About business processes in a human way
What they just didn’t write about business processes in Habré: about the general philosophy, about programming processes, about numerous BPM systems, about notations, etc. In principle, the vendor understands everything: he took the process, cleared it of cleanings, modeled, automated and run instances when needed. I do something. Meanwhile, the business to which the articles are addressed often does not understand the main thing - why does he need these business processes? After all, he is not Gazprom what and not the Kalashnikov concern. Here, the main affairs would be solved: so that the deadlines would not be broken, the employees would not lose documents and would not throw the blame on each other, otherwise there is already no profit in the middle of this mess ...
We decided to rectify the situation and talk about business processes as simply as possible - so that everyone could understand whether they were for business or, well, they were sitting so normally. Therefore, today without notations, complex schemes and advertising reviews. So, the introductory ones: “Everything is a process,” “Processes are common to all,” “If you don’t like business processes, you simply don’t know how to prepare them.” Go.
Pikabu.ru. A typical organization of the process in companies of any level: “The swan breaks into the clouds, Cancer moves backwards, and Pike pulls into the water. Who is to blame for them, who is right, is not for us to judge; Yes, only things are there. ”
The thought of this article gave us our own statistics. The fact is that a module of business processes is built into RegionSoft CRM , of which we are proud: native graphic + logic editor, simple management, the ability to design the most complex processes without programming knowledge. But no.
')
The functionality of business processes is used by about 12% -14% of clients. It is not enough, it is not clear, it is strange to have a reliable and simple tool and ignore it.
For testing the hypothesis (in fact, we already know the situation, but still) go to Google Trends. Actually, this is all you need to know about the interest of Russian business in business processes:
Business processes are chains of actions and events that occur in a company and lead to the final result. Example: hiring and adaptation of an employee, purchase and launch of software, distribution, etc.
Processes can be one-time (for example, the development of a corporate website for a company) and cyclical, repetitive (preparation of distribution, production, etc.). Also, processes can be consolidated (carrying out an advertising campaign) and fractional (design of banner design). Fractional processes can be part of one-time projects or different processes (for example, the design of banners can be for mailing, for context, for the design of the widget on Habré, etc.).
It turns out that business processes are in every company and often they do not work as we would like. In the case of spontaneous, non-debugged and non-automated processes, the goal is achieved in a rather complicated way, with problems and failures in communication. The implementation of the bulk of the tasks and stages occurs immediately before the deadline.
If business processes in a company are not streamlined, they lead to the loss of funds, strength, nerves and ultimately to lost competition - simply because all negative trends necessarily affect customer relationships. Such processes may be:
Surely, having read this far, you have already learned at least some features of your company (sometimes several at once). And this is the case with everyone - a lot of factors influence business processes, from technological to psychological, therefore everything is as if the saying goes: there are no absolutely healthy companies, there are under-examined ones.
The first reason is that the processes involve a lot of human labor. If there is no automation, then almost everything is done by a person: he writes out documents, makes calls, makes or does not add a task to the calendar, performs his main activity. Each employee has his own measure of responsibility, punctuality, conscientious attitude to work, etc. And since several people are involved in each process, errors accumulate and result in a disrupted process or in a completely different result that is needed.
For example, a software agency works in Kazan. A customer from Vladivostok is asking for a revision, for example, a CRM system as soon as possible, because after a week it launches a new product line. Revision - a trifle, we need the requirements and a signed TK. The manager from Kazan should contact the customer in the morning, interview him, agree on the details and receive the documents. But she remembers that at 5:00. Everything, at least a day of idleness of programmers for this project is provided - they now need to shift projects, reschedule time, to be able to take the project to work as soon as specific requirements appear. Processes "go."
The second reason is poor control. We have already written a hundred times in our articles about what to control is not how a person works, but what indicators and what quality he gives. Today some kind of general fashion has gone to watch every second of working time, but the result is still r ****. Do you know what is the reason? People a) are afraid of b) imitate how the system pleases ( here I am sitting at the computer, I have a very important document open and I’ve been chasing a couple of lines in it for 2 hours / writing and rewriting the code of one function ). This is bad control. Good control is the ability to set tasks and link motivation with them, so that the employee himself is happy to organize his working time and perform tasks (it’s about delegation, development methodologies and KPI system if it’s about managers and commerce).
