Business Process Management as applied by Amba Limited is a process where existing assets (people, products, services, brands and systems) are identified and the opportunities for improvement in their returns to the business assessed. Such assets are related together through various activities that together form what we call “business process”.
The intention of this assessment is to make improvements in effectiveness and efficiency, while also striving for innovation and flexibility that will set the business apart from its competitors. People-focussed systems can be implemented that will lead everyone towards consistency and compliance with policies and best practises. Once implemented, customer satisfaction, product and / or services quality and speed of delivery can all be improved on an ongoing basis that could be described as a “process optimisation process”.
Amba provides both the tools and experience necessary to effectively model existing processes, identify opportunities for improvement, then assist with the implementation of the desired changes.
Take a look at the simple example process to get a feel for the style of documentation produced.
Key Benefits
1. Greater operational efficiency and consistency
Eliminate wasteful and unnecessary activity. Automation and integration can reduce cycle times, lower costs, and handle additional work with no increase in staff. Escalation procedures can provide for when exceptions occur or deadlines cannot be met. In a sluggish economy, now is a good time to take action that will lead to improved efficiency.
2. Improved compliance and control
Improve control over business processes, providing improved compliance with procedures, regulations, policies, and best practices. Automation ensures that there is always "one version of the truth" and the activity log provides a means to accurately audit processes, reducing risk.
3. Innovation through analysis
Allows a business to innovate existing processes "on paper" before committing to implementing change. A process-modelling tool is used to document the current (as-is) process and then to devise the new (to-be) processes in a highly structured way. This model can then be used to project the value of improvements made.
Many companies have no idea what their end-to-end processes look like, or why things are done the way they are. In many cases the processes in place today were put in place a long time ago, before many of the present significant business factors even existed. In addition, it is not at all unusual to find that different staff members have different ways of doing the same jobs.
4. Agility
Withstand changing business conditions and loss of key staff. Through the use of BPM automation tools, the risks that come with change can be reduced by providing the means to make changes quickly and without the need for alterations in code. Businesses can bring new products and services to market more quickly and respond more easily to changing market requirements.
Because process logic is like a flowchart, changes can be made quickly and easily without programming. Built-in integration methods make connecting to diverse business systems simple and allow a great deal of flexibility in how otherwise inflexible systems can be made to react to changing requirements.
5. End-to-end performance visibility and optimisation - accountability
Through the automated tracking of every operation, end-to-end performance metrics are made available in real-time, providing an immediate means for problem resolution. An operational dashboard and automated alerts allow business owners to respond instantly to events that affect the bottom line.
Action Plan
1. UNDERSTAND
Create a common understanding of what happens within a business, the processes it employs, the roles people play and the activities they perform in achieving desired outcomes. A visually engaging method is used in “Discovery Workshops” for people to describe what they do and to explain why. This unlocks valuable knowledge from the heads of employees and produces the “as-is” model.
2. IMPROVE
In the process of building the “as-is” model, it is common to recognise opportunities to eliminate wasteful activity. Through further study, even more improvements may be made. The objective is to “do things right the first time and to do the right things”. By using a visual method to describe business activity, it is much easier to identify activities that need to be addressed.
3. AUTOMATE
When a new process model has been defined, the steps required to change from the current state to the new way of doing things is documented, including any training instructions required. The before and after statistics can be recorded, and once the new processes are accepted full automation can be implemented, using a computer aided workflow that makes it easier for people to do their jobs and to enable more timely and consistent outcomes.
Take a look at the simple example process to get a feel for the style of documentation produced.
Business Process Engineering can create a fundamental shift in the way managers think about running a business.
Discovery workshops provide a way to deeply understand how your business works, who does what, and how all the separate parts come together to achieve the end results. As a result of this work of “discovering” and documenting an enterprise’s business processes, ways to make improvements may be seen, and subsequently implemented.
Once the processes have been adequately documented and “proven” (systematically tested in real-life situations), they may be automated using any number of products and methods. I enjoy working with the XSOL InOrder modelling product because it quite simply makes me look good!
XSOL InOrder provides the means to work with a client's staff in a live workshop situation using intuitive easily understood process flow diagrams to extract the knowledge of how the business works, then behind the scenes I can add text and further graphics and publish the results in a variety of formats, including HTML to publish on the businesses intranet, Word, Excel and PDF versions can also be easily generated.
XSOL automation tools allow the diagrams built during the discovery process to be directly published to an "automation server", which then orchestrates the business processes as defined. There are provisions within XSOL to meet various "real world" situations, such as escalation and "companion processes". Using XSOL tools, some clients have gone as far as to totally automate their businesses, including functions normally performed by business accounting (ERP) systems.
The key thing to recognise, and something I have been harping on about literally for decades is that IT products and services exist to serve the business. Various methods of documentation and automation should provide the supports for a deeper understanding of the workings of a business, and a means to improve performance in daily practice. All too often, I have seen IT personnel dictating how things should work to the business. In my opinion, this is a case of "the tail wagging the dog"!
Also, just as a hammer and some nails do little good if you don’t know what you’re supposed to build, no matter how good the tools are it is essential to understand how to proceed and what the end product will be if they are to achieve their intended purpose. Good Business Process Engineering happens when experienced professionals armed with the right tools come together with clients who have a vision for excellence in their business.
If your business needs more aligned business processes; better cohesion from individual to individual and department to department; and a deeper and more responsive understanding of itself, don’t waste valuable IT dollars on yet another packaged “solution”. Packaged solutions are fine, but have their limitations. To overcome their limitations or at least minimise them, 
to take this further!