Category Archives: Change

Business Process Management, Process Maturity Model and Implementation

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Introduction

The businesses are required to continuously change and improve to meet their customer needs and to achieve their goals. For any organisation to be able to achieve growth one of the important criteria is to have a solid operational excellence for effective and efficient operations management. For operational excellence and growth, organisations have to have clearly defined ways of working and full visibility of end to end business process value chains. The term end to end means clear visibility of Idea to Market, Market to Order and Order to Cash processes and supporting internal processes for HR, Legal, Finance and IT departments.

On one hand the organisations are under pressure to remain agile and flexible for adapting change while on the other hand for operational excellence it’s important to have a structured way of working and execution to be able to achieve the results with required level of quality. Organisations have to identify business areas that are their unique competitive advantage Vs business areas that are industry best practice standard and can be kept compliant with industry best practice standards.

For achieving the standard and structured business processes and their compliance, a framework and process maturity model is essential. The framework and process maturity model will help in identifying, implementing and continuously improve the organisations business processes.

Overview of Business Process Management

Business process management as the name suggests focuses on end to end activities involved in managing business processes. This starts from business process requirement definition, design, deployment and post deployment monitoring and control followed by continuous improvement.

Although most organisation have business process management done using one or the other method, the challenge is to ensure that its tailored to meet the real needs of the organisation. Starting and implementing business process management initiative requires time, efforts and commitment from all levels of the organisation especially from the management team. These initiatives involves multiple departments and so are executed as business transformation program instead of just one department making steps for business process management. It is also essential that such initiatives are done first time right as failure could lead to high business impact especially in the area of operational excellence.

Business Process Maturity Model

For effective business process management implementation as well as continued monitoring and control post implementation, it’s essential for organisations to use either market standard or own business process maturity model. A business process maturity model allows organisation to check their current maturity level / state of respective business process. This not just help in identifying but also defining improvement actions that would help strengthen the process maturity level. It also helps the organisation in identifying and ear marking the business processes where they need high level of maturity Vs. those where they can live with a slightly lower level of maturity.

Over past decade as more organisations realize the need for effective business process management; many maturity models have come to existence. However, only few are successful and used widely, namely Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and Business Process Management Maturity Model (BPMM).

One of the most widely used models is Capability Maturity Model also known as CMM developed by software engineering institute at Carnegie Mellon University. It came in existence in year 1989 and was shaped as a maturity assessment model in year 1993. During past 15 years it further evolved and become broader and being used in different areas of an organisation from IT to People to Product and Services. This maturity model helps organisation evaluate the business process maturity on 5 levels named as Initial, Managed, Standardized, Predictable and Innovating. The organisation can measure their process maturity against each process area at various levels and decide to take up best practices specified.

The other widely used model is Business Process Management Maturity Model (BPMM) developed by Object Management Group (OMG). It came in existence in year 2007 and is based on Humphrey’s Process Maturity Framework and CMM. This maturity model helps organisation evaluate the business process maturity on 5 levels named as Initial, Repeatable, Defined, Managed and Optimized. The organisation can measure their process maturity by answering the standard questions with evidences for each level of maturity.

After words

Business process management is essential and important for all organisations. In this era of change its important that business processes are standardized and optimized for use. Its even more important to differentiate the amount of efforts and time that need to be spent in specific business areas in standardizing. This allows one end for organisation to use best practice standards and on the other end help them measure and continuously improve the business process management within the organisation. From the review of this paper following are the key points to note,

– Depending on the size of the organisation the approach used for BPM Implementation can vary

– For Large multi-national organisation, business process management initiative must be run as business transformation program

– The program must have support for organisation management team and must be ready for required governance and culture change

– The execution must be planned based prioritized end to end business process value chains with highest priority for processes adding direct value to business growth

– Post implementation for ongoing improvement, a robust process maturity model must be adapted and put to use through the organisations business process management organisation

– Industry standard business processes in the area of support departments must be adapted using industry standards and tools

– BPM implementation and process standardization lead to application rationalizations and lower IT costs for the organisation

Looking forward the business processes management will continue to get stronger and standard. For all organisations to be able to do business in effective and efficient manner, it is necessary to have a strong BPM implementation. BPM is further evolving where organisations are faced with Agile and Lean concepts which required organization’s business processes to be equally agile and lean. Agility is important for faster change while Lean supports the organisation in faster adaption of change.

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Use of Mobile Communications and Social media – Organisation Change

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Organisation Change

For successful presence and use of Social Media and Mobile Communications platform the organisation must start with their vision and execution strategy. It’s important that the use of social media for organisation growth is clearly underpinned as per part the execution strategy. It starts with having clear social media policy for internal as well as external stakeholders including clarity on what’s allowed and not allowed. The next step after policy is to have social media usage guides available for internal as well as external networks. As social media operates 24×7 using virtual network it’s essential to monitor and control the publications and remarks. Many of these would require senior leadership comments and so it’s highly important the organization’s management team is having clear understanding, owning and support for the initiative. The publications must be clearly reviewed and simple, honest and true communications should be made. Launching, handling and archiving of campaigns, contests and promotions must be handled properly. The initiatives must have clear performance indicators that would give insights on what needs be to achieved, why and how far is the organisation in achieving this. Lastly this would need investment in right resources with skills and capabilities for managing organization’s social media presence. Resources required would in IT, Marketing, Sales and Service teams. This needs to be supported by management and Human Resources team.

