Mpm701 Business Process Management - Assessment Answers

Your task is to prepare a preliminary business report for the CEO. The CEO has an in-house style which he expects for business reports, so the main body of your report must be structured using the following headings. A brief about what each section of the report must address is also provided. If you believe that there is insufficient information on which to carry out your analysis, you may make reasonable assumptions however, these must be clearly stated.

Advise the CEO why a BPM approach should now become part of the way SmartShirt Pty Ltd does business.
Introduce the CEO to Business Process Management by stating in plain terms what it actually is and how it can help his business.

In describing the benefits of BPM to the CEO, ensure that you briefly highlight how BPM connects to business strategy (internal and external perspectives), positioning, structure and value propositions and use this case to provide examples where you believe this will assist the reader’s understanding. 
Briefly describe the meaning of value chains and how using BPM, in conjunction with this concept, can assist the CEO to improve the business.
Clearly describe the strategy that you believe the CEO should be following and provide a justification for your view.

From the case provided on SmartShirt Pty Ltd, it has been identified that there is decrease in revenue of the organization due to lack of coordination within departments of the organization. The existing issues will lead to downfall of the company and losing their competitive advantage as the competitors are growing rapidly. Hence, the present business strategy have to merged and improved with the adoption of BPM. The implementation of BPM will ensure the organization to retain their competition in the market and maintain the quality standards.

Meaning of Value chains and use of BPM to improve business

The primary aim for implementing BPM in the organization is to enhance the existing business processes such that those are able to support value chains. The implementation of BPM would also help to improve position of the business from both internal along with external perspectives (Rosemann and vom Brocke 2015). The processes that are not able to add value in the value chain could be eradicated with the help of BPM approach. This process could be completed using internal procedures that are related to the sub processes for external measures for ensuring proper functioning of value chain in the organization. The overall consequences of maintaining the value chain could be handled with adoption of BPM approach. For instance, the adoption of BPM approach by Toyota for their business processes helped to achieve significant benefits by focusing on the manufacturing process of vehicles.

Hence, if BPM approach is adopted by the company then it will help the organization to connect properly with the internal as well as external environment. The implementation of BPM approach will help to balance and match the resources of the organization that is processes, systems along with people associated with the business.

Strategy to be followed by CEO and justification

The adoption of BPM should be followed by the CEO to automate the processes within the organization as it will be helpful for SmartShirt Pty Ltd in the following manner:

• Reduction in cost and time – The time and cost required for operating with the manual system will be reduced by implementing BPM.
• Increase in staff efficiency – The reduction in effort of staffs required for manual handling of information will help to increase efficiency of the staffs.
• Better control and coordination – The coordination and proper monitoring of activities can be carried out to ensure successful delivery of the business processes.

The major issue that has been identified in context to the case of SmartShirt Pty Ltd is procurement of inventory and delay in delivery which occurs mainly due to the manual handling of activities. The processing of orders and other activities are carried out through emails or telephonic conversations which makes it difficult for the staffs to keep track of the inventory as well orders. Another issue is that paper work have to be minimized which can be done with the help of low cost database management systems whereas, implementation of ERP system and a high speed internet connection will be suitable for the organization to achieve long term goals.

The implementation of ERP system will increase the costs related to operations as training have to be provided to staffs about the new system. The training can be provided gradually starting from the management level to the employees and the directors of respective departments. The other important factor that has been identified is related to the suppliers as more time is consumed while placing order for stocks. Sometimes quality issues are also found in the delivered shirts which resulted into dissatisfaction of the customers. There is no record of customers stored in the database or paper work which results into loss of customer base.

Project scoping diagram for identified problems

From the project scoping diagram, it has been identified that there are various problems within the organization and implementation of re-engineering process would help to increase profit. The reduction in operating costs will eventually help the organization to retain their competitive advantage in the market. The implementation of ERP system has been considered as the suitable process for improving present condition of the organization. The system will help in keeping track of information related to sales so that suitable marketing strategies could be implemented in the organization.

Proposed Solution

BPA (Business Process Architecture) is considered as the collection of processes within an organization along with the relationship that exists among the various processes. The implementation of business process architecture will help in smooth and efficient running of an organization (Hammer 2015). This architecture helps to connect the different processes into one and the develop relationship among the different departments of the organization. The BPA will also help to maintain value chains along with other vital functions within the organization. The development of a suitable BPA from the existing processes help to conduct the business activities properly as well as development of the business from future perspective. The collaboration of various processes with one another facilitates smooth flow among the end to end processes. It also helps to mitigate the issues that may occur while carrying out the daily processes which in turn will save time along with improving the efficiency resulting into more productivity.

BPA would bring about significant change in the company as there is no proper flow of information within different departments of SmartShirt Pty Ltd. The manual handling of processes could be mitigated with the implementation of a suitable BPA. The implementation of BPA will help to interconnect the different departments of the company and thus increasing the coordination between them for better execution of the business processes.

