Starting the BPM Implementation: Best Practices in Business Process Management

Business process management (BPM) is used for managing and optimizing the efficiency of a business. Though there are myriad benefits to BPM implementation, improper deployment can jeopardize the overall success of your business critical objectives. This article will help ensure the success of BPM implementation while mitigating the possibility of any potential risks.

Discern how your business operates

When implementing BPM in your organization, one should establish a starting point. You can use business emails, phone calls or chats to extract relevant information about how your business operates. After you have established these benchmarks, you can evaluate and develop a workflow model that you wish to implement in your organization.

Prepare a Roadmap

BPM can do a lot for your business. It can help improve decision making by providing more timely and accurate information. Moreover, it can greatly reduce the pain of labor intensive processes. This will help greatly in prioritizing tasks and requirements. This is an important step that is often overlooked. The roadmap will help highlight the gap between where you are and where you want to achieve.

Think big, act small

It is important to consider that modifying your processes without proper planning could affect your business and operations. While implementing this software, consider starting with a smaller and easily manageable project. When you start with a small yet easily manageable project, you will produce measurable results that should ease the way for wider implementation.

Involve all your stakeholders

There are usually three major stakeholders involved with most BPM deployments. These are business users, IT people and end users. Make sure that you make collaboration between your developers and your end users throughout the deployment process. This will ensure that your BPM application is actually usable and can make the difference.

Choose the tools that best suits your needs

When implementing BPM in your organization, make sure that it answers needs of the business users, IT people and end users. Usually, top level management need to track business processes with a primary focus on quality, scalability, security, visibility, and efficiency. Users want something simple and easy to use software system.

Use professional services when necessary

You are likely to achieve far better results when you contact experts consultants. The main benefit of hiring consultant is the experience they bring. This is especially valuable in the case of software implementation where a minor flaw or miscalculation could create major problems. Using a contractor may cost more upfront, but expertise pays off in the long run.

At last, we will close to a few more pointers to make sure that your mission critical project is successful. Following the steps and guidelines here in this article, you should be able to meet or exceed your goals with BPM.

What is Business Process Modeling

Introduction

Before we can say what business process modeling is we need to know what a Business Process is! This may seem like stating the obvious, this is one of the most widely misused and misunderstood terms in business and in business modeling! Analysts and managers alike often use the term when what they are really talking about is a Business Function or a Business Procedure. No wonder there is confusion!!

Definitions

Business Function: "A coherent, discrete activity that a business must perform in order to meet its business objectives and continue in existence."

Business Process: "Describes the order in which Business Functions need to be carried out in order to achieve a specified objective."

So, in short, Functions describe what a business needs to do in order to continue in existence and Processes describe the order in which this needs to be done.

From this we can also see that it is not possible to do effective Business Modeling before we have modeled the Functions!!

The Building Blocks of a Process

The essential elements are:

• Objective
• Trigger
• Functions
• Precedence
• Outcome

Objective:

Every Business Process must have a clearly defined objective that answers the question "what is this Process meant to achieve?". If the business does not have a clearly defined (written) view of what is meant to achieve then there is very little chance of it achieving it.

It will not be possible to work out what Functions need to be carried out and in what order in order to arrive at the preferred Outcome.

In fact, without having a defined objective, the business might not be able to define what the preferred outcome actually is. This statement might seem simplistic but it is the primary reason why so many Business Processes are inefficient or fail altogether.

Triggers:

These are events that occur that require the business to respond in some manner - they "trigger" a response in the business. Every Process must begin with at least one Trigger.

Outcomes:

Other events occur as the result of activities carried out by the business itself and these are called "Outcomes". In every Process the business gets from the Trigger to the Outcome by carrying out Functions in the correct sequence.

Precedence:

Precedence is not, as many analysts mistakenly believe, a definition of how the steps within a Process are triggered. A more effective definition is to say that it is a very specific way of defining what Functions must have been completed before others can begin.

The succeeding Functions can then begin at any time convenient to the business, in accordance with existing business rules. This definition is especially useful as it makes the business ask the question, "before we begin step X what other steps must have been completed?"

More on Outcomes

There are two types of outcome that can occur in a Business Process: Preferred and Non-preferred.

A Preferred Outcome is the result that the business would like to achieve as the result of successfully carrying out the Process and should correspond to the stated objective.

Every Process must have at least one Preferred Outcome.

A Non-preferred Outcome is a valid and controlled outcome other than the Preferred Outcome.

