A business process is a collection of activities / tasks that employs a certain amount of manpower and raw material resources in order to produce a desired outcome.
Every task / activity that is undertaken in an organisation is part of a bigger process that delivers a certain outcome. Such, activities span across organisational boundaries.
Activities change over time, and such changes can be fragmented. Bureaucracies evolve within the business, as different departments within the organisation try to improve the activities performed with more control checkpoints. Such improvements when not taken holistically across the organisation can cause another part of the process to falter. This tends to slow down the whole process and the delivery of the desired outcome. The organisational machinery grinds slower and slower trying to rectify these problems. Politics abound to circumvent the process.
What we need is an integrated holistic view of the processes in the organisation. Companies should periodically review the effectiveness of the processes and assess their fit to the current business strategy of the organisation. This would identify relevance of the process, and whether an update is necessary.
How do we do this ?
First, starting on the review would involve interviewing a cross functional group of staff involved with the identified process.
Process mapping is then conducted with documentation of the objectives and outcomes of such processes.
Senior management involvement is key once the processes are mapped and documented.
Some questions that need to be answered are “Is the process suitable and required for the business today?”, “ Does it have organisational fit to the current business strategy? ” and “Does the process continue to give us competitive advantage?”.
All this assumes that the business strategy is suited to the current environment that the organisation is operating in.
For more information on how Addworth Solutions can help us, contact us.
How can Addworth Solutions help you?
review your current processes across your organisation
