Johannesburg, 15 Nov 2006
One of the reasons business process management (BPM) implementations fail lies in the contrast between human flexibility and the clinical nature of a process engine.
"People tend to follow processes loosely, and, as a result, the execution of processes often differs from how they were defined. This can result in errors and inefficiencies," says Michael Barnard, divisional manager services at Business Connexion's Microsoft Competency.
Another reason for BPM failure is the direction of the implementation. A "top-down" implementation, starting at the top of the business value chain and working down through the high level, operational and technical processes, is liable to run out of steam before it is fully deployed and functional. The business then becomes entangled in the definitions of processes and fails to deliver measurable benefit.
A "bottom-up" implementation essentially automates a manual process. Optimisation, process clean-up and the consolidation of higher level processes are difficult unless a clear picture of the high level value chain is kept in mind.
"This method of implementation could cause several iterations of automation in order to get the processes aligned with the higher level processes, and often there is no link to these higher-level processes," he says.
A business process automation tool should ideally be implemented across the enterprise. If several business units within the organisation implement different tools, they may prove difficult to integrate, leaving no picture of the high-level processes in the business.
"Often, such a tool is implemented successfully in one business unit, but the organisation standardises on another, making it difficult to convert and causing resistance to change," notes Barnard.
The risks involved in implementing a BPM solution can be viewed on three levels: organisational "process maturity" risk, implementation risk, and platform risk (arising from the BPM technology itself.
Organisational risk can originate from:
* Lack of process ownership across the organisation, ie enterprise, project management, departmental and operational.
* Lack of understanding of a process-driven organisation. Lack of executive buy-in and low level of process maturity and process thinking in the enterprise. Changing this way of thinking in a specific area can take nine to 12 months!
* The functional structure of organisations and systems, which have traditionally been developed around functions. This contradicts the whole process approach that cuts across functions and questions the functionality of traditional systems.
* Departmental focus which reduces benefits of cross-departmental end-to-end processes.
* The length of time it takes for businesses to learn to think in process terms, which requires a paradigm shift.
* Lack of process discovery and or capture skills within the organisation.
* Perceived pressure placed on job roles due to functional department boundaries.
* Poor commitment to BPM principles by management.
* Poor understanding of analysis and forecasting techniques (especially estimating and improving uncertainty).
* The inability of IT to provide adequate, timely process integration.
Similarly, there are several challenges that create an implementation risk. One of these is the difficulty of having an end-to-end view of a corporate organisation, when every functional unit believes it is unique. Other risks include people not fully committing to process change; embarking on a BPM project for the wrong reasons; a lack of a publicly accepted methodology; a lack of a clearly defined implementation strategy that has been tailored for the specific environment; inviting an initial sense of disillusionment at the steep learning curve, and trying to reengineer processes before existing processes are modelled and measured.
Platform risks include the possibility of choosing the wrong platform or tool for the job. Broader strategic mistakes, however, such as failing to recognise the importance of change management, and aligning business with technology instead of technology to business, can be equally destructive.
With the risks of BPM implementation in mind, and the disclaimer that technology is only ever 25% of a solution, it remains to outline how BPM technology can improve the business process.
With a robust BPM solution, a company can model business processes from start to finish; generate necessary integration among the systems that the process crosses, create exceptional handling and alternative processes; monitor the health and fulfilment cycle of a process; assign fulfilment assets according to workload availability; revise processes for added efficiency, and add or subtract application assets to fulfil the process.
As such, BPM technology shaves time, cost and errors off core processes, and ensures that IT departments serve the purposes of their businesses.
Share