The third reason for the “disease” of business processes is poor circulation of information within the company. There is nothing worse when all decisions go down from above, and departments conduct internecine wars to prove their importance and weight. Information in the company must be free in both horizontal and vertical hierarchies; each employee has the right to request the necessary work data from a neighboring department or manager and is required to provide data on the first request of colleagues. Of course, the most vivid example of such a relationship is the eternal, almost holy war of marketing and sales. But there are worse stories - for example, when a development and testing department is at war.
Of course, depending on the business and organizational structure, there may be other reasons for process failures, but these three are universal for everyone: from an advertising agency to a flight control center.
If you have been to different fast food chains, you probably noticed that McDonald's bypasses its closest competitors in terms of speed, quality of service, availability of the entire range and accuracy of order fulfillment. Although the principle is the same: franchise, young employees, managers above them, semi-finished products with a high degree of readiness, automated cash registers and sending an order to the kitchen (there are nuances here, but not for this article). The reason is simple - it is in McDonald’s that the processes are perfectly debugged and maximally automated. And the task of the manager is not to run to the cashier to cancel the order, but to correct the subordinate with the first mistake, and not when the client noticed it. As a result, customers are satisfied, and work is easier, because part of the responsibility lies with the process itself, you are only part of the chain.
And if at the same time you were, for example, in large food parks of a shopping and entertainment center, you could see how waiting customers sometimes change their dislocation in a queue for a queue to a neighboring vendor and after a few minutes are removed to the place with the received order. Here we come to the main point. For most companies, the business environment is the very foodcourt, a tight, closed market for goods and services. If tomorrow the employees of RegionSoft poorly serve the client who wants to buy RegionSoft CRM , he will not wait for the main manager to hit the cuffs and decide the question - he will go to the competitors. And the client will not be worried that we are safe, functional, powerful, inexpensive and that our system is ultra-speed. He will be worried that the process failed and he is uncomfortable.
Improving business processes is your competitiveness and the key to survival in the market. Weak, unbuilt processes, in addition to customer dissatisfaction, will entail an increase in costs, a decrease in revenues and low motivation of employees (rush jobs, fuss and swearing very quickly demotivate). If you want, a business process is a kind of flexible methodology for the entire company, and not just for development (this is an explanation for IT people).
Formal prescribed logic and precise execution. An automated process is a “programmed” model, data available and logging of all actions. The program is responsible for the change of stages, notifications, documents, letters and some other attributes - it is she who launches everything from time to time at the right time and at specified intervals of time ( on April 17, start a copy of the process, on the 18th send a reminder to participants A and D, 19 on the basis of work A and D, form an account and send it as payment, send notifications E, reminders B, F, W, 22nd, on the basis of all the work done, generate a report and send X ).
The soundness of the decisions. Business processes permeate the entire activity of the company and, when they are automated, accumulate accurate and relevant information about customers, transactions, assortment, etc. That is, for example, if your BPM is embedded in any form in a CRM system (as, for example, this is done in RegionSoft CRM ), then all the data during the implementation of the process are spread over their tables, which means that an information base appears for analysis and justification of decisions. By the way, in “clean BPM systems” all information also accumulates, but not always in the context in which it is necessary for operational work.
Fast and high-quality team work. Since the business process contains all the stages and those responsible, the team works as a single mechanism, passing the baton from the employee to the employee. Everyone in his place knows what needs to be done and is confident that all previous work has been done (otherwise the system will not continue the process, but will report violations of one of the links). It is very convenient to rely on a formal model and do real work, that is, to actually act on a clear plan for the whole team and for each link individually.
Productivity growth. It's simple: part of the work is shifted to the program, so "robots are injected, a happy person." Routine processes (that is, those that repeat cyclically and require monotonous work that can be described formally) are most often automated, so employees have more time to work on communication with customers, product development, etc.
