subject: Improving business processes [print this page] Every organisation will, over time, develop a system of established processes that will become almost conventional to their business. These methods will likely be developed as a company expands and may well be sufficient to accomplish their task - but the chances are those processes won't be as efficient as they could possibly be.
That's why frequently, companies looking to maximise return from their efforts will undertake a business process analysis to see how they can optimise their underlying processes. Often referred to as the discipline of business process improvement, these techniques identify an organisation's core strategic goals and products/services, the customers and stakeholders it is accountable to and takes step to align businesses processes with these factors.
Business process analysis is commonly done on a large scale, across all of an organisation's internal and external processes. This is because the aim is generally to create a radical improvement in an organisation's performance by making sweeping changes that will strip inefficiency from the main body as a whole, rather than creating the possibility of redundant and duplicate procedures emerging as each process is optimised individually.
Any organisation can benefit from this internal inspection of the minutiae of its day to day business and how this contributes to its long term strategy. Whilst private, for-profit enterprise has a competitive mandate to be as efficient as possible within the marketplace in order to lower costs and maximise profit against rival companies, the same techniques can be used for any ongoing concern; a public body, a government department, or a non-profit charitable organisation.
There are four key considerations in any such initiative, informed by a proper business process analysis.
First, identifying the organisations core business goals is a vital step in providing the key direction for the overall initiative. Every process in place at a company should contribute something towards these goals, even if indirectly.
Secondly, the customer focus should be identified and included in any significant exercise of process improvement. This may overlap with business goals but the "voice of the customer" should be separately identified and factored in when reviewing or redesigning any process; without customer satisfaction, the core strategies will likely be meaningless.
Thirdly, an organisation must decide upon what measurable results are available to benchmark their process improvements. These could be internally sourced against previous performance; external benchmarks measuring performance against competing organisations or independent organisations; or dictated by senior management in a more aspirational approach.
Finally, the owners of each process should be identified. To be effectively controlled rather than mere convention, there should be clarity within an organisation on who is responsible for each process as well as what constitutes the success or failure of each process. In this fashion, improvements can be carried out pro-actively and success/failure levels can be established for each step of improvement.
Improving business processes
By: Stella
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