Suppose that we are taking orders from customers. The Preferred Outcome would be "order authorized" but a Non-preferred Outcome could be "bad credit rating: order declined". A Business Process can have several Non-Preferred Outcomes.

Elementary Business Process

Each step in a Process is a Function, which comes from the Function Catalogue (see the foot of this article for more on this) and ought to be from the bottom level of the Catalogue as it stands at that the moment in time. Ideally, these should be Elementary Business Functions (EBFs). A Process drawn using EBFs is called an Elementary Business Process.

Decomposing Processes

One of the biggest mistakes analysts make when doing Business Process Modeling is to "decompose" (a lovely term!) Processes. This means that they break the Process down into more and more detail.

This is a practice to be avoided AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS as it has two main faults: 1) it requires drawing far more diagrams than are necessary (up to 300% more) 2) it introduces fundamental logic errors.

To avoid these errors all decomposition (somebody will have to think of a nicer word) should be done using the Function Catalogue and each Process model should be drawn using Functions from the bottom level of the Catalogue (preferably EBFs).

Summary

• Business Functions and Business Processes are NOT the same thing.
• A Business Function describes what the business ought to do; a Business Process describes the order in which it ought to do it.
• Business Process Modeling should ALWAYS be preceded by Business Function Modeling
• Processes must always contain all of the defined elements of Objective, Trigger, Outcome, Functions and Precedence.
• The objective of a Process should always be clearly sated in writing before the Process can be properly modeled.
• Business Processes ought NEVER be decomposed - this should be done using the Function Catalogue.

Business Process Management Advantage

Business process management reshapes your business by strengthening the core functionality. We need to develop a mechanism that will help the business owners to track the day to day activities of the company. By effective implementation of business process management gulf between employer and the employee are bridged results in better understanding and high output.

7 point steps highlighting the advantage of business process management

Transparency: Transparency in business process enables the workers to express their problems in front of management. This leads to better understanding and directly impact the growth graph.

Data Centralized: Centralized system plays a great role in the development work. With data centralization, owner can easily access the growth of the company. This helps the management in the adverse condition so that they can take proactive measure.

Operational Cost: Cost of operating the business is very high; we can reduce this by implementing the technique call business management.

Response Times Reduced: Main aim of business management is to reduce the response time, so that effective decision are taken within the sort span of time

Improve Departmental interaction: Departmental interaction is a necessary process. Proper business management will streamline the entire process, so that every member in the department can communicate with other departments

Quality Improves: Quality of the company improves, when every member in the team work efficiently. Proper management techniques will help the owner in extracting the best from the employee.

Reporting: Since the entire system is centralized reporting becomes easier

Above points clearly explain the advantage of business process management. Every business owner should try to implement these techniques; this is going to help them in large number of ways

Work Towards Your Company Goal and Purpose by Documenting Your Business Processes

Business Process Management (BPM) - something for the larger organizations, smaller companies or for everyone?

It is always good to know what your company is doing, why and in what order it should be done. This is not only to be able to enhance performance around everything that is done in the daily work, but also to be able to predict what needs to be done when specific activities turn up, like for example employment of new coworkers.

Business Process Management should be done with a few different focuses.

First you need to identify what is being done in specific situations. To be able to do this the best way, you should identify why you are doing things and what you wish to achieve.

Most organizations have a goal and purpose with the existence of the company. But, often the daily activities are not tied to these goals and purposes.

Let me give you an example:

"Andrew runs a company creating software to enhance security in businesses. He has set the purpose for his company to 'Provide security to small and medium-size businesses in the US' and the goal to 'Be the obvious choice of supplier in 2012 for security software for companies below 300 employees within the US by supplying high quality software with brilliant customer service'.

Andrew has 3 employees in the customer support department and they are working between 8am - 5pm with lunch break between 12.30pm - 1.30pm. His business is located in New York. The employees are answering the calls as quick as they can and always have around 50 cases to work with. At lunch time they get in average 5 calls to the answering machine and in the mornings they have in average 20 calls. They don't have any set up rules, but take care of the issues as soon as they come in. The employees feel stressed all the time since they have a lot of issues to take care of. They also feel that the situation is unbearable since their manager is on to them all the time to keep the list of issues to a minimum. They sometimes get emails from their customers where they ask why they have not received any reply."

This is a very common scenario in companies all over.

If we look a bit closer on this example we can see a couple of obvious things that can be looked at.

1. Andrew has a goal of having a brilliant customer service. He lets the employees have lunch break at the same time and only plans the opening hours for the east coast.