Here, for example, an article on Habré or Forbes in a large company. The author chooses a topic, is written off with everyone, agrees, then writes, writes to everyone that he wrote, everyone reads, makes a hundred million edits, he writes again, everyone reads, etc., then someone masterfully creates this thing, looks for / draws pictures, etc. A sea of formal correspondence, which can be replaced by alerts on the action "File uploaded." And the released time can be directed to a deeper work with the text.
Company flexibility with respect to change. Alas, in our time, changes can come from anywhere: employees quit, a new law was passed, sanctions were imposed on sanctions, and now the business has to adapt to changes. Even if they are very good, it is always stressful for a company. Automated processes are easily changed and oriented to the new conditions - the business is quickly rebuilt on the desired rails. Today, flexibility and ability to adapt - the key to the successful evolution of business in the market. Unfortunately, the bureaucratic slow-moving dinosaurs will become extinct.
The effectiveness of remote employees, geographically distributed units. If you want all those who are farther than 1 km from your office and work for your company to be integrated into the team, and not to perform their monotonous work as outsourcers, business processes are important to you. Include employees in the process, assign roles, assign control points, automate their work and, as a result, everyone will be equally involved in team work, timely informed and, most importantly, effective.
About three years ago in one of the foreign analytical articles I read a good explanation of the importance of the processes on the example of Wikipedia. This project = mega distributed team (the whole world) + mega routine tasks (texts, editing, factual) + mega debugged process with maximum automation. As a result, due to the constant improvement of regulations, forms, and communications, the so-called “joint anarchy” has acquired a cool and useful form.
Reducing risks and increasing the level of information security. We have already written that automation itself plays an important role in enhancing information security, but business processes help control every point in the implementation of tasks within a project, and in which case, you can immediately detect the problem and begin to reduce the risk of an adverse outcome.
Openness and transparency of the process for all its participants is the very factor of security. Everyone can see who is currently the owner of the process and on whom the task is stuck. When the company has implemented automated business process management (for example, in a CRM system), the human factor is reduced to almost zero, because shifting responsibility and keeping silent about the failure in a partisan manner does not make sense when the interface of the program shows who has stretched the time, missed the task and did not complete the work on time.
Complete subordination and consistency within the team , since all the roles are distributed within the process and you can contact any participant in two clicks.
Protection of business continuity from personnel problems. HR-problems happen all the time: illness, vacations, staff turnover (especially among sales managers, telemarketers, middle managers, etc.). When an employee falls out of the work process, it is always a certain short-term (or not so) collapse in his area of responsibility. An automated business process can be easily reconfigured by appointing a new employee — and the whole team will immediately understand who is responsible for what. Again, the collapse will be, but minimally short and without consequences from the organization of the process.
Accelerated adaptation of employees. In general, new employees today and 10 years ago are very different. If earlier even the most brilliant employee first joined the work and didn’t show himself at all, then today you can meet those who show activity on the first day. Of course, most often this activity is the headache of the whole team, but these guys do not want to beat their hands. The inclusion of a novice in the business process, which he can see, helps him to adapt as quickly as possible, and at the same time not to go beyond his responsibility. Subordination is respected, the project is at a glance, communication with colleagues is obvious - you can safely work. One more process value is revealed here - accumulation and translation of business knowledge.
Development of work culture and interaction culture.Again, I repeat that all employees are different and especially stand out introverts and extroverts who find it difficult to come together and start working for a single result. The streamlined process teaches employees a culture of communication and interaction, making the relationship comfortable and transparent. For example, Vasya, an introvert-tester, does not have to ask everyone who is responsible for the design to ask who of the 7 remotes did localization, because there is a typo in the interface translation. He opens the current process, looks, who specifically translated and wrote his comment in any messenger.
Measurable and evaluation of the result.Automated processes accumulate a sea of information, can be measured (reports, KPI), journal information and always eloquently demonstrate whether the result is achieved or not. If it seems to you that the reason for the failure was the non-optimal architecture of the process, you can always fix it by reconfiguring the parameters in the process editor.
