Creato: Combining Quality with Sustainable Improvement Capability

As companies struggle to remain competitive, it is inevitable that they take a look at their operations internally to see what can be done to produce products and services better, faster and cheaper. Common investments include training and technology. However it is typical that these investments produce only short-term benefits, and management often bemoans the fact any improvements they make are short-lived. This is because these organizations deal with superficial aspects of the pain point rather than understanding the root cause of the problem. “Businesses need to go beyond technology to sustain improvement as no amount of technology will fix a broken process,” says Ian R. Lazarus, President and CEO of Creato Performance Solutions. Creato effectively addresses this challenge by providing training to leaders to create an environment for improvement while deploying technology infrastructure to sustain the changes. “We are not a company that just sells technology or consulting, we have a broad portfolio to provide clients with what we call ‘sustainable improvement capability,’” says Lazarus.

Two decades back, Creato started out to serve the quality management needs of the healthcare industry. Lazarus recalls Peter Drucker’s statement describing healthcare as “the most complex organization ever devised by man,” and if Creato could transform such an intricate space, today, the company is poised to serve the needs of a much broader segment of the industry.

As the foremost step, Creato identifies the stage at which the clients are in their change management journey. If an organization is far along their journey and all they need is technology infrastructure, then the company offers its easily customizable quality management system—COMPASS^®. With its award-winning idea management module, COMPASS captures both the perception and the reality around the value of an idea. While the perception of the improvement opportunity having greatest support is gathered from the workforce, the reality is measured based on the impact of the idea on various criteria like improved quality vs reduced costs. Here the ideas convert to projects that will subsequently leverage COMPASS’ project management features and enable organizations to gain visibility around all the improvement work being done.

On the other hand, if a client is charting its path towards improvement to become organizationally competent, Creato offers training in emotionally intelligent leadership.