It’s time to make some changes
It’s not hard to see that the processes are no longer generating profit. Frequent missed delivery deadlines, breaches of commitments to partners and customers, and managers being overburdened—in all likelihood, all of this is due to “poor” processes. Sooner or later, internal difficulties become apparent externally: customer loyalty declines, and the company’s market image suffers.
When managing a company requires new approaches and tools, the topic of process optimization comes up.
It might seem that optimization should cover all of a company’s operations. However, documenting all processes is a massive undertaking that will take a lot of time, even just to draft the initial diagrams. Documenting the processes of a large company (with more than 500 office employees) can take six months or longer. By that time, the processes will have already changed. First and foremost, you should model the key processes that impact the company’s core operations (profit), and only then decide whether changes are needed in other processes.
First and foremost, you should model and optimize the key processes that impact the company’s core business (profit).
Stages of Process Management
Description, or modeling, is just one of the stages of process management. A well-designed process diagram serves as the foundation for effective execution. During the execution stage, company employees become involved, and it is then possible to assess the accuracy of the process and collect data for further analysis. During the analysis stage, bottlenecks and areas for improvement are identified.
Company policies change frequently, and managing changes in business processes is an ongoing task. Therefore, the focus lately has shifted from simply describing processes to the ability to quickly modify them and rapidly roll out new models without system downtime.
We’ve entered the era of digitalization, so documenting processes on paper is no longer effective (except perhaps for sketching out a preliminary process model during discussions). It’s much more convenient to use specialized information systems that provide modeling tools. And it’s even more important to entrust the system with managing process execution and analyzing it.
Still, it’s worth noting that it often takes much longer to figure out how to change a process without breaking anything than it does to configure it in the system. Therefore, the speed of implementing changes depends more on the business’s willingness to change than on the system’s capabilities.
Business Processes and Classes of IT Systems
Having examined the stages of process management, we can analyse the capabilities of several classes of systems:
- Business modelling systems, as the name suggests, are designed for top-down business modelling: from strategic goals, organisational structure, and KPIs to detailed processes, including the generation of instructions and regulations.
- BPM systems are designed for process management. As a rule, they provide notation-based modelling tools, process execution capabilities, and analytical instruments.
- ECM systems also implement the BPM concept. Workflow management is one of the key components of ECM. Gartner even proposed replacing the term ECM with Content Services, predicting that “by 2020, content services applications would replace traditional ECM systems in 25% of large enterprises.” New requirements are being imposed on content management systems. In particular, they must be quick to deploy and easy to update, standardise disparate incoming information flows, and connect them directly to core business processes.
- ERP systems also support processes, although in a distinctive way. System objects are created sequentially, linked to one another, and moved through different statuses as a document is processed. In BPM and ECM systems, a user performs a specific task at a particular stage of a process. In an ERP system, the user searches the register for a document or object with the required status and then processes it.
- Specialised systems for individual business processes, such as CRM and HR systems, cover all stages of process management only when integrated with other solutions. On their own, they are designed to address specific, narrowly focused operational tasks.
- BI (Business Intelligence) systems can perform more in-depth data analysis and identify complex patterns. To do this, they only need process performance indicators imported from other systems.
Taken together, only two classes of systems—ECM and BPM systems—support all stages of process management.
Let’s take a closer look at the stages: Modeling (process description, configuration in the execution system), Execution, Monitoring and Analysis, and the issues that arise in each of them.
How can I describe the process so that both the analyst and the business client can understand it?
As a rule, processes are described using notations. Among analysts, the most popular ones today are: IDEF0, EPC, and BPMN:
- IDEF0 is used for modeling high-level business processes. It is well-suited for illustrating the structure of an organization’s processes and their interrelationships;
- The EPC notation is used to describe lower-level processes; that is, it can be applied to model individual company processes. A process begins with a specific event—such as receiving a document or submitting an application. The process flows from top to bottom and includes both actors and event blocks;
- BPMN is arguably the most widely used notation, and it is also designed to represent a specific process. It features separate paths for process participants, making it easy to see how the process moves from one actor to another.
Full support for multiple notations is available only in business modeling systems. However, during the modeling phase, the main goal is to create a “readable” business process so that its logic is completely clear. It is entirely acceptable for a system not to support a widely accepted notation, as long as it allows you to map out a fully readable process.
Analysts must not only depict the process but also align it with the business client. On implementation projects, we have often encountered situations where notations and diagrams are familiar and understandable mainly to analysts and developers. To align the process with the business client and managers, simpler and more visual tools and formats are often used: simplified diagrams with “stick figures,” presentations, and Excel spreadsheets (for example, for an alignment matrix). Any convenient tool is suitable for drawing and aligning diagrams, as long as it is understandable and user-friendly for the participants.