BPM systems are like CRM, only BPM. Joke.This software is for modeling and operating business processes. BPM systems are somewhat similar to CRM systems and belong to the class of corporate software. In the interface of such a system, process models are created (most often using the BPMN 2.0 notation or in a native editor), a graphical and logical representation appears, is stored on the server, then process instances are launched on the desktop or in a web browser. By itself, a BPM system, unlike CRM or ERP, cannot provide end-to-end business automation, which is why it often requires integration (often vendors have several systems at once). In the end, BPM systems are quite expensive, difficult to manage and, in their pure form, companies with very complex processes (industry, government procurement, export, high-tech industries, etc.) need. Frankly, betterthan in the picture below, and you will not tell, they are often really anti-human and monstrous:
But even without business processes in a company of any level, it’s really bad, so vendors of CRM systems didn’t lose their head and included modules for modeling and managing processes in their systems. We will not name specific brands, but frankly speaking - it turned out for everyone with varying degrees of success: someone pulled BPMN 2.0, someone took the elements of the notation and turned it into a completely poor interface, and some turned out very well, distinctly and businesslike. And this is the best option for most companies - a universal solution without the difficulties of integration and data exchange.
We introduced business processes back in the RegionSoft CRM 5.0 release, collected data and reviews, worked on the system ourselves, understood our mistakes, appreciated the achievements in the version RegionSoft CRM 6.0conducted a deep refactoring of the business process module, which migrated to later versions. Experience shows that in our editor you can configure and run the most complex processes.
The business process itself is a route for performing one large task consisting of several stages. Based on this and need to work on it.
When working with business processes, consider a couple of important points:
The answer to this question is laconic: immediately, even if you have just created a company. Let's not pour water, but let's look at an example at once, what processes there are even in the youngest company.
All these processes are cyclical, some of them will become more complicated and develop, so the sooner you start, the faster and easier it will be further reengineering.
And of course, if you have a tangle of established processes and you do not know what to pull, then all the more you should look towards automation.
Business process management is never without effect. According to the AIIM study, companies that turn to BPM receive up to 41% ROI growth. 62% noted an improvement in communication between company employees, 33% - reduced bureaucracy and coordination levels, 42% - greater organizational flexibility.
Implement and automate business processes - it means to stop solving business problems as tasks and go to the management level by goals, work for the result. This means more freedom of hands and heads from the routine and fuss, less conflicts and corporate wars. Business processes are not a chip for the elite and great, not the prerogative of Gazprom or Rosatom, it is a transparent, convenient and accessible working tool that greatly improves business in the company. So, if you have a CRM (or planned for implementation), do not ignore the opportunities - use them. Be sure: after a short period of time you will say “The process has started” and will be happy to launch another instance of it.
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We decided to rectify the situation and talk about business processes as simply as possible - so that everyone could understand whether they were for business or, well, they were sitting so normally. Therefore, today without notations, complex schemes and advertising reviews. So, the introductory ones: “Everything is a process,” “Processes are common to all,” “If you don’t like business processes, you simply don’t know how to prepare them.” Go.
Pikabu.ru. A typical organization of the process in companies of any level: “The swan breaks into the clouds, Cancer moves backwards, and Pike pulls into the water. Who is to blame for them, who is right, is not for us to judge; Yes, only things are there. ”
The thought of this article gave us our own statistics. The fact is that a module of business processes is built into RegionSoft CRM , of which we are proud: native graphic + logic editor, simple management, the ability to design the most complex processes without programming knowledge. But no.
')
The functionality of business processes is used by about 12% -14% of clients. It is not enough, it is not clear, it is strange to have a reliable and simple tool and ignore it.
For testing the hypothesis (in fact, we already know the situation, but still) go to Google Trends. Actually, this is all you need to know about the interest of Russian business in business processes:
- zone of interest - large metropolitan areas where large and advanced IT companies are concentrated
- clarification of interest (specific requests) - rather educational: “business process is an example”, “business processes”, “business process is”, etc.
