Business Process Orientation A Holistic View

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Business Process OrientationA Holistic View

• Identifying the characteristics of a
  process-oriented organisation
• 5th International Conference on Business Process
  Management, Brisbane
• Prof. dr. ir. Dirk Deschoolmeester
• Joachim Van den Bergh
• Jurgen Willems
• Peter Willaert

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Table of contents

• Introduction
• Business Process Orientation
• Holistic View on BPO
• Research methodology
• BPO proposed model
• Findings Future research

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Vlerick Business Process Management Network
Mission
The Vlerick Process Management Research Network
aims to substantially contribute to the
development of process management excellence in a
Belgian and European context by creating and
exploiting a business oriented research platform
supported by process management experts from
academic and industry environments. The Network
aims to spread the research results in order to
uplift the profession of process management and
the Network wants to be a home base for the
process management community in Belgium and
Europe.
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Research _at_ BPM Network
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Business Process Orientation

• "An organization that, in all its thinking,
  emphasizes processes as opposed to hierarchies
  with special emphasis on outcomes and customer
  satisfaction."
• BPOrientation has three characteristics
• Process Management and Measurement - measures
  that include aspects of the process like output
  quality, cycle time, process cost and variability
  compared to the traditional accounting measures.
• Process Jobs - e.g., "product development process
  owner" rather than "research manager".
• Process View - thorough documentation from top to
  bottom and from beginning to the end of a
  process.
• Business Process orientation of an organization
  is the level at which on organization pays
  attention to its relevant (core) processes
  (end-to-end view across the borders of
  departments, organisations, countries, etc.)

(Source Kevin P. McCormack, William C. Johnson,
Business Process Orientation, Gaining the
e-Business competitive edge )
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Holistic View on BPO
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Methodology

• Based on
• the holistic view/literature/experience/interviews
  
• a set of 8 domains probing for BPO
  characteristics was proposed.
• A scale was developed for each domain (6-10
  questions)
• 7-point Likert scale
• Dependent variable perception of BPO by the
  respondent

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The Vlerick Business Process Orientation
Maturity Assessment Tool

• Can be used as a tool for self-assessment
• Is a tool for benchmarking with other
  organisations
• Is a guide to identify areas for improvement
• Is used as the basis for a common vocabulary and
  a way of thinking
• Is a structure for the organisations process
  management system
• Can be applied to a single process, all
  processes, core or non-core processes, an entire
  company

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Process orientation on 8 domains...
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Characteristics (potentially) indicating a
process-oriented organization (1 of 2)

• Customer Orientation (CO)
• understand and assess customers requirements
• maintain customer relationships
• Process View (PV)
• presence and use of process documentation
• companys view on and thinking about business
  processes
• Organisational (process) structure (OS)
• process roles and responsibilities, span of
  control
• degree of individual or collective responsibility
  and accountability
• Process Performance (PP)
• defining the concept, selecting components and
  deciding how to measure them
• vital tool for strategy execution

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Characteristics (potentially) indicating a
process-oriented organization (2 of 2)

• Culture, values and beliefs (CVB)
• work culture, attitude towards other departments
• teamwork, innovative culture, awareness
• People Management (PM)
• what effects changes towards process-orientation
  will have on people
• are people identified, measured, rewarded, and
  promoted by their competence in understanding and
  improving processes
• Information Technology (IT)
• enabler and implementer of process change
• has your company IT systems that support
  processes
• Supplier Orientation (SP)
• collaborating with suppliers to improve
  end-to-end process
• information exchange

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3. Organisational structure

• The companys process structure is being mapped
  on the organisational chart
• Every process is owned by a process owner who has
  an end-to-end view on the process and
  continiously seeks to improve it
• A Business Process office oversees the different
  processes and deals with the process improvements
• Case workers representing one face to the
  customer
• Employees with lots of decision autonomy
• Non core processes executed at minimal cost and
  under control
• Integration mechanisms are in place

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Research findings

• PV, OS, PP, PM, IT and SP dimensions have
  predicting power for General Perception of BPO in
  an organisation
• CO and CVB The statistics do not support the
  importance of these dimensions, review of the
  questions is necessary
• The findings support the relevance of holistic
  view on BPO
• Practical implications better understanding of
  BPO and how to become process-oriented, determine
  focus areas for improvement
• More research is needed to identify how BPO can
  be leveraged (balanced approach)
• Also the link with/impact on organisational
  performance, agility, quality and cost efficiency
  needs to be clarified

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• Thank you for your attention!
• Questions Answers
• Contact
• Dirk.Deschoolmeester_at_vlerick.be
• Joachim.Vandenbergh_at_vlerick.be
• 32 9 210 98 24
• www.vlerick.be/bpm