Business Transformation: How Process-Oriented Vision Revolutionizes Business

Business Transformation: How Process-Oriented Vision Revolutionizes Business

7/12/2024

Introduction

Imagine an orchestra where each musician, although talented, plays independently without considering the ensemble. The result is chaotic. Now, visualize the same orchestra, but this time with a conductor guiding each note, ensuring all instruments work in harmony to create a perfect symphony. This is the essence of a process-oriented vision in the business world.

What is a Process-Oriented Vision?

A process-oriented vision is an end-to-end view of all the work performed in the company to deliver products and services that add value to stakeholders. Instead of focusing on the organizational chart or isolated departments, this vision focuses on processes that traverse various functions within the organization until they reach the customer. This reduces the mentality of organizational silos and brings a more comprehensive view of the organization, positioning the organizational structure as a support mechanism for processes.

A process-oriented vision significantly improves organizational efficiency and effectiveness. This approach allows companies to better align their resources, people, and technologies with their strategic objectives.

What is the Relationship Between a Process-Oriented Vision and BPM?

The process-oriented vision is the main premise of Business Process Management, or BPM. BPM is a management discipline that aligns the value chain processes with organizational strategy, improving company performance and the ability to adapt to changes in the business environment. It is a strategic capability that supports the achievement of the organization’s mission, vision, and long-term objectives through a systemic approach that transforms fragmented operations into a set of manageable and efficient processes.

The term Business Process Management (BPM) is often confused with BPM software or process automation. It is important to know that BPM is a discipline, just like project management. While projects have a beginning, middle, and end, processes are continuous cycles and thus involve essential concepts, methodologies, tools, and artifacts for their management.

BPM involves both “management by processes” (focusing on how processes support organizational strategy) and “management of processes” (focusing on the operational management of individual processes). Although these terms are often used interchangeably, they have distinct and complementary meanings.

Management by Processes

Management by processes organizes the tactical level, orchestrating organizational components around strategy. It supports and enhances other elements, acting as a link between existing management models or governance mechanisms. It promotes an integrated view of the business, where all elements work together to optimize value delivery and bring effectiveness to the organization. Process orientation promotes more effective decisions and actions, increasing performance and the maturity of management practices.

Management by processes manages the company’s process portfolio and establishes governance mechanisms for the model. To do this, it demands a representation of key processes and how they interrelate to support organizational strategy, materialized in instruments such as the Value Chain and Process Architecture. Process Architecture helps prioritize and manage critical business processes, bridging management by processes and management of processes. It can be broken down into several layers of detail, using instruments such as maps, diagrams, and technical notations to represent the most detailed levels of processes.

Management of Processes

Management of processes organizes the operational level of the business and involves the management cycle of one or more processes. It is the most well-known and applied approach in companies, with specific initiatives for mapping, improving, or transforming processes. It involves a cycle of identifying, designing, automating, executing, documenting, measuring, monitoring, and controlling business processes to improve efficiency and contribute to the organization’s goals. It uses various philosophies, techniques, and tools to promote operational efficiency (e.g., Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, etc.) and seeks continuous improvement through mechanisms such as indicator monitoring, compliance evaluation, among others.

Integration of Concepts

Considering the previous analogy of an orchestra, BPM encompasses both “musician management” and “orchestra management,” with distinct yet complementary perspectives. While “musician management” involves developing engagement, teamwork, competence, and training to play their instrument, sound quality, and instrument quality, “orchestra management” involves reputation, schedule, events, resources, and audience satisfaction. Process management without management by processes does not sustain itself in the medium and long term. It is essential that both are integrated to achieve lasting and significant results.

Furthermore, by integrating process architecture with enterprise architecture, in which processes act as a “link” or “glue,” a comprehensive vision is created to organize operations and support strategic and sustainable decision-making. By implementing this model appropriately and integratively, significant gains are generated for the organization, its customers, and stakeholders.

Benefits of a Process-Oriented Vision

Adopting a process-oriented vision brings several benefits to companies, such as:

  1. Operational Efficiency: Better integration and coordination between departments, reducing redundancies and increasing productivity and efficiency.
  2. Higher Quality: Well-managed processes result in higher quality products and services.
  3. Flexibility and Agility: Process-oriented companies can respond more quickly to market changes.
  4. Customer Satisfaction: Better value delivery results in greater customer satisfaction and loyalty.
  5. Innovation and Digital Transformation: Continuous improvement and process optimization promote constant innovation and enable the digital transformation strategy.
  6. Increased Performance: Integration of organizational elements and connection with strategy impacts comprehensive results, increasing profits, revenue, and margin, and bringing competitive advantage.

Conclusion

Despite so many benefits, many companies do not know how to properly implement or sustain business process management. Some companies believe they are doing process management by mapping hundreds of them and generating a lot of documentation, which quickly becomes obsolete, or by acquiring robust BPM software and automating processes. Others label the subject after some failed attempts and fail to make it strategic in their organization.

Any specific process initiative generates gains; however, the greatest value lies in maintaining the model’s sustainability and integration with other organizational components. One of the recurring implementation strategies is to seize opportunities and embark on corporate movements such as certifications, ERP changes, alignment with GPDL, and connect top-down BPM initiatives to give visibility and raise awareness for value generation.

We invite you to explore how My Menthor can support your organization in implementing BPM. To learn more, visit our website and contact us at www.mymenthor.com. Follow us on social media for updates and access to more relevant content on our blog.

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