- since 2008, a steady decline in interest (the impact of the crisis).
What are business processes?
Business processes are chains of actions and events that occur in a company and lead to the final result. Example: hiring and adaptation of an employee, purchase and launch of software, distribution, etc.
Processes can be one-time (for example, the development of a corporate website for a company) and cyclical, repetitive (preparation of distribution, production, etc.). Also, processes can be consolidated (carrying out an advertising campaign) and fractional (design of banner design). Fractional processes can be part of one-time projects or different processes (for example, the design of banners can be for mailing, for context, for the design of the widget on Habré, etc.).
It turns out that business processes are in every company and often they do not work as we would like. In the case of spontaneous, non-debugged and non-automated processes, the goal is achieved in a rather complicated way, with problems and failures in communication. The implementation of the bulk of the tasks and stages occurs immediately before the deadline.
If business processes in a company are not streamlined, they lead to the loss of funds, strength, nerves and ultimately to lost competition - simply because all negative trends necessarily affect customer relationships. Such processes may be:
- inefficient - with a lot of effort, bring the minimum acceptable option, use too many resources;
- slow due to the inconsistency of the participants in the process and the lack of clearly defined stages and deadlines allocated for each task;
- unreliable - such processes do not lead to the expected result, but to its partial implementation or to the complete absence of the final result;
- duplicating is not the worst option, however such processes overload workers and consume more resources than one optimized process does;
- redundant - too many stages, tasks and links overload the process, and as a result, achieving the goal is postponed or costly;
- non-working - no comments, this is clearly a crisis phenomenon (this happens, for example, in the case when the divisions do not exchange information: the techies have developed a new software, marketers have come up with promotion, on October 15 everything was uploaded to the site and into the stores, and salespeople did not even hear about it , therefore, they cannot answer customer questions and work in principle );
- superfluous - the company retains old processes or processes that have become irrelevant in the framework of current activities; the worst option is when such chains are required.
Why so many troubles with business processes?
Surely, having read this far, you have already learned at least some features of your company (sometimes several at once). And this is the case with everyone - a lot of factors influence business processes, from technological to psychological, therefore everything is as if the saying goes: there are no absolutely healthy companies, there are under-examined ones.
The first reason is that the processes involve a lot of human labor. If there is no automation, then almost everything is done by a person: he writes out documents, makes calls, makes or does not add a task to the calendar, performs his main activity. Each employee has his own measure of responsibility, punctuality, conscientious attitude to work, etc. And since several people are involved in each process, errors accumulate and result in a disrupted process or in a completely different result that is needed.
For example, a software agency works in Kazan. A customer from Vladivostok is asking for a revision, for example, a CRM system as soon as possible, because after a week it launches a new product line. Revision - a trifle, we need the requirements and a signed TK. The manager from Kazan should contact the customer in the morning, interview him, agree on the details and receive the documents. But she remembers that at 5:00. Everything, at least a day of idleness of programmers for this project is provided - they now need to shift projects, reschedule time, to be able to take the project to work as soon as specific requirements appear. Processes "go."
The second reason is poor control. We have already written a hundred times in our articles about what to control is not how a person works, but what indicators and what quality he gives. Today some kind of general fashion has gone to watch every second of working time, but the result is still r ****. Do you know what is the reason? People a) are afraid of b) imitate how the system pleases ( here I am sitting at the computer, I have a very important document open and I’ve been chasing a couple of lines in it for 2 hours / writing and rewriting the code of one function ). This is bad control. Good control is the ability to set tasks and link motivation with them, so that the employee himself is happy to organize his working time and perform tasks (it’s about delegation, development methodologies and KPI system if it’s about managers and commerce).
The third reason for the “disease” of business processes is poor circulation of information within the company. There is nothing worse when all decisions go down from above, and departments conduct internecine wars to prove their importance and weight. Information in the company must be free in both horizontal and vertical hierarchies; each employee has the right to request the necessary work data from a neighboring department or manager and is required to provide data on the first request of colleagues. Of course, the most vivid example of such a relationship is the eternal, almost holy war of marketing and sales. But there are worse stories - for example, when a development and testing department is at war.