Is it possible to configure the process without programming?
In BPM and ECM systems, the main task is to set up the process to be executed. When a process is complex in and of itself, modeling and subsequently configuring it is no easy task. However, many BPM system developers claim that everything can be implemented without programming. Is this true?
As our experience with completed projects shows, modeling and configuring workflows without programming—that is, using only the capabilities of a business analyst—is possible when dealing with simple processes, such as those involving a small number of participants. Complex or end-to-end processes that span multiple systems are implemented through programming, as it is necessary to calculate the dynamic roles of participants or develop integrations with other enterprise systems.
Moreover, in some cases, writing a few lines of code is easier than figuring out the numerous combinations of notation blocks and the relationships between them in the system. Most analysts have the skills to write simple code to define process rules. Alternatively, a developer might program certain standard blocks (such as role calculations or integration with other systems), and the analyst then “assembles” ready-made processes from these blocks.
It’s difficult to do without programming entirely, so when choosing a system, you need to evaluate the ease of process configuration not only in terms of visual tools but also in terms of the development language: how understandable and easy it is to learn.
Modeling and configuration without programming are possible when it comes to simple processes.
Implementation and substance of the process. Where should you start—with the content or with the process?
Every process involves some form of content: documents, records, or certain forms. A process may begin with the creation of a document (sending an invoice for payment, approving a contract), or it may be the other way around—where the content is generated during the course of the process (issuing a personal income tax certificate).
The example of issuing a personal income tax certificate is also interesting because the process is end-to-end and spans multiple systems: the document is generated in one system (the payroll system), while the process itself is executed in another (ECM or BPM). In other words, system integration is required for the process to run; otherwise, the user will have to work with multiple solutions. This approach is viable, but only if the actions are one-time.
Process and content are inseparable, so the system must provide tools for working comfortably with both the process and the content: convenient management of the electronic document archive, creation of folders, cases, and document bundles, logical forms for entering parameters, automatic generation of certain objects, built-in document workflows, and more.
It’s also important to remember that not all employee actions take place within the framework of processes. It must be possible to access content (a document, a request) outside of these processes as well. For example, to locate a document that was created during a process.
Process Monitoring and Analysis. What capabilities do these systems offer?
Information about the actual progress of a process can only be obtained from systems with a built-in workflow mechanism, where each step of the process is a separate task for a user or the system (if the step is performed automatically), complete with a deadline and other characteristics. This makes it possible to identify “bottlenecks” or unnecessary participants and, based on this, make decisions about changes to be implemented.
The results of the analysis can be presented in the form of reports or widgets. Below are examples of reports for process analysis: they make it easy to determine which tasks take the most time and which are most often completed past their deadlines. These are all high-level analysis tools; as a rule, modern systems allow you to “drill down” from each metric to a more detailed report.
Some systems monitor processes in standalone mode, and if any discrepancies arise—for example, if a document from a counterparty has not been returned by the specified deadline—a notification is sent to the person in charge.
So which should you choose: BPM or ECM?
As noted above, process and content are inseparable, so the line between the capabilities of ECM and BPM systems is very fine. Vendors strive to provide customers with a comprehensive solution for process execution and content management, tailored to specific business tasks: contract management, administrative processes, financial archive automation, or project document workflow.
As shown in the table, both classes cover all stages of process management. The BPM system offers more advanced modeling tools, while the ECM system provides more features for convenient content management. When selecting a system, companies should evaluate the functionality of each specific solution, since even systems classified within the same class can have very different capabilities.
Let's return to the goals of choosing a system
But before making a final decision, you need to consider the specific tasks the system will be used for and who it is intended for:
- for analysts who analyze or model processes
- for a large number of users working within a process
- for solving specific business tasks (contract management, sales, etc.)
If the goal is to ensure the correct and efficient execution of processes, then the focus should not be on graphical editors or notation support; rather, it is important to provide users with a convenient user experience, a simple and intuitive interface, and advanced analytics tools.
The classic criteria for selecting an information system, which are always relevant:
- the alignment of the core functionality with the customer’s needs and the ability to adapt the system to the company’s requirements;
- the system’s scalability and advanced integration mechanisms, since the system must integrate seamlessly into the company’s overall IT infrastructure;
- well-developed implementation technology and options for ongoing support and maintenance;
- the cost of software and services.
Thus, the system is selected based on business objectives and the allocated budget.
Skiing or snowboarding—ECM or BPM—everyone chooses what suits them best; the main thing is to keep moving forward and conquer new peaks.
Source: ECM-Journal