Enterprise Resource Planning Systems – Part II

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Today’s ERP Systems

Today’s ERP Systems are vast and cover end to end business process integration and automation. Key features of them can be listed as follows,

  • End two End enterprise wide business process integration and automation
  • Ready to use industry based solutions that are made from industry practices
  • Fully configurable system with possibility to customize specific areas for business needs
  • Faster and effective decision making using self configurable and drill down reporting
  • Standard interfacing based on industry standard data interchange standards making it easier to interface and integrate existing applications with ERP Systems
  • Internet and Collaboration capabilities making it easier to collaborate with customers, colleagues, partners and vendors.
  • Software as a service solutions for small and medium enterprises to able to afford and use industry standard based ERP systems at lower costs

Top ERP vendors in today’s market

There are many ERP vendors for different industries and business sizes. Key vendors that standout and are world known are SAP, Oracle and Microsoft.

SAP

SAP is world’s largest ERP vendor with high market share and revenues. SAP was founded in 1972 by a group of ex-IBM German employees. The product has its own evolution cycle over past three decades and its now the market leader in wide range of industries. SAP has created various solutions based on industry best practices and packaged the solutions with power of full customization (meant for multi nationals/fortune 500 companies), minor customization (medium to large size companies) and out of the box (for small and medium size companies). It further continues to develop a complete suite of ERP solutions consisting of end to end business processes.

Oracle

Next to SAP, Oracle is the second largest / known vendor in ERP market. Oracle was founded with focus on relational database management software and systems. Even for SAP the backend database many of the times would be Oracle. Oracle entered in the field of ERP systems over a period of past decade and has gained momentum with acquisition of some of the 1990s well known ERP software companies like PeopleSoft who had before acquired JD Edwards. This gave Oracle a big base of customers to expand its ERP Systems and solutions. Oracles recent acquisition of Sun Java further adds a feather in Oracle’s capability to build and deliver sound ERP Systems

Microsoft

Microsoft entered the ERP Systems with a product named Dynamics and has started emerging in last decade with focus on small and medium enterprises ERP Systems and Solutions. Microsoft Dynamics has a positive point as it combines the full end to end software needs as Microsoft makes the server and client operating systems (world known as windows), the relational database management system (known as MS SQL) and the thin browser client (known as Internet explorer). On top Microsoft is well known for its collaboration tools like Microsoft office range of products, Microsoft Sharepoint and Microsoft Duet solutions which help combine ERP systems with collaboration functionality.

ERP Systems – Further Evolution

Given the importance, dependency and need for ERP Systems, the evolution of ERP systems will continue with even more speed to bring more agility in the solution provided and adaption/implementation of ERP solutions.

ERP Systems in coming years can focus on and evolve in the areas of,

  1. Enhancing the internet based system performance and user experience. By doing so discontinuation of any client software need to use ERP systems. The need also arises from the speed with which business needs ERP systems changes done and implemented. In doing so the user experience of ERP systems usage will further help to reduce the time and effort spent on training/re-training users on ERP System functionality.
  1. Cloud based offering in the area of Software as a Service could open up easy and affordable ERP solutions for small and medium enterprises. ERP vendors are already having Software as a Service solution available for businesses. These would further evolve in cloud based low costs and easy ready solutions.
  1. The transformation of PCs to laptops and laptops to tablets on hand and other hand mobile devices becoming as powerful as laptop computers in processing speed and functionality. This opens the need for at least part of the ERP Systems solutions to be available on mobile devices.

After Thought

ERP systems have came long way over several decades and in doing so they improved the functionality offered, user experience, industry best practices and focusing on standardized solutions.

The evolution will continue towards cloud based offerings for possible small and medium business enterprises making process automations available on internet at a click of a button. The evolution will also continue in the areas of making ERP systems available on tablets and mobile devices.

As the speed of business change continues to grow higher, the ERP systems would be under constant need to become highly Agile in the area of change implementation, user experience and execution.

Enterprise Resource Planning Systems – Part I

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Background

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems started in 1970s the years’ when business and markets were heavily focused on mass production of materials and industrialization was on the peak. The so called enterprise, five to six decades back was in need of automation of industrial materials and their effective plus efficient management. The prime focus remained on materials and resources management.

In this fast changing business environment and heavy dependency of businesses on automated processes running using various IT Systems; the value and need for a reliable ERP System is constantly on rise.

ERP Systems have evolved over several decades and still continuing to evolve to become more fit for today’s business needs.