Of course, depending on the business and organizational structure, there may be other reasons for process failures, but these three are universal for everyone: from an advertising agency to a flight control center.
What to do with business processes?
If you have been to different fast food chains, you probably noticed that McDonald's bypasses its closest competitors in terms of speed, quality of service, availability of the entire range and accuracy of order fulfillment. Although the principle is the same: franchise, young employees, managers above them, semi-finished products with a high degree of readiness, automated cash registers and sending an order to the kitchen (there are nuances here, but not for this article). The reason is simple - it is in McDonald’s that the processes are perfectly debugged and maximally automated. And the task of the manager is not to run to the cashier to cancel the order, but to correct the subordinate with the first mistake, and not when the client noticed it. As a result, customers are satisfied, and work is easier, because part of the responsibility lies with the process itself, you are only part of the chain.
And if at the same time you were, for example, in large food parks of a shopping and entertainment center, you could see how waiting customers sometimes change their dislocation in a queue for a queue to a neighboring vendor and after a few minutes are removed to the place with the received order. Here we come to the main point. For most companies, the business environment is the very foodcourt, a tight, closed market for goods and services. If tomorrow the employees of RegionSoft poorly serve the client who wants to buy RegionSoft CRM , he will not wait for the main manager to hit the cuffs and decide the question - he will go to the competitors. And the client will not be worried that we are safe, functional, powerful, inexpensive and that our system is ultra-speed. He will be worried that the process failed and he is uncomfortable.
Improving business processes is your competitiveness and the key to survival in the market. Weak, unbuilt processes, in addition to customer dissatisfaction, will entail an increase in costs, a decrease in revenues and low motivation of employees (rush jobs, fuss and swearing very quickly demotivate). If you want, a business process is a kind of flexible methodology for the entire company, and not just for development (this is an explanation for IT people).
So, what are the advantages of automating business processes?
Formal prescribed logic and precise execution. An automated process is a “programmed” model, data available and logging of all actions. The program is responsible for the change of stages, notifications, documents, letters and some other attributes - it is she who launches everything from time to time at the right time and at specified intervals of time ( on April 17, start a copy of the process, on the 18th send a reminder to participants A and D, 19 on the basis of work A and D, form an account and send it as payment, send notifications E, reminders B, F, W, 22nd, on the basis of all the work done, generate a report and send X ).
The soundness of the decisions. Business processes permeate the entire activity of the company and, when they are automated, accumulate accurate and relevant information about customers, transactions, assortment, etc. That is, for example, if your BPM is embedded in any form in a CRM system (as, for example, this is done in RegionSoft CRM ), then all the data during the implementation of the process are spread over their tables, which means that an information base appears for analysis and justification of decisions. By the way, in “clean BPM systems” all information also accumulates, but not always in the context in which it is necessary for operational work.
Fast and high-quality team work. Since the business process contains all the stages and those responsible, the team works as a single mechanism, passing the baton from the employee to the employee. Everyone in his place knows what needs to be done and is confident that all previous work has been done (otherwise the system will not continue the process, but will report violations of one of the links). It is very convenient to rely on a formal model and do real work, that is, to actually act on a clear plan for the whole team and for each link individually.
Productivity growth. It's simple: part of the work is shifted to the program, so "robots are injected, a happy person." Routine processes (that is, those that repeat cyclically and require monotonous work that can be described formally) are most often automated, so employees have more time to work on communication with customers, product development, etc.
Here, for example, an article on Habré or Forbes in a large company. The author chooses a topic, is written off with everyone, agrees, then writes, writes to everyone that he wrote, everyone reads, makes a hundred million edits, he writes again, everyone reads, etc., then someone masterfully creates this thing, looks for / draws pictures, etc. A sea of formal correspondence, which can be replaced by alerts on the action "File uploaded." And the released time can be directed to a deeper work with the text.
