Evolving to Value Stream Management
Broadcom Vendor Case Study: How ValueOps Value Stream Management Helped Unum’s Leadership Make Confident Decisions
About Unum
Unum Group is the leading disability insurer in both the United States and the United Kingdom, offering accident, critical illness and life insurance.
The company protects around 39 million people worldwide, with 182,000 UK and US businesses offering benefits provided by Unum. Headquartered in Tennessee, Unum employs around 10,700 people.
The Challenges
- Implementing ValueOps Value Stream Management without disrupting the business or alienating employees already comfortable with existing mechanical systems and processes.
- Making the concept of “value streams” accessible to staff, rather than another layer of jargon.
- Balancing strong existing process and systems maturity against the cultural and people-focused change the shift required.
The Solution
Unum made value streams accessible by stripping out jargon and helping staff see that value streams already existed within their day-to-day work.
Using customer experience as the starting point, tracking what actually happens when someone presents their insurance card in an emergency room, the team documented the full delivery process on large paper rolls printed with screenshots of every screen interaction.
That visual approach made it possible to spot duplication and inefficiency and build shared understanding across teams, supported by ValueOps VSM dashboards for ongoing data tracking and trend management.
Business Outcomes
- Faster, better-informed decision-making across the business, giving leadership more confidence in the choices being made.
- Stronger alignment and communication between teams, reducing the ambiguity that slows large organisations down.
- Change delivered with minimal disruption to a business serving 39 million people worldwide, through small, incremental improvements rather than disruptive, large-scale initiatives.
- A clearer, shared understanding across teams of how their work delivers value directly to customers.
Read the Broadcom Vendor Case Study about Unum’s Success
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