Business Process Improvement Summarizing the Work

Once you have gone through the 10 steps to improve a business process, what should you do next? Should you immediately move on to the next challenge in your process inventory? Not if you want recognition for a job well done!

Taking time to summarize what you accomplished will help you to gain visibility in your organization. Gaining recognition though on improving a business process does not come as easy as getting a compliment on a new haircut or a new piece of clothing because the new process may not immediately stand out. You have to take some initiative to let management know what you have accomplished, and that becomes the challenge.

An executive summary is a tool you can use to present your work to senior management in the natural course of business without it looking as if you want a pat on the back. While executive summaries differ quite a bit, they should address whatever you identified as the main concerns when you began the improvement effort. Remember what caused you to start the improvement effort on a particular business process and start with a compelling statement that grabs the reader's attention. The six sections of the executive summary include:

1. Project focus
2. Goals
3. Summary
4. Key findings
5. Deliverables
6. Appendix

Write your summary with the reader in mind and remember that not everyone will have the same level of understanding of the business process. In the project focus, lay out the business reason why you did the work (the business problem); in the goals, cover the key outcomes you hoped to achieve; in the summary, provide a high-level overview of the work and any analysis you completed; in the key findings, outline the discoveries you made along the way; in the deliverables, cover what information is available where; and include more detailed information in the appendix.

Including statistical information in the summary section will help position you as a business person and provide some thought-provoking data for management to consider.

Profit Minus the Price Tag: Business Process Outsource

Business is always an aggressive activity. You must not be behind any competitor nor get even with, you need to be ahead. There should be balance between what you lose and gain, what you sacrifice and profit. There are a lot of strategies in business, but you need to choose the best and within your business's means. Recently, this kind of business is not like more of a trend but rather a saver to a substantial amount that a company will spend, and this is through outsourcing. Business process outsourcing has become a strategic partner to explore and innovate unto the consumer's needs. Business process outsourcing becomes a streamline of a business, which optimizes business performance. Through outsourcing, competitive differentiation in the market is also created. The growth of outsourcing has sky rocketed the business market recently.

Business process outsourcing is the contracting of business task to a third party service provider. Business tasks included are payroll, outsource financial and administration (F&A) processes, human resources (HR) functions, call center and customer service activities and accounting. The third party service provider does the tasks that are not directly the core idea of the company. The service provider manages and runs every phase of the outsourced area. Outsourcing is a money saving strategy. It saves the expense of hiring in house staff plus the high salary and benefits. These expenses are all eliminated through outsourcing. The area outsourced is the focus of the provider, any problem that will arise will be the concern of the service provider and not of the company's, hence, the company can focus on its more important area of business. The area handled is not primarily important yet very vital in the total function of the company. There are different kinds of outsourcing. When a third party service provider is contracted outside the company's country, it is called offshore outsourcing. It is near shore when the provider is in a neighboring country then onshore if it is within the company's country. Another offshoot of O is Knowledge Process Outsourcing. It includes activities that highly require skills, education and expertise to handle.

Business process outsourcing is dramatically growing. Offshore outsourcing continues to grow worldwide. A lot of companies especially the small ones are into outsourcing because of its advantages. This allows the company to hire high quality knowledge at a lower cost. This is an advantage for companies to save money and increase profits at the same time. In a very aggressive market with fierce competition, outsourcing becomes obligatory. This is gaining more without the price tag.

Organizing And Reorganizing Your Business Process

It is often difficult to understand the differences between those two concepts: the organization on one hand and the business process on the other. But basically the business process is the result of the way that activities are organized -- through the construction of a formal organization. The (business) process is focused on stock and flow of artifacts and the other (the organization) is centered around resources, like: employees (agents), systems and infrastructure.

A product is an example artifact and so are the parts that are required to produce a product. A document is also an artifact and even so the number of call received from clients could be interpreted as artifacts, because the number of calls define the volume of your business (process).

The process is dynamic, the organization is (more) static.

The way in which the artifacts are processed is an indication of the efficiency of your business process and of productivity. In the example above you might want to increase the capacity to receive calls from clients. To do this you need a telecom (phone) infrastructure that is able to handle massive inflow of calls but at the same time you need employees (agents) that are able to handle (answer) these calls. So, to enable a higher process flow you need to "reorganize" things.

For example by introducing an interactive voice response system you are able to replace certain activities that are previously done by agents to handle by such a system. This is an example were you change your organization to streamline your business process. In this case the current organization is extended by the introduction of a system that supports the business process of handling customer calls. We are all familiar with these system by which you are able to retrieve simple information or brochures without the interference of an call center agent.

