The value of process improvement
Processes are not just something your business does. Processes are your business. If you consider your business as the sum of its individual processes it’s obvious that you have to manage them properly. But how can you manage or even improve your processes if you don’t know them? The answer is simple — you can’t!
All companies are basically built using the same architecture — no matter if they are big or small, in Europe, Asia or the Americas. All have a business model, processes and IT applications. The business model describes what products and services are produced for which markets, who the customers and business partners are, and the company’s plan for the future.
Processes, however, are built for each company based on the business model. A bank, for example, has different processes than a consumer goods/retail or a chemical/pharmaceutical company. Nevertheless, all processes, no matter the industry or business, exist to support the business model. Each process exists at varying levels of maturity — from ad hoc and manual processes to well-documented and automated processes.
The backbone of the layer of processes is IT. Information technology makes sure the business processes have the applications and data they need to be up and running. In most companies, business models change often. New products are launched. Acquisitions take place and must be integrated. New markets must be conquered. This, of course, directly impacts a company’s processes.
Keeping up is a never-ending job. Existing processes must be modified and new processes established. Processes from an acquired organization must be aligned and integrated. Also, the IT landscape has to be adjusted. That means existing applications must be changed, new applications introduced and acquired applications integrated.
The problem lies in that this adaptation isn’t very fluid in most organizations because the business model, the process layer and IT applications are not well connected. In fact, there’s often a dramatic disconnect. If the strategy changes, it’s hard to see which processes are affected and how to change them. If a process needs to change, it’s hard to figure out which IT systems are affected and how they must be changed to support the new process. Once the process is up and running in the application layer, it’s almost impossible for most of the organization to prove that processes support the new strategy. With such a disconnect between strategy, process and applications, it is hard — if not impossible — to adapt quickly to changing business models and new market conditions.
To stay agile and competitive, every business should be concerned about how fast it can adjust to business model changes and how fast its processes and its supporting application landscape can adapt. Tallyfy answers this concern by making all processes explicit and manageable. This process-driven approach is key to keeping a business adaptive because it directly interconnects strategy, processes and IT. It helps your business to continuously adapt to new market conditions.
