Process Innovation: Case Studies of Critical Success Factors

Abstract In any organization, maintaining a competitive advantage is critical to success. In a service organization, process innovation is a key component in developing and maintaining competitive advantage. We studied 10 process innovation projects to determine which success factors are most important to a service organization when innovating new processes. Our sample projects were gathered from five separate service organizations: three within a telecommunications service company, one in a telecommunications equipment company, and one in a health insurance and finance management company. Two projects in each of the five organizations were studied, one successful and one unsuccessful. A key team member from each project completed a process innovation questionnaire developed by Gary Lynn and was subsequently interviewed. The responses were tabulated, and correlation across projects was noted. We identified critical success factors that were common among the successful projects and generally lacking in the unsuccessful ones. Four main themes—vision, teaming, project constraints, and information storage and processing—were most prevalent. Each theme comprises several critical success factors that provided support to overall success.