Introduction

Globalisation and an ever-changing business environment requires organisations to be flexible, adaptive to changes while delivering consistent performance and growth. The way organisations can meet this challenge is if they adopt an integrated process driven, technology enabled model of operations.

A process driven model views processes from an end to end perspective that cuts across functional units, integrates with its vendors/suppliers to respond faster and more numbly to customer demands and market forces. A process driven organisation has the ability to remain agile even when experiencing high growth, high competition or economic downturn.

Process/ IT Maturity Scale

The process/IT maturity model provides a barometer for organisation to see at what level they are on the maturity scale. Studies indicate that most Indian SMEs operate at level 1 or level 2 of the process maturity scale.

Process Management – Pathway to Optimal Oganisation

Business Process Management (BPM) has many definitions. Karmine Consulting defines BPM as a process and technology integration that enables continuous improvement, measurement and monitoring of processes from end-to-end perspective. BPM has elements of control, quality and consistency.

Adopting BPM offers many advantages such us lower costs, improved customer satisfaction, efficiency gains, and competitive advantage. These values become more pronounced the further the company can progress up the process maturity scale. However it is easy to theorise, from practice point of view, it takes strong commitment and leadership from the management to adopt process driven approach.

BPM-Lifecycle

BPM life-cycle constitutes of the following stages:

Stage 1 – Process assessment and analysis: Leading practitioners of the area have proposed many frameworks and approaches for assessing and analysing processes. One of the frameworks adopted by us supports second generation approach to the process improvement and re-design, called Supply Chain Operation Reference (SCOR). According to the framework, process analysis and design are conducted by defining levels. Level 1, defines the key or basic process, which are general in nature, for example, plan, source, make, deliver and return. Level 2, describes the variation of level 1 process, for example, return process can be 'return of defective products' or 'return of excessive product'. Level 3, describes the sub-processes under level 1 process. The key point to note here is that process analysis is not done in isolation. One need to assess people (skills) and technology requirements along with process assessment.

Stage 2 – Process Design: In this phase, processes are re-defined, improved or retired. Measurement metrics are set, for example, response time, lead time, cycle time to enable process monitoring.

Stage 3 – Process Validation: In this phase, re-defined processes are validated by key owners of the processes. At this point, controls and checks are introduced to ensure quality, consistency and adherence to compliances.

Stage 4 – Process Execution: In this phase, new or re-defined processes are implemented using appropriate technology. This step requires strong change management and leadership commitments. Communication and training are the key aspects of this phase.

Stage 5 – Process monitoring: In this phase, process are monitored against set metrics, controls and performance indicators. Key reports ( both real time or near real time) are generated and reviewed on a regular basis.

Finally, if any process is not performing as per the desired results, the life-cycle process starts again. With many BPM tools now available in the market, the life-cycle process of continuous process monitoring and improvement is becoming less complex, time consuming and costly.