Business process management (BPM) has brought about a dramatic improvement in the efficiency with which business processes are managed, by providing a more strategic, holistic overview of business process automation across the enterprise.
An interesting aspect of BPM, however, is that these same business processes are comprised of numerous very similar sub-procedures, which, with minor adjustments, may effectively be deployed elsewhere - contributing further to overall efficiency within the organisation.
The practice of re-using stable, repeatable sub-procedures within an organisation`s workflow system is essentially a two-pronged approach.
Mark Ehmke, MD, Staffware SA
Having said that, the practice of re-using stable, repeatable sub-procedures within an organisation`s workflow system is essentially a two-pronged approach.
On one hand, you have workflow components which may be re-usable, and on the other, re-usable processes.
It is important to recognise the difference in these two elements, and the different routes that the organisation can take with each one.
Workflow component
First, let us examine the re-usable workflow component element:
Typically, functions such as credit risk assessment, personal or salary details, used across multiple business units in the organisation, are good examples of what may be termed `functional business objects` in workflow terminology.
In other words, these so-called `functional business objects` are the stable, repeatable and therefore re-usable component aspect of enterprise workflow, which may accordingly be utilised in a great many different business procedures throughout the organisation.
The other aspect to the concept and practice of re-usable sub-procedures is that of re-usable processes.
These are usually found in a vertical industry scenario, where different organisations are utilising many almost identical processes, which may be termed `generic`, or indeed, `re-usable processes`.
These generic or re-usable processes provide the basis for the growing practice of business process outsourcing (BPO), where external service providers or outsourcers set up processing centres using these generic processes, in which they process peripheral work on behalf of their clients, who prefer to concentrate on their core business activities.
In this case, companies usually negotiate strict service level agreements with the third-party BPO service provider, in order to ensure that the business processes or sub-processes being handled on their behalf are handled in a timely and efficient manner. The reasoning here is that, irrespective of who is involved in processing the data, the accountability for the process remains with the company.
Because of this, BPO providers are under ever-increasing pressure to improve the efficiency of the processing service that they provide, which effectively puts the spotlight on the re-usable processes themselves.
This in turn creates an entrepreneurial opportunity to develop common process frameworks or templates, such as the Tele-Management Framework, which is a set of common business process automation or workflow templates, developed by the TeleManagement Forum, an international group of the major telecommunications companies (including Telkom), which are based on universal `best practice`, re-usable processes.
In conclusion, the improvement in business process efficiencies brought about by re-using both workflow components, and common or generic processes, is clear. Re-usable components provide a significant route to saving time and money in terms of internal procedures; while the ability to outsource re-usable processes to BPO service providers also frees the organisation up to concentrate on core, revenue-producing activities instead.
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