Company flexibility with respect to change. Alas, in our time, changes can come from anywhere: employees quit, a new law was passed, sanctions were imposed on sanctions, and now the business has to adapt to changes. Even if they are very good, it is always stressful for a company. Automated processes are easily changed and oriented to the new conditions - the business is quickly rebuilt on the desired rails. Today, flexibility and ability to adapt - the key to the successful evolution of business in the market. Unfortunately, the bureaucratic slow-moving dinosaurs will become extinct.
The effectiveness of remote employees, geographically distributed units. If you want all those who are farther than 1 km from your office and work for your company to be integrated into the team, and not to perform their monotonous work as outsourcers, business processes are important to you. Include employees in the process, assign roles, assign control points, automate their work and, as a result, everyone will be equally involved in team work, timely informed and, most importantly, effective.
About three years ago in one of the foreign analytical articles I read a good explanation of the importance of the processes on the example of Wikipedia. This project = mega distributed team (the whole world) + mega routine tasks (texts, editing, factual) + mega debugged process with maximum automation. As a result, due to the constant improvement of regulations, forms, and communications, the so-called “joint anarchy” has acquired a cool and useful form.
Reducing risks and increasing the level of information security. We have already written that automation itself plays an important role in enhancing information security, but business processes help control every point in the implementation of tasks within a project, and in which case, you can immediately detect the problem and begin to reduce the risk of an adverse outcome.
Openness and transparency of the process for all its participants is the very factor of security. Everyone can see who is currently the owner of the process and on whom the task is stuck. When the company has implemented automated business process management (for example, in a CRM system), the human factor is reduced to almost zero, because shifting responsibility and keeping silent about the failure in a partisan manner does not make sense when the interface of the program shows who has stretched the time, missed the task and did not complete the work on time.
Complete subordination and consistency within the team , since all the roles are distributed within the process and you can contact any participant in two clicks.
Protection of business continuity from personnel problems. HR-problems happen all the time: illness, vacations, staff turnover (especially among sales managers, telemarketers, middle managers, etc.). When an employee falls out of the work process, it is always a certain short-term (or not so) collapse in his area of responsibility. An automated business process can be easily reconfigured by appointing a new employee — and the whole team will immediately understand who is responsible for what. Again, the collapse will be, but minimally short and without consequences from the organization of the process.
Accelerated adaptation of employees. In general, new employees today and 10 years ago are very different. If earlier even the most brilliant employee first joined the work and didn’t show himself at all, then today you can meet those who show activity on the first day. Of course, most often this activity is the headache of the whole team, but these guys do not want to beat their hands. The inclusion of a novice in the business process, which he can see, helps him to adapt as quickly as possible, and at the same time not to go beyond his responsibility. Subordination is respected, the project is at a glance, communication with colleagues is obvious - you can safely work. One more process value is revealed here - accumulation and translation of business knowledge.
Development of work culture and interaction culture.Again, I repeat that all employees are different and especially stand out introverts and extroverts who find it difficult to come together and start working for a single result. The streamlined process teaches employees a culture of communication and interaction, making the relationship comfortable and transparent. For example, Vasya, an introvert-tester, does not have to ask everyone who is responsible for the design to ask who of the 7 remotes did localization, because there is a typo in the interface translation. He opens the current process, looks, who specifically translated and wrote his comment in any messenger.
Measurable and evaluation of the result.Automated processes accumulate a sea of information, can be measured (reports, KPI), journal information and always eloquently demonstrate whether the result is achieved or not. If it seems to you that the reason for the failure was the non-optimal architecture of the process, you can always fix it by reconfiguring the parameters in the process editor.
What are BPM systems and which one to choose?
