Sample Assignment on Business Process Management
Executive Summary
In this report the role of business process management and how it will help the organization “Enterprise airways Pty ltd” in resolving the issues that is being faced by the firm which has been evident from the case study and the losses it has faced in the recent times due to it. In doing so the problem analyses have been performed and based on that the recommendations and the solution to the business have been provided in this business report. In this project it has been that the main problems for the organization lie in the sales and marketing for the firm, which is result for poor coordination and the lack of use of ICT. Recommendations have been provided based on this.
BPM and Strategy
Business process management is a way of managing performance and operations for a organization. Here it can be further stated that in order to improve corporate performances, managing and optimizing a company’s business process is essential. It becomes evident that the BPM enable the organizations to be more efficient and functionally focused (Ko and Wah, 2009). The approach portrays a process of total quality management and continual improvement process which enable’s in delivering quality services in the least possible cost. In this case it can be further stated that the company needs to have a process in suiting the business purpose.
Moreover the company Enterprise airways needs to strategies its service as per the business process management in terms of reservation, catering, accounting, scheduling, maintenance, and in terms of sales and marketing. It is important that the company follow a procedure of business process management because it not only helps in reducing the cost of the service but also helps in reducing the glitches that are evident in the system through efficient management procedure. Moreover, it also helps in identifying the problems in a better manner.
In this section, it has been evident that the business process management also evaluates the internal and external environment of the company, which helps in adopting strategies for the firm. In this regard, it can be stated that in evaluating the external environment of the company, the company needs to determine the demand for the services that it offers. The companies generally evaluate the external perspectives based on political, economic, social and technological factors (Trkman, 2010). Determining the political factors help the company in formulating strategies about the rules and regulations set by the government to regulate the trade in which it operates. In case of Enterprise airways, it can be stated that the company has to consider political situation of different sets of countries where it operates. Therefore, the company needs to have a flexible strategy in this regard.
The economic factors help in determining the demand and the different economies are expected to have different parameters in this regard the pricing policies have to be determined for the service that the company offers. It can be further stated, that the impact of the social phenomenon are also important in shaping the business of the company similarly the legal aspect of the countries and the geographic areas are also important factor in shaping the business. The other important factor in strategizing the policies of the company is the importance of evaluating the internal scenario, which involves stakeholder analysis. The different stakeholders of the company are its employees the maintenance staff, the shareholders, the directors of the company and the government. Analyzing the situation in this context helps in evaluating the internal capabilities for the company (Vom Brocke & Rosemann, 2010).
This helps the management in adopting strategies helping in designing an appropriate supply mechanism. Internal and external perspectives of the company help in positioning the company in the market and help in formulating the value proposition for the company. A valued proposition of the company is a promise of value to be delivered communicated and acknowledged. This helps in improving business of any company, and “Enterprise airways” is no exception (Rosemann, Recker, & Flender, 2008).
Problem Analysis
There are number of problems existent in the Enterprise organization among which are, the customer complaints about bookings and citing of the customers being incorrectly charged and the fees are being incorrectly debited from the customer accounts. The possibility of the fault occurring in the system is because of the cumbersome and the complex mailing procedure followed by the agent and the company in the booking mechanism and the coordination failure resulting in this problem.
The other problem faced by the company is in its catering mechanism, this results in flight delays and many a times results in the failure of the company to provide refreshments to its clients. It has been evident that the company has problem in coordinating the requirement to its suppliers and which results in delaying the flight and failure to provide the passengers with refreshment in time. This has the potential to antagonize them.
The company has also faced accounting problems, which has resulted in discrepancies in financial statements of the company. The problem is caused because of the delay in the processing mechanism. The processing of the paper invoices from the suppliers require more time to process and hence results in coordination failure, delays and ultimately in the financial discrepancies. This results in loss of performance for the organization. The use of the postal system further accentuates the problem (Zairi, 1997).
The company has also faced problems in scheduling flights the problem has resulted in customer dissatisfaction as well. This has resulted because of the acute shortages of aircraft that the company has. Accentuated further because of the problems in the procurement and delivering system in the company. It has been further evident that the company has problems in employee management and employee supervision. A part of the problem in this regard, has been caused because a single staff is responsible for the entire scheduling process.
The problems faced by the company in maintaining the aircraft arises because it has to abide by the rules of the regulatory agencies. If the any of the aircraft owned by the company fails to meet the set standard, the craft has to be taken off services. In this regard, the company employs external contractors in maintaining its aircrafts; any delay from the contractors result the aircrafts being off service for a longer period and result in scheduling problems.
The company also faces problem in marketing and sales. The problem is mainly caused because of the lack of a formal IT department that the company does not have. The problem in sales and marketing further arises because of the problems in allocating scheduling and catering services that the company has.
Proposed solution
The main problems of the company lie in the formulating an appropriate sales and marketing techniques for the organization. An appropriate choice of the business process architecture helps in resolving the problem. The business process architecture is defined as the blue print of the enterprise that provides common understanding of the organization and is used to align strategic and tactical demand. In this case the appropriate business process suited for the purpose of “Enterprise Airways” needs to be hierarchical model with the development of the IT module for the organization, which will help in reducing the coordination problem for the organization and will help in adopting and implementing appropriate policy for the company. The IT solution will help in reducing the delay and process time for the different departments involved in the process.
