A process is a set of interrelated or interactive activities that transform input into output. Enterprise process refers to an orderly collection of a series of logically related activities that span time and space in order to complete a certain goal or task of an enterprise. Enterprise business process is related to the operation of the whole enterprise, so it is the core of the whole enterprise, and enterprise business process management is the cornerstone of enterprise management.
Business Process Improvement (BPI) is to investigate, analyze, sort out, perfect and improve the existing workflow from the perspective of enterprise performance, break down departmental barriers, strengthen horizontal cooperation, and then improve the operational efficiency of enterprises, reduce the overall operating costs of enterprises, thus maintaining the competitive advantage of enterprises.
The change of external environment and the requirement of internal standard management urge enterprises to continuously optimize their business processes in order to improve their competitive strength and achieve rapid, stable and sustainable development.
The connotation of business process optimization is to investigate, analyze, sort out, perfect and improve the existing business processes, use IT technology and other supporting means to break down barriers between departments on the premise of meeting business and management needs, operate business processes in the simplest and most direct way, improve the agility and adaptability of enterprises to environmental changes, minimize invalid or non-value-added activities, reduce waiting time, and coordinate workload and duplication of work. For example, the approval process should consider the classification of approval, focus on approval rules, approval elements, budget control and authorization system, and reduce the level and time of approval.
Second, the principle of business process optimization
Faced with the ever-changing external market environment and the inefficiency of internal operation, the original organizational structure and business model have been difficult to adapt to the changes in the current market and business environment, and the existing business processes must be adjusted and optimized. Many enterprises are facing more practical problems in the process of process optimization. How to optimize a specific business process and what principles should be followed in order to make the process optimization continue in the right direction. This paper summarizes the principles of business process optimization as follows:
1. Process-oriented. Change the original function-oriented management mode and set corresponding functional posts according to the requirements of the process, instead of designing the process according to the existing functional posts. Realize the transformation from "function" oriented management to "process" oriented management, improve the operational efficiency of business processes, and adjust job responsibilities, departmental responsibilities and performance appraisal indicators from "process".
2. Based on reality. Business process optimization should fully consider the company's existing management foundation and resource capabilities. In the meantime, you should go out of the office and experience it for yourself. There are a few people who should never build a car behind closed doors.
Step by step. Business process optimization is a gradual process, and it is impossible to achieve it in one step. The basic process of business process optimization is: description of existing process-discussion of its rationality-process improvement-process operation-discussion-improvement. This cycle is repeated, and continuous improvement is made in this process, and finally the optimal design is achieved.
4. Customer-oriented. The customers of the process are external organizations, internal departments or individuals who use the output of the process, and the significance of the process lies in meeting the needs of the customers to the greatest extent. For example, the order processing process is to meet the customer's requirements for products, services, quality and delivery time involved in the order. The process of recruitment and training is to provide relevant business departments with new employees who meet the job requirements and so on.
5. Result-oriented. The customer is the end of the process, the process performance should be the embodiment of the customer's will, the process output should meet the customer's requirements, and the components and relationships of the process should ensure the fastest output speed, the lowest cost, the lowest risk and the highest quality.
6. The principle of responsibility and good faith. As far as possible, let a person or a department complete relatively independent functions, and clarify the cooperative relationship between process nodes, thus breaking down barriers between departments and reducing coordination workload. Therefore, process optimization should decompose and merge business processing functions according to the level of business relevance, and merge business processing functions with high business relevance into the same position or department.
7. The principle of parallelism. In the process of process execution, shortening the business processing time as much as possible and arranging the work that can be carried out in parallel as much as possible can shorten the waiting time between nodes of the process. Let the relevant personnel in the subsequent process of the process participate in the previous process. If there is no need to participate, the front-end information will be transmitted to the participants in the subsequent process in time, eliminating the information island and enabling the nodes to dock well.
8. add value. Through process design, try to improve the operation quality of node activities related to value creation, reduce unnecessary non-value-added work links, standardize the specific activities in the remaining nodes, and closely focus on providing fast and powerful services for the main value chain.
9. Precise definition. The characteristics of output, activity and input of the process must be defined accurately and clearly, and quantified as much as possible.
10. Information technology support. The process of business process optimization should be combined with the application of information technology as far as possible, that is, using information technology to standardize management system, solidify business process and improve the speed and quality of information interaction. Business process optimization is inseparable from the support of information technology. Informatization is the basis of process optimization. It is a tool and carrier for providing information and executing business processes, which can improve the operating efficiency of processes and the response speed to external changes.
Third, the steps of business process optimization
1. Establish a process optimization organization. Business process optimization is a systematic and complex work. Before deciding to carry out process optimization, a process optimization team composed of senior managers, middle managers, business backbones and consultants should be set up to divide the work of process optimization and determine the implementation plan of process optimization. The consultant shall train the members of the process optimization team on the professional knowledge of process management, so as to ensure that the team members master the professional knowledge and skills such as process combing, process analysis, process design, process drawing, process description document preparation and process implementation.
2. Process research. The process optimization team should first conduct a systematic and comprehensive investigation of the existing business processes of the enterprise, analyze the problems existing in the existing processes, and determine the goals to be achieved after the process optimization. General manufacturing enterprises have hundreds of business processes, which are distributed within departments, between departments and between enterprises, customers and suppliers. At the same time, due to the fuzziness of the original business process, there are also differences in the description of the process by the executors of the same business, which makes the process more complicated.
3. Process carding. After investigating the existing business processes, we should sort them out. Process sequencing is often a huge workload, and the results generally include a series of process documents, including business flow charts and process description documents. The value of process carding itself lies in a comprehensive understanding of the existing processes of enterprises and the visualization and standardization of business operations. At the same time, it is necessary to clarify the operating efficiency and effect of existing business processes and find out the problems existing in these processes, so as to lay the foundation for the subsequent process optimization work.
4. Process analysis. After combing the existing process, it is necessary to analyze, clarify the key nodes and implementation process of the original process, find out the problems existing in the original process, and investigate the departments that may be involved in the optimization process. At the same time, it is necessary to solicit the opinions of employees involved in the process, explain what disadvantages the original process has, and how to design a new process to make it operable.
5. Design a new process. After process analysis, according to the set goals and principles of process optimization, improve the original process or redesign the new process, simplify or merge non-value-added processes, reduce or eliminate repetitive and unnecessary processes, and build a new process model. After the new process model is established, IT should be combined with IT technology, so that the software and hardware can be combined with the actual management and operation of the enterprise, and the new process can be solidified into the company's IT system, such as ERP or OA system, so that the process information can be summarized, processed and transmitted in time through IT technology, which is a very important link in the process of business process optimization.
6. Evaluate the new process. According to the set goal and the actual situation of the enterprise, the new process after optimization design is evaluated, mainly aiming at the use efficiency and final effect of the new process, that is, the "double effect" evaluation.
7. Process implementation and continuous improvement. After the "double effect" evaluation, the business process should be executed. In the process of implementing business processes, it is necessary to summarize, improve and continuously improve. In other words, process optimization is a dynamic cycle process, and process analysis, process design, process evaluation, process implementation and process improvement will enter the next analysis, design, evaluation, implementation and improvement, which is also a dynamic self-improvement mechanism.
Four. Concluding remarks
Business process management is the embodiment of enterprise management level, which determines the quality and efficiency of enterprise operation. Optimizing business processes and strengthening business process management are the guarantee of low cost, efficient operation and sustained, stable and healthy development of enterprises. How to continuously optimize the business process and improve the management level requires all of us to work together to make the business process more reasonable and refined, so that enterprises can operate efficiently under the norms of the process.