In context to the case of SmartShirt Pty Ltd., implementation of BPM will help them to determine as well as mitigate the identified issues for better business performance. The sales and profit of the organization could be enhanced with adoption of BPM. The work and business processes could be carried out smoothly with efficiency at a faster rate which would eventually increase the satisfaction of customers. The proposed solution for the organization is presented with the help of ‘To Be’ process flow diagram which depicts the flow of information that will be followed with the adoption of BPM. In the next section, an illustration of the ‘To Be’ process flow diagram has been presented so that the company could operate more effectively and efficiently.

Key aspects in the proposed solution

The proposed solution for mitigating the identified issues in the organization is to implement an ERP system. The system will help to reduce the effort required for manual handling of processes and get rid of the paper based work. The resources required for carrying out the business activities could be aligned with the organizational goals and strategies by implementing the new system. The advantages that will gained by adopting ERP system in SmartShirt Pty Ltd are discussed as below:

• The time required for physically processing or orders through emails and checking of available stocks could be reduced with the help of proposed system.
• Paper based work could be minimized with the help of features offered by the proposed system.
• The implementation of new system will help to keep track of the orders and inventory as well as information of the customers.
• The proposed system will also help the sales and marketing department to generate reports and overview of revenue so that they could develop strategies for future growth.
• The proposed system will also help to maintain the value chain and manage supply chain effectively to promote the business.

Solution Considerations

The major factor that have to be considered while implementing the solution is cost as ERP system price varies according to type and features selected for usage. Hence, only the required functionalities should be added to the system. The other factors that have to be taken into consideration are presented as below:

• The staffs have to be provided with proper training facility so that they do not hesitate or find difficulty while using the new system.
• The employees have to be made aware of the new changes that will take place in the organization prior to implementation of the new system.
• There may be cases where staffs of one department do not like to work with other department and hence conflict management strategies have to be developed well in advance so that there is proper control and coordination.

Recommendations

From the analysis of case study on SmartShirt Pty Ltd, some suggestions are presented to improve the present conditions within the business as below:

• The adoption and implementation of proposed solution that is an ERP system will prove to be beneficial for the company as it would save time, reduce wastage of resources and improve the existing business processes.
• The new system will provide automation facilities means as soon as an order is received from the customer it will forwarded automatically to the operations and inventory tracking will be also easier. The problems with unavailability of materials could be reduced as the suppliers will be informed automatically as soon as there is requirement for more inventory.
• The accounts department must take follow up on a regular basis about the debtors so that there is reduction in the amount that has to be collected from the debtors and there is no loss in business.
• The conflict between staffs have to be taken into consideration with immediate effect and it should be resolved with priority so that there is no hindrance in the business processes.

References

Bolsinger, M., 2015. Bringing value-based business process management to the operational process level. Information Systems and e-Business Management, 13(2), pp.355-398.

Brocke, J.V. and Rosemann, M., 2014. Handbook on business process management 2: strategic alignment, governance, people and culture. Springer Publishing Company, Incorporated.

Buh, B., Kovacic, A. and Indihar Štemberger, M., 2015. Critical success factors for different stages of business process management adoption–a case study. Economic research-Ekonomska istraživanja, 28(1), pp.243-258.

Chang, J.F., 2016. Business process management systems: strategy and implementation. Auerbach Publications.

Chong, S., 2014. Business process management for SMEs: an exploratory study of implementation factors for the Australian wine industry. Journal of Information Systems and Small Business, 1(1-2), pp.41-58.

Dijkman, R., Lammers, S.V. and de Jong, A., 2016. Properties that influence business process management maturity and its effect on organizational performance. Information Systems Frontiers, 18(4), pp.717-734.

Glykas, M., 2014. Business Process Management. Springer.

Hammer, M., 2015. What is business process management?. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 3-16). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Jeston, J., 2014. Business process management. Routledge.

Kumar, A., 2018. Business process management. Routledge.

Rahimi, F., Moller, C. and Hvam, L., 2016. Business process management and IT management: The missing integration. International Journal of Information Management, 36(1), pp.142-154.

Rosemann, M. and vom Brocke, J., 2015. The six core elements of business process management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Tregear, R., 2015. Business process standardization. In Handbook on Business Process Management 2 (pp. 421-441). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Trkman, P., Mertens, W., Viaene, S. and Gemmel, P., 2015. From business process management to customer process management. Business process management journal, 21(2), pp.250-266.

Vom Brocke, J., Schmiedel, T., Recker, J., Trkman, P., Mertens, W. and Viaene, S., 2014. Ten principles of good business process management. Business process management journal, 20(4), pp.530-548.

Wong, W.P., Tseng, M.L. and Tan, K.H., 2014. A business process management capabilities perspective on organisation performance. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 25(5-6), pp.602-617.