Abstract: Facing the development trend of fierce competition in management consulting industry, how domestic management consulting companies stand out in the industry is a subject worthy of study. In this context, this paper attempts to introduce knowledge management into the consulting business process management of management consulting companies from the perspective of management consulting companies, so as to improve the efficiency of consulting business processes, improve customer service quality and enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises.
[Keywords:] knowledge management; Business process optimization; ARIS basic modeling concept; Management Consulting Firm
With the advent of the era of "knowledge economy", in the increasingly competitive market environment, knowledge economy has become the leading force of social development, and countries all over the world pay more and more attention to the development of knowledge industry. As a typical representative of knowledge industry, management consulting industry is booming in the world. China's management consulting industry started late, and there is a huge gap between enterprises and foreign management consulting companies in business process design, division of labor and cooperation, human resource management and so on. How to adjust the management mode, optimize the business process and introduce new service products according to the market situation and customer demand is undoubtedly an important guarantee for management consulting enterprises to achieve dynamic competitive advantage in the market competition.
1, related content of management consulting industry
Management consulting industry refers to a high-intelligence service enterprise engaged by people with rich management knowledge and experience and mastering consulting methods. As a typical knowledge-intensive enterprise, the core business process of management consulting enterprise is closely related to knowledge, and has obvious characteristics:
(1) Product particularity: The final product of management consulting company has immaterial characteristics. Management consulting companies propose solutions for customers based on knowledge, and customers' evaluation of whether products can meet their own needs depends not only on the "solutions" provided by management consulting companies, but also on their successful implementation.
(2) The inter-company business process is very complicated: according to the objectives and tasks, the whole consulting process of management consulting companies can be divided into five stages, namely, contact consulting stage, preparatory consulting stage, formal consulting stage, scheme implementation stage and tracking improvement stage [1]. Due to the uniqueness of management consulting industry, its business process is relatively simple, and the business process between different management consulting companies is highly descriptive.
(3) The development direction of organizational structure is knowledge-based: the development direction of organizational structure of management consulting companies is based on knowledge rather than function, and consultants in different knowledge fields are divided into different departments, thus forming the main body of enterprise organizational structure. This knowledge-based organizational structure is conducive to the smooth development of knowledge flow.
(4) Talent-intensive enterprises: The biggest investment and advantage of management consulting companies lies in a high-quality consulting team. Most of these members are graduates with master's degrees, or professors engaged in theoretical research in colleges and universities, or corporate executives with rich practical experience.
2. The relationship between business process optimization and knowledge management of management consulting companies.
2. 1 Relationship between knowledge management and knowledge flow
Knowledge process is the process of knowledge management. No matter what kind of knowledge management, we should focus on knowledge acquisition, knowledge storage, knowledge enjoyment, knowledge application or knowledge innovation. In a sense, basic knowledge management activities such as knowledge acquisition and knowledge innovation constitute knowledge flow. Obtaining new knowledge from knowledge flow is the goal of enterprise knowledge management. Without knowledge flow, it is meaningless to manage the knowledge management of knowledge-based enterprises.
2.2 the relationship between knowledge process and business process
Business process refers to a series of strict and orderly activities carried out by enterprises to set specific value goals. This set of activities can have one or more inputs and produce one or more outputs, which are value-added for corporate customers. Knowledge process refers to a series of logical knowledge activities to complete the goals set in business process. There should be knowledge and knowledge flow in all business processes of management consulting companies, which is embodied in a series of knowledge activities [2]. The relationship between knowledge process and business process is mainly manifested in the following three aspects:
(1) All complete knowledge processes start with the knowledge demand in the business process and end with meeting the knowledge demand.
(2) Knowledge process and business process are in the same direction, both of which are task-oriented. In the knowledge process, various knowledge activities interact to complete the flow of relevant knowledge involved in the business process. It can be said that knowledge process is the mapping of business process in knowledge field. A basic business activity can correspond to multiple knowledge activities, and activities in the same knowledge process can also be embodied by multiple business process activities. Figure 1 shows the mapping relationship between business processes and knowledge activities.
(3) Business process and knowledge process complement each other. Business process provides a steady stream of knowledge for enterprises and improves the operation efficiency of business process. Smooth knowledge flow can promote the flow of knowledge in business process, improve the knowledge level of employees, promote the application and creation of knowledge, and thus improve the operation efficiency of business process.
2.3 Relationship between business process optimization and knowledge management
Business process optimization is closely related to knowledge management. Knowledge comes from business processes and is applied to business processes. Business process optimization emphasizes customer demand-oriented, and the only way to truly understand customer demand is to collect and sort out customer information through knowledge management, establish a customer demand database, and quickly respond to changes in customer demand [3].
3. Business process optimization model of management consulting company.
3. 1 guiding ideology of mode construction
According to the guiding ideology of ARIS basic modeling, this paper constructs the business process optimization model of management consulting company. Aris (architecture of integrated information system) method is an integrated information system architecture method. Its core idea is information integration, which requires an overall analysis of business processes. ARIS modeling method is an image description of enterprise business process from four angles: enterprise organization, data, function and control. Among them, the description of organization, data and function view is relatively independent, and the information of other modules is not used, and the relationship between them is described by control view.
(1) Organization view: In the ARIS modeling method, the organization view is described in the form of organization block diagram, which specifically includes the comprehensive description of all kinds of information in the enterprise organization structure with basic elements such as organization unit, personnel, role, post and place.
(2) Data view: Data view is the basic element of enterprise informatization, which describes all the data involved in the whole business process of the enterprise. This paper mainly analyzes the knowledge involved in the business process of management consulting company, so the knowledge view reflecting the knowledge structure of business process replaces the data view.
(3) Function view: The function view mainly analyzes the function structure supporting the realization of enterprise goals in the form of a function tree, describes the configuration information oriented to the business process decomposition layer, and describes the transformation process of information from input to output.
(4) Control view: Control view plays a "glue" role in the whole ARIS modeling method, connecting organization, data and function views, which is also an important feature of ARIS that distinguishes it from other modeling methods.
In the process of modeling the core business of a management consulting company, the organizational view of each business department is first constructed. Based on the organizational model, around the implementation process of the whole business process, the knowledge, events and functions involved in the process are collected, analyzed, sorted and described, and then a function view and a knowledge view reflecting data are established respectively. Finally, according to the structure of each view, the relationship between each view is analyzed and described through the control view, so as to show the core business process of the management consulting company more comprehensively.
3.2 Business process optimization model based on knowledge management
In this paper, knowledge management theory is introduced into business process optimization, and the basic modeling idea of ARIS is combined with business process optimization steps to construct a business process optimization model based on knowledge management.
Knowledge management provides a new analytical perspective for management consulting companies to implement business process optimization. It can help enterprises to diagnose the problems and areas that need improvement in their business processes along the path of knowledge flow, improve the knowledge management level of business processes, and thus drive the improvement of process performance.
References:
Wang Zhiyong. Overview of management consulting business process [J]. Accounting Monthly, 2006 (8): 62-63.
[2] Xu Xiangyi. Enterprise knowledge management [M]. Jinan: Shandong People's Publishing House, 2008: 44-46.
[3] Liu Lei, Zhao Guangzhou. Study on the Interactive Relationship between Business Process Reengineering and Knowledge Management [J]. Discussion on Economic Issues, 2003 (10): 60-62.