Business Processes and their critical role...

Hello...


I recently contacted my utility provider to discuss moving addresses... It took over 10 calls and a number of attempted web chat sessions, using up a good 3/4 hours of my extremely precious time over 2 days to get the job done. The job was done well at the end - but this showed a number of "issues", for want of a better word with the underlying business processes themselves. So let me roll up my sleeves and brainstorm some quick questions that come to mind – if I was the manager for business processes within such as organisation – then these are some quick questions that would come to my mind:

• Have my organisation invested well in mapping their business processes properly? Was the customer journey mapped? How successful was this project? Was there a good handover from consultants to incumbent staff before project closure? Were agreed improvements spun off into improvement initiatives and how well is progress being made on these initiatives?
• How well are people being inducted into the change? Are our people being trained and motivated to own, run and be good ambassadors of our processes? Is there good governance and how do we deal with non-compliance?
• Has our technology investment been leveraged well? Is our business and customer prerogative driving our processes and tool – or are tool enthusiasts trying to push the technology beyond its level? Is there visible management support? Is there good ownership locally to drive this long term?
• Have mapped processes been analysed for efficiency, effectiveness reduced risk? Are processes linked end-to-end seamlessly? Is the flow smooth across the paths they flow? Have data requirements been looked at? Is information being captured being effectively used across the process and in different areas as required by process actors? Is the tool full aligned with the process? How “real” is our reporting and business intelligence? Are we able to link statistics with the reality on the ground?
• Have the processes been fully tested from a customer perspective? Were all channels into the business analysed (phone, email, web-form, web-chat, twitter…)? Has a Voice of Customer analysis been made? Is there a way to gauge customer satisfaction? What methods are in place to link customer feedback with continuous improvement? Have people worn the customer “hat” and walked end-to-end through our processes?
• Remember that poor processes are going to make your organisation inefficient, open to risk, frustrated staff, customer dissatisfaction and ultimately loss of revenue. The prudent organisation is pro-active and strives to improve their business processes from the inside out.

Your feedback most welcome via email on mail@musab.co.uk