Legacy Systems

Legacy systems are generally any systems that are old systems built using software and hardware platform that is more than a decade old. Systems that are built using old programming languages like ‘COBOL’ and are running on mainframes, considered legacy systems. In some organisation such systems are still in use as they are complex, costly and difficult to replace. Legacy systems are difficult to interface with and make changes.

In organisations systems that are archived or not actively used and kept for audit purposes are also referred to as Legacy systems. These systems normally were built and used 7 or more years back and consist of business transactions and information that are of use for historical referencing. Older ERP systems are also termed as legacy if they are kept running and used for historical transactions referencing.

ERP System Contents

The enterprise resource planning system is software package that brings together various business processes by automating plus integrating them and maintaining a central database with all relevant master data and transaction data. One of the Key benefits of using ERP systems is they are normally having real time availability of information which is key for businesses.

Enterprise resource planning systems cover a wide range of business processes management namely Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Financials, Human Resources, Projects and Customer Relationship.

ERP Systems structure is made up of various modules ideally focused on respective functional domain like Manufacturing, Finance, Supply Chain, Human Resources. The system needs one central database which consists of Master and Transactions data for various modules.

Decades of ERP Evolution

ERP Systems have evolved over 4 decades. If we look at the evolution in each decade major steps happened.

1970s – MRP

In 1970s all systems were standalone and separate systems. Given the ear of industrialization 1970s ERPs started with MRP systems called Material Requirements Planning System. MRP offered production planning which helped businesses in inventory management. In the same decade the standalone financial and human resource systems evolved.

1980s – MRP II

In 1980s MRP systems where further enhanced as MRPII which helped bringing inventory management and production management together. In the same decade for financials management, FMIS systems arrived.

1990s – ERP

In 1990s major evolution happened and ERP Systems emerged which offered one integrated MRP, FMIS and HR system. In the same decade Supply Chain Management systems emerged to take care of planning, scheduling and distribution of products. As this was also the decade of Internet boom customer facing systems like e-commerce, sales force automation and customer relationship management emerged.

2000s – ERP End 2 End

In last decade (2000s) ERP systems have become robust and evolved as one end to end system covering the entire business portfolio needs. ERP systems took a turn to become industry based and various standard industry best practice based industry specific solutions emerged. In the same decade ERP vendors increased focus on making ERP systems web based and making it available as viable out of the box solutions for small and medium enterprises.

Continued in Part II …

Convergence from Technology to Life – Part 1

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We just completed a decade in the Millennium. In this 21st century; technology is playing key role in changing lives in every part of earth. I bet you to pick up any sector, any field of expertise, any job everything is touched by the automation and technology. Specially the Information technology is playing the key role in the everyday changes and is also responsible for the speed of change we all are experiencing day in day out.

Let’s talk about a few areas of our daily life and see how technology and especially information technology is enabling the change as well as a little glimpse of where the future is taking us.

Let’s start with communications. In 1990s we started using mobile phones which gave us an ability to be able to reach out to people as and when we need and every individual could hold one or more telephone numbers. Great leap in making communications speed up and ability to reach people much faster. On one side it helped everyone have their own communications device, although initially not everyone could have one but eventually it spread like utility service and became the need for everyone to have one phone at least. The mobile phones then took a leap in early 2000 to become smart phones to be able to do more than phone functions, like playing music, receiving emails, having calculators, calendars, contact books with more detailed information of individuals. This further enhanced with in few years of last decade to become as powerful as a laptop and also it continued to enhance its processing and storage capabilities to the level that its able to run most of the laptop functions. Today it has enhanced to the extent that it can be used like a mini PC/laptop to do automation activities. Its still not over as it continues to converge itself to be able to do even more sophisticated things that we couldn’t even do with our laptops as these services would only make sense on the mobile device, things like GPS navigation, GPS Image location tagging, Picture scan to know where we are and future unveils that soon we would be able to point our mobile device cameras to any location, landmark on the road and it would bring real time information about that location and possible services, promotions, businesses that exists in that location. Gone are the days of needing a yellow page, green pages to browse for business listings, its an online world where we need the information real time and its of value only when its real time available.

Let’s look at another example and this time focus on entertainment, let’s take TVs for example which are converged from small size CRT displays to large size plasmas to long lasting LCDs and now even more slimmer LED TVs. The core function of the TV has also enhanced itself from playing TV stations, to movies, to games, to photos, to music and now comes the time to bring the TVs to be Online connected to internet. The new ranges of TVs come with internet connection and possibilities to use them for internet browsing, live videos and movies streaming from internet. On one end the current LED TVs are bringing a very high end rich experience of HD images and 3D viewing right at your home then on the other end the convergence and disruptive innovation continues to evolve. The TVs are destined to converge fully using the latest lighting solutions, the Laser rays and Projection devices. The TVs as big size display device in a home will converge to a small size palm device projecting an High Definition Light Displays.