – while working in your current or former company – ever noticed an opportunity to improve the way work is organised? Or perhaps…

If a suboptimal situation is known, why do companies wait for a strategic distribution network exercise to improve it? And more fundamental: does this mean…

To what extent does good management of the hospital’s capacity really vary from the good management of a contact center?…

For a long time, I found flow to be a rather abstract principle. Now that I am training for a marathon and participate quite regularly…

We digital consumers are more demanding when it comes to the purchasing process and it is not easy to respond to this change as a…

It happened. On June 23rd the “Leave” camp won the referendum. I decided to take some time away from our management consultancy to reflect on how…

The integrated care model of Kaiser Permanente, an American consortium in the healthcare sector, is often cited as a leading example in the preparation for…

An overload of cooking programs and a recent story of my colleague about an operational excellence exposition brought my imagination into a culinary highlight. Doesn't…

During the closing seminar of the Tech Startup Day 2016 Alexander De Croo emphasised that we need to invest to become a forerunner in Europe…

Digital transformation is not a technology issue, but is primarily about reformulating your organizational model customized to the (digital) customer and the customer of tomorrow!…

According to a study we are exposed to 5000 pieces of promotional materials every day! In other words, it is not simple for a company to…

It is all very well having nice tools; however, it is the behavior of the leaders and the employees that will determine the final results.

Of chess grandmasters it is said that they are able to plan up to 20 moves ahead in the game. That gives them a powerful…

Focus on identifying opportunities for improvement in terms of occupation.

Alphonse Chapanis proved that a poor cockpit design could cause piloting errors. Wouldn’t this also be the case in the business world, where a poorly…

The Gemba Walk during the Colruyt Group visit showed that their approach is successful. Work simplification is an intricate part of the organization.

Two weeks ago, while attending the European Shingo Summit in Cork, a similar title of a healthcare presentation caught my eye. It must be a…

We cannot deny the existence of two of the technologies discussed in this post: companies must take into account the rise of “Big Data” and…

The biggest challenge is not the lack of ideas, but rather the fact that ideas do not make it to the desk of the right…

For the first time in human history, we are being simultaneously inundated with various disruptive technologies. You read everywhere that the impact on the healthcare…

In the list of effective ways to destroy a well performing supply chain, increasing complexity might well be on the number one position. Highly underestimated,…

A tin of tomatoes that has travelled the world is cheaper in the shop than one produced locally, round the corner. This statement is horribly…

You make progress by taking one step at a time, by achieving small successes repeatedly, by trying, failing and trying again until you succeed. You…

It is every passionate employee’s challenge to find a balance between the various facets of life. Between work and home, between family and leisure, between…

Gain insight in the satisfaction scores of your customers with mystery shopping and Hello Customer.

“Don’t go to the supermarket when you’re hungry!” – this is a well-known, popular saying. I have no doubt it’s a good tip, but even…

Over the last few years Operational Excellence has become all the rage. Process optimization, continuous improvement, lean,… these are now all concepts that are known…