There are 25 people who wants help by leaving a message on the answering machine and probably a lot of people who wishes to have help but don't leave a message.

2. The personnel have a lot of work all the time but don't have guidance in how to do the work. They do the best they can, but still feel stressed all the time and are probably not happy about the work they have achieved.

By identifying the work processes and map them to the company goal and purpose, Andrew will easily get to the conclusion that it would be best to keep a schedule between the employees where one of them is always working during lunch. Probably Andrew will create the schedule the way that the opening hours are until 8pm, meaning he will cover the west coast as well. This will probably reduce the amounts of calls coming on the answering machine 90%, meaning he will have much happier customers.

The Business Processes Maps will also help to identify exactly how the work should be done in the customer support division. This will bring up a lot of more questions, but this way the personnel will be able to identify in what process they feel that they need more help. It will also help them to become more efficient because they know exactly what to do all the time.

Business Process Management is recommended to be performed in conjunction with someone who is not deeply involved in the work done in the company. The reason for this is that questions are asked that are not otherwise considered. This doesn't mean that the support should come from outside the organization, even though this is recommended in most cases, but can come from expertise in other departments.

The main work is done the first time but it is important to understand that it should be gone through regularly to see that the processes are still valid. The frequency depends on how changing that part of the business is, but it is recommended to have revisions at least every 6 months.

Any suitable Business Process Management Software can be used for documentation of the processes and they should be available for all employees affected to be able to follow during the daily work.

Business Process Management Outsourcing

The growth and survival of business in the dynamic environment depends upon the development of new products. Organizations must always be on the lookout for new opportunities and exploit the opportunities by creating new products and services. That's where the role of business process management outsourcing comes in.

Needless to say, new product development holds the key for the survival of an organization. New products do not come about by themselves. They are the result of the ingenuity of creative people in the organization. As such, it is obvious that new product development is the function of organizational creativity. In other words, it depends upon how creative an organization is with new ideas because any organization can only be as creative as its people.

Creativity, in general, may be defined as an "escape from mental struckness". In the organizational context, it may be viewed as new insights that point to better ways of dealing with reality. It involves a departure from conventional thinking to non-conventional thinking. It entails establishment of a relationship between the hitherto unrelated things, ideas or concepts.

Just as individuals differ in their ability to translate their creative talents into results, organizations also differ in their ability to translate the talents of their members into new products, processes or services. When talking about business process management outsourcing, organization members must believe that change will benefit them and the organization. Some resistance to change is found in many organizations for fear of losing position, learning new skills, etc. Such a resistance to change has to be overcome by clarifying the need and urgency for change. The adage that routine drives out the non-routine has to be revised and must be made the other way. Managers in the organization, from top to the down must make it clear in word and deed that they welcome new products and services.

Business Process Outsourcing Needs on the Rise in Outsourcing Market

When we talk about HR business process outsourcing (HR-BPO) it seems strange because at a first view we are linking two different terms: BPO (business process outsourcing) and HR (human resources). Business Process Outsourcing basically refers to a strategy that someone uses in order to outsource an entire business process to a third party company. For instance, we can outsource the building of screws that will later be used by us to create a car. The car manufacturer needs the screws but he gains time if someone else does them and he only mounts them. We are basically using an automatic process that aids us in gaining time and profit.

When talking about HR business process outsourcing we are basically referring to a business strategy that includes the outsourcing of both some processes and human resources functions from a different company. Nowadays we can say that a lot of companies are actually doing this and the results are not to be neglected. We see a constant raise in business and experts agree that efficiency can be increased if we use HR outsourcing at the same time as BPO.

Why is HR Business Process Outsourcing Popular?

In most cases a company will start with business process outsourcing and only after some time it will implement human resources outsourcing. The main reason why this happens is an increase in efficiency. To put it simple, we are outsourcing an entire process and gain time and money. As our business grows we will want to outsource processes even more. In this case we might end up with human resources problems as growth is usually faster than we can picture and we might end up with less human resources than we need. In this case instead of hiring locally we can go towards HR outsourcing that is linked with the business process outsourcing we already did. We are thus assured that work will go on properly.

To make everything more appealing, HR outsourcing is done in a connection with a company that specializes in human resources. We need to deal with specialists. We want to hire professionals to take care of the process we outsourced and to take care of human resources. This immediately increases results and improves working environment. The only real problem that appears is the fact that some companies fail to use the HR outsourcing right. The start of this failure appears when there is no outsourcing strategy built or it is faulty. A little research and an investment to learn how to properly outsource can generate constant increases while reducing risk.