Justin Beaudin, COO, Deluxe

1. In light of your experience, what are the trends and challenges you’ve witnessed happening with respect to the business process management space?

The development of new technology has created an enormous amount of options to choose from. For operators, the key is to assess these innovative opportunities and strategically determine the applicability of the technology to existing workflows so that they complement the work and create efficiencies without adding the burden of having to incorporate complex changes. At Deluxe, we’re incorporating our cloud-based platform, Deluxe One, across every single service line to increase scalability, transparency and quality. Changes like this are allowing companies like Deluxe to shift from manually processing work to providing automated and virtualized services with the flexibility to meet the unique needs of customers.

In business processes, everything is broken down into numbers. Accurate and clear metrics are particularly important, for both internal and external purposes

Personally, I look to ensure that new partners intimately understand the specifics of how their offerings address a need within our broader system of creating, transforming and delivering global content. I ask myself if that partnership will make our workflows faster and more efficient, or if it will address an issue and predict challenges.

3. What are some of the points of discussion that go on in your leadership team? What are the strategic points that you follow to steer the company forward?

Continuing to elevate the business and move the industry forward is a priority for our team – at our core, we’re all not only passionate about Deluxe, but the media and entertainment industry. We’re all united by our passion for what we do, which is what gives us the momentum to stay atop of industry changes. As a team, we pride ourselves on taking our roles seriously, but also staying grounded with ourselves and expectations. Additionally, we are goal oriented, using metrics to benchmark our progress and movement with customer work and internal initiatives. By creating a roadmap for success and honing in on metrics, we’re able to identify roadblocks early and overcome them quickly.

4. How do you see the evolution of the business process management arena a few years from now with regard to some of its potential disruptions and transformations?

As new technology continues to transform more and more of our business processes, and options in the industry continue to expand, I expect to see companies investing more heavily in cloud-based tools that automate workflows and create efficiencies across systems.

2. Could you talk about your approach to identifying the right partnership providers from the lot?

It is critical to seek out and establish partnerships with companies that share the same overall vision for the industry and are building systems that align strategically in terms of preparing for the future. The strongest partnerships complement and elevate your workflows and challenge you to continue to strengthen and re-evaluate existing systems. These new systems and capabilities will lead to faster turnaround times, more transparency across the entire supply chain and increased levels of customization. With that comes the ability to easily scale up or down on demand while minimizing errors because this new technology includes the tools to predict and address any workflow issues that arise.

5. What would be the single piece of advice that you could impart to a fellow or aspiring professional in your field, looking to embark on a similar venture or professional journey along the lines of your service and area of expertise?

To be successful in this field you have to be passionate about the work. Our industry is demanding and is constantly evolving. If you are not passionate enough to anticipate and prepare for the changes of the industry, you’ll never get ahead. The other necessary component or skill is identifying and setting clear metrics. In business processes, everything is broken down into numbers. Accurate and clear metrics are particularly important, for both internal and external purposes. Once you have set metrics, leaders must take a deep dive into their meaning, internalizing where breakdowns are happening and using that to fuel solutions. The best operations teams and leaders are driven by metrics, as these numbers provide insight to your company – think about where the breakdown is happening and what can be altered to alleviate the issue.