BPM systems are like CRM, only BPM. Joke.This software is for modeling and operating business processes. BPM systems are somewhat similar to CRM systems and belong to the class of corporate software. In the interface of such a system, process models are created (most often using the BPMN 2.0 notation or in a native editor), a graphical and logical representation appears, is stored on the server, then process instances are launched on the desktop or in a web browser. By itself, a BPM system, unlike CRM or ERP, cannot provide end-to-end business automation, which is why it often requires integration (often vendors have several systems at once). In the end, BPM systems are quite expensive, difficult to manage and, in their pure form, companies with very complex processes (industry, government procurement, export, high-tech industries, etc.) need. Frankly, betterthan in the picture below, and you will not tell, they are often really anti-human and monstrous:
But even without business processes in a company of any level, it’s really bad, so vendors of CRM systems didn’t lose their head and included modules for modeling and managing processes in their systems. We will not name specific brands, but frankly speaking - it turned out for everyone with varying degrees of success: someone pulled BPMN 2.0, someone took the elements of the notation and turned it into a completely poor interface, and some turned out very well, distinctly and businesslike. And this is the best option for most companies - a universal solution without the difficulties of integration and data exchange.
We introduced business processes back in the RegionSoft CRM 5.0 release, collected data and reviews, worked on the system ourselves, understood our mistakes, appreciated the achievements in the version RegionSoft CRM 6.0conducted a deep refactoring of the business process module, which migrated to later versions. Experience shows that in our editor you can configure and run the most complex processes.
Here's what we got (screenshots + explanations)
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Well, ok, the system is, what's next, how to design business processes?
If we are talking about a small company with trivial processes, modeling is implemented quite simply even by managers who do not have programming skills. In the general case, business process modeling can be represented as such a scheme:
The business process itself is a route for performing one large task consisting of several stages. Based on this and need to work on it.
- Analyze existing processes, isolate the most important, eliminate the superfluous and try to sketch a scheme on paper. A small life hack: if you do not know how to approach this procedure, write it down yourself and ask the staff to write down everything they do during the day - this way you can identify routine tasks and proceed to their formal description.
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- Make a detailed diagram on the paper with all the parameters, discuss the final version with those responsible, make the final edits.
- Create a business process model in a CRM or BPM system, save.
- Run a test instance of the process, run it on the test data, make corrections.
- Start the process in real working mode.
- After the business process is completed, analyze the result, progress, deadlines, process logs. If necessary, optimize the model.
- Run business process instances as needed.
- In case of changes, do not be afraid to reengineer all existing processes.
When working with business processes, consider a couple of important points:
- The business process must be repetitive (cyclical) and final, that is, aimed at achieving the result. Failure is also a result. Modeling a business process for one-time use is almost always impractical (in such cases it is better to create a project).
- Each process must have a mandatory set of attributes: the initial and final stages, human (responsible, calls) and automatic (add a task to the calendar, generate a report, send a notification or reminder) components, timing.
When to start automating business processes?
The answer to this question is laconic: immediately, even if you have just created a company. Let's not pour water, but let's look at an example at once, what processes there are even in the youngest company.
- Acceptance of the customer’s order and its processing;
- Order goods from suppliers; Work with contractors;
- Delivery of the order to the buyer;
- Processing treatment, service desk, receiving goods in warranty repair or service;
- The work of telemarketing services and bringing the client to the transaction in cold sales;
- Coordination of documents by different departments or employees within the company;
- Processes in information technology: PC input and maintenance, administration, incidents, etc.
All these processes are cyclical, some of them will become more complicated and develop, so the sooner you start, the faster and easier it will be further reengineering.
And of course, if you have a tangle of established processes and you do not know what to pull, then all the more you should look towards automation.
Business process management is never without effect. According to the AIIM study, companies that turn to BPM receive up to 41% ROI growth. 62% noted an improvement in communication between company employees, 33% - reduced bureaucracy and coordination levels, 42% - greater organizational flexibility.
Implement and automate business processes - it means to stop solving business problems as tasks and go to the management level by goals, work for the result. This means more freedom of hands and heads from the routine and fuss, less conflicts and corporate wars. Business processes are not a chip for the elite and great, not the prerogative of Gazprom or Rosatom, it is a transparent, convenient and accessible working tool that greatly improves business in the company. So, if you have a CRM (or planned for implementation), do not ignore the opportunities - use them. Be sure: after a short period of time you will say “The process has started” and will be happy to launch another instance of it.
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