The gap that has been identified is between the set valued proposition of the company and its implementation in the practical life. In this case, the selected business process help in reducing the gap and the IT solution helps in reducing the time and effective solution. The “To be” process defines the future state of a business process in an organization (Clauset, Moore and Newman, 2008). In this case it has to be the hierarchical process and the it has to be incorporated in it. In this case, it can be further stated that the company need not follow the business structure that it is currently following.
The company needs to focus on the support and management process of the organization as has been evident form the case study. Then implementation of the IT tools in the process will help in resolving the problem by a great extent. The support and management process will help in resolving the issues by a great deal in context of developing a marketing and sales policy, in the catering mechanism of the organization, the accounting system and the problem of customer being charged inappropriately. The appropriate choice of technique has to be chosen as per the diagram.
The fully annoted organizational structure should also be an hierarchical structure for the organization as the business process structure is also hierarchical with the involvement of information technology (Pleshko, 2007).
Solution Consideration
The BPM changes can be extremely costly and valuable considering the surroundings. In the present context and considering the situation in the company, it can be stated that these changes are essential. It has been evident from the company balance sheet and company performances that the company profit has narrowed down in the recent years; in the last two years it has been seen that the company has incurred loss and the margin of loss is widening. In this context, it can be stated that these losses have been mainly due to the difficulties faced by the firm in the spheres of marketing and sales, aircraft maintenance and scheduling problems resulting in customer dissatisfaction (Jeston and Nelis, 2014).
In this regard, it can be stated that the implementation of the IT tools would help the firm to reduce the operational time for the organization (Leymann, Roller and Schmidt, 2002). This would help bettering the service quality. The opportunity cost involved in implementing the tools is the huge cost involved in the process and the high investment required to implement it. The political situation prevalent in the countries where the organization operates has technology friendly approach and therefore it would not be difficult to implement the IT tools for the company. The consideration that the company has to make during the redesigning and the developmental stages it that it will not perform at it full potential during this time. The company will only be able to breakeven during this point of time . The other consideration that the company will have to make is that it will have to train its employees regarding the change, which will also add on to the cost. It is also important that the company look into the aspect of customer satisfaction. This is a part of the sales and marketing strategy.
This will have implication within and outside of the organization. In this case it can be further stated that these consideration will help in bettering the internal atmosphere of the organization enhancing coordination within the organization and increasing efficiency. This would result in solving the issues of accounting, maintenance of aircraft and scheduling of the flight. This would help in satisfying the customers as their concerns will be addressed which is a external phenomenon for the organization which is affected due to this. The other external phenomenon is that it will help in pitching the service to the right set of subscribers because market research will have to be done for the purpose. This way the considerations will affect the organization from inside and outside.
Recommendation
In proposing recommendation for the company Enterprise Airways Pty Ltd, it has been evident that the company needs to primarily arrange for funds and other sources of investment, which will be required to carry out the business process management program. This is important for the company in the present context. Without which the company will not be able to carry out the redesigning and development program. It is essential to involve and implement the ICT (information and communication technology) in its coordinating mechanism. This will help the firm in simplifying the process and the time required. The company should also look into the fact that the customer facilitation is done in a proper manner. This includes providing them with refreshments. Removing the discrepancies in accounts and the reduction of the complicacies in the coordination mechanism will help the firm in addressing the issue in a better manner. In this regard it absolutely essential that the company carries out a market research regarding the potential market and the set of customers. The company needs to conduct this task in the most professional manner or employ professional in the field who will do it for them. Based on the market research the company needs to pitch its marketing strategy and advertisement. This will affect the sales of the services provided by the company in a proper manner. The ultimate objective of the firm is to reduce loss and drive the company towards a path of profit.
Reference List
Clauset, A., Moore, C., and Newman, M. E., 2008. Hierarchical structure and the prediction of missing links in networks. Nature, 453(7191), 98-101.
Jeston, J., and Nelis, J., 2014. Business process management. London: Routledge.
Ko, R. K., Lee, S. S., and Wah Lee, E., 2009. Business process management (BPM) standards: a survey. Business Process Management Journal, 15(5), pp. 744-791.
Leymann, F., Roller, D., and Schmidt, M. T., 2002. Web services and business process management. IBM systems Journal, 41(2), 198-211.
Pleshko, L. P., 2007. Strategic orientation, organisational structure, and the associated effects on performance. Journal of Financial Services Marketing, 12(1), pp. 53-64.
Realizing, R.O.I., 2006. Business Process Management (BPM).
Rosemann, M., Recker, J. and Flender, C., 2008. Contextualisation of business processes. International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, 3(1), pp.47-60.
Trkman, P., 2010. The critical success factors of business process management. International journal of information management, 30(2), pp.125-134.
Vom Brocke, J., and Rosemann, M., 2010. Handbook on business process management. Heidelberg: Springer.
Zairi, M., 1997. Business process management: a boundaryless approach to modern competitiveness. Business Process Management Journal, 3(1), pp.64-80.
