What problems do Intelivate’s business process management solutions typically solve?
Our business process improvement solutions are designed to be flexible, targeted and modular to solve for countless challenges.
See “What types of problems does Intelivate solve?”
Why is business process management important?
Business process gives life and operation to your organizational strategy. Business process management is critical to your operations and in defining and developing your training.
Without proper business process management, your organization becomes fragmented, your operations become inconsistent and inefficient and your training programs are rarely accurate or as impacting as it could be.
An organization’s business process is one of the primary reasons that leaders think they need training when in reality they need a business process management overhaul and formalized program.
What is business process mapping?
Business process mapping is defining and documenting current processes and mapping each one to roles, functions, systems, business goals (KPIs) and other processes.
Business process mapping is essential to business process improvement. If you start changing processes that aren’t properly defined and mapped, you run the risk of operational chaos in the future.
Why is process documentation important
Business process documentation is the blueprint of your operations. It’s the first thing you reference when making operational and organizational changes. Documented business process provides you the awareness you need to make these major decisions with confidence.
Because processes are the core of your operations, documenting business process is important for many reasons including:
- Operational redundancy reduces risk in the event that key talent leaves or is unavailable.
- Business process improvement can only be done with accurate process documentation.
- Operational consistency by documenting, auditing and enforcing processes.
- Operational efficiency by reducing performance variance through operational consistency.
- Acquisition requirements often include detailed process documentation.
- Client requirements often include process documentation, especially for outsourcing in regulated industries.
- Risk mitigation to enforce and show compliance with industry requirements such as HIPAA.
- Patents and trade secrets need detailed process documentation for both filing and defense.
You can read more about process documentation here:
What is business process improvement?
Business process improvement is a defined methodology of developing, testing, approving, implementing and assessing changes to the process.
The purpose of business process improvement is to constantly evaluate, improve and evolve business operations to strategy changes, market changes and to gain a competitive advantage over your competition.
Why does business process improvement often fail?
There are a number of reasons why business process improvement fails including:
- Lack of business process documentation
- Lack of a formal business process improvement methodology.
- Implementing process improvements without a defined goal and way to operational impact
- Business process mapping was never done or done incorrectly
- Lack of validation around documented business process vs what is actually happening in operations. In this situation, any changes to business process are based on assumptions and often break related processes.
- Lack of testing of process before approval and implementing new changes
- Lack of ongoing evaluation of current operations and process
- Improperly connecting business process to training
- Lack of enforcement of process through methods and procedures
We address each of these in our BlueBook and business process management solutions.
How is business process tied to organizational strategy?
Business process makes organizational strategy operational. For that reason, it is critical to have a well-defined strategy as the basis of business process.
How is business process tied to training?
Business process is the basis of training design and content. That is why it is critical to have well-defined process, a formalized process management methodology and a continuous link to training for updates and new content development.
One of the first things we’ll rule out when evaluating training performance is business process. More times than not, we find that process is at least part of why training results are not as expected.
What are some indications that business process might be part of my operational challenge?
Although it depends on the type of organization, common indicators of business process being a core of your issue include:
- Operational inconsistency which leads to operational inefficiency. Many businesses do not look at operational variance to diagnose business process as a core cause of their operational inefficiency.
- Performance variances that lead to operational issues. A higher variance of performance across operations often indicates the lack of process adherence and/or gaps in existing process documentation.
- Poor training performance. One of the primary causes we see for training program ineffectiveness is a lack of process or significant process gaps.
- High turnover. The inefficient and inconsistent processes lead to operational turmoil. It’s hard to remain successful in reactionary chaos.
- Low employee satisfaction and engagement.
These are just a few of the many indications of problems with business process.
We thoroughly documented our business process and have a proven methodology. Could business process still be an issue?
Yes, for a number of reasons. The primary issue could be too much process. Too much process causes operational slowdown.
Part of our initial business process assessment is determining if you have too few, too many or inconsistent processes and gaps.
I’m a smaller business. Do I need to document and evaluate business process?
Absolutely! Especially if you have growth and/or acquisition goals in the future, business process mapping, documentation and management are critical to both.
More Questions? Explore Related Topics.
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