Organizing in business is searching for a right balance between the specific dedication of resources on one hand and the change of artifacts and the subsequent change in the process on the other hand.

Again an example, one focused on the social security process. To be able to process more social security applications during the day you could invoke more employees dedicated to handle these requests. Another way is to change the artifact -- in this case the application document or form. Many institutions have done this already -- and replaced the seven-or-more copies of application forms to a single focused document. The introduction of internet in government services requires even more changes in this area. In the above example the application form is automatically your (temporary) social security pass. This has been made possible by digitizing the information that is distributed throughout the organization.

The bottom line is that in order to increase the efficiency of your business process you should always look at the artifacts that flow through your organization. Simplifying this flow means simplifying your business process.

Increase Competitive Advantage With Business Process Outsourcing Alignment

Business process outsourcing or BPO is one of the types of outsourcing that enables business to make contracts in order to operate and take responsibility for the business functions to another company or service provider. Primarily, this has been referred to as the outsourcing of services. There are two categories that are involved here. The first one is the back office outsourcing. This pertains to the business functions that are included in the internal processes, which entail human resources, finance and accounting. The second classification is the front office outsourcing in which the company will have to hire third party provider to take care of services that are generally related to customers. This may include contact center services. Many companies utilize this approach because this enables them to increase their flexibility. However, there is a need to make sure the business process outsourcing alignment is effective and in check at all times.

Business process outsourcing alignment basically refers to the process of aligning your goals and strategies for this procedure or activity. Companies need more time in order for them to finish their products and provide them to the public. However, it always seemed like time lacks them and they turn to outsourcing to fill the void immediately. Companies can now focus on other important matters such as researching and making plans that will lead them to the path of success. Although this is the case, there are still some that are not successful even if they have the right people and the right processes. This is because there is a need to make sure that goals have been aligned with BPO. The truth remains that outsourcing relationships are bound to fail if they are not able to align their goals, mission and interests. Since there are separate entities that are dealing with each other, one will automatically think that the parties will not be aligned.

What business process outsourcing alignment means is that both of the parties should take the necessary actions and these include investing on time as well as the financial resources. These actions should be targeted into the goals that they have articulated in the contract or to one another. In actuality, it is not enough to merely state the objectives. This is because it is required that both firms should be able to exert efforts and demonstrate that they are committed into reaching those goals and turning them into actions. Many of the BPO relationships become unsuccessful when one observes that the other party does not cooperate into achieving the goals or is not acting consistently. This is why BPO plays a major role in service quality. However, a company should not forget that outsourcing must not replace the need for them to provide quality services and products to their customers.

Aligning your business process outsourcing activates with the goals will surely help you having a successful endeavor. Plus, this will ascertain that you have a good relationship with the other party that you have had a deal with. This also promotes a strong and stable project management plan for your organization.

Introduction to Business Process Management

We hear about the term Business Process Management or BPM almost in every business house. But what is exactly BPM? Business Process Management is actually a business system or methodology that helps improve the overall productivity and processes of an organization and hence results in the optimization of all business practices. It is a series of activities that help the management to achieve their business goals in a unified manner. It starts with identification of current processes, designing the new process, its implementation and finally leads to tracking of each process. BPM is simply involved in all steps and departments of a business, right from the purchase and supply to customers and personnel. So, it is a universal concept for every business that helps to produce ultimate results.

Business Process Management methodology is adopted by small to large sized organizations. It helps find out solutions for day to day complex problems of a trade. But the success of BPM lies behind the approach of management and how well they apply it. The main purpose of this methodology is to manage people and process as well as enhance the productivity levels. Increased productivity will automatically lead to a better customer service, which is another crucial factor for any business. BPM when properly applied improves the coordination between various departments and eliminate the problems like production downtime and improper utilization of resources. It increases the control of management over organizational activities and let them detect any bottlenecks.

It is highly recommended for all those businesses where the workload is not properly managed, resources are underutilized and there is no proper flow of information. Optimization of people and business processes has always been a difficult issue for all organizations. Business Process Management integrates all these things and automates your business in an efficient manner. It improves efficiency & productivity and also reduces unwanted costs related to the business activities. BPM is useful for almost every department of an organization, be it production, sales, human resources or financial. In nutshell, BPM helps your organization achieve ultimate level of efficiency and keep proper control over processes.