Global Economy – Meaning and its Salient Aspects
The other modules discuss the phenomenon of globalization and the ongoing global economic crisis among other topics. This module is intended to discuss the salient aspects of the global economy including the structural features and the way in which several competing trends and factors influence the workings of the global economy. For instance, the global […]
Marketing Channel Systems – Meaning and Important Concepts
Introduction The last two decades have changed the way business is getting conducted. Some businesses are still using traditional channel systems but advent of the Internet has revolutionized distribution channels. Companies are changing business models to leverage Internet advantage. With open proliferation of information, customer expectations are reaching new heights. Companies need to figure out […]
From Oxcart to Wal-Mart: Dealing with Duality in Emerging Markets
From Oxcart to Wal-Mart As more and more international retailers make a beeline for emerging markets like India, China, Nigeria, Mexico, and other markets, it is important for these retailers to embrace the chaos and duality that is inherent to these markets. For instance, in India, more than 95% of the retail market is dominated […]
Different Types of Information Systems and their Components
Introduction An information system is integrated and co-ordinate network of components, which combine together to convert data into information. Components of information systems An information system is essentially made up of five components hardware, software, database, network and people. These five components integrate to perform input, process, output, feedback and control. Hardware consists of input/output […]
How Firms and Corporates Grow in any Economy
The rules of economics and business are such that in any economy, old or new, recession or boom, the basic rules governing growth are the same. Indeed, ever since the modern day capitalist model of business emerged, growth at any cost and in any economy has been the driving force behind all the decisions that […]
Business Process Improvement programs are the favorites with most corporate Organizations which use it as a tool to help change the business operations and processes with a view to bring about improved efficiencies and effectives combined with a proven business impact and enable the Organization to rise to a higher bench mark and gain that competitive edge too.
BPI as an Organization initiative has got to be sponsored and owned by the senior management comprising of Business Unit heads and other management leaders. The Executive Implementation Team will consist of this senior leadership who will choose the critical processes that need improvement and set the expectations in terms of objectives, goals and timelines to be achieved through the BPI implementation program.
Setting the stage for BPI rollout involves not only setting the objectives and other parameters for the project with clear cut expectations, it also involves communicating the BPI roll out to the entire Organization throughout and ensuring that the employees align themselves with the program and are aware of the expectations too. Such communication and endorsement helps remove obstacles and roadblocks during implementation.
Once the initial kick off has been completed, we come to the next phase of Preparing Ground for Process Improvement. The entire exercise of Business Process Improvement calls for a structured approach to the improvement activities, with an aim to minimizing the time lines as well as minimizing the disruption to the existing and ongoing operations too.
The candidate identified as the Process Owner holds the responsibility to form the Process improvement team, coach them regarding BPI and also prepare a detailed implementation plan. The main components of the implementation plan include:
Most of the business operations consist of network of multiple processes which are inter connected or sequential or overlapping and interactive too. Such processes involve more than one function and multiple departments as well. Therefore there exists a need to elaborate on the particular process that has been chosen for improvement and to define the ownership at each stage and identify the boundaries clearly. In some cases the processes may need to be redrawn with more clarity on the various links and ownerships too.
Take the case of Invoicing and Dispatch Process. In most of the Organizations, the Sales Order Team would be sitting in sales office and taking care of order booking and allocations. The process then continues with the dispatch team which processes the allocated orders, obtain finance clearance, pick from inventory, consolidate orders, raise invoice, arrange for packing and effect the dispatch.
The process further goes to the logistics department which follows up for delivery and uploads the proof of delivery into the system. In this process we have the sales order management, the inventory controllers, the finance as well as billing and logistics team involved in the entire process.
In many cases the inventory and billing may be handled by a third party service provider and from a third party location. In such cases, the process would need to be elaborated clearly showing the ownership of each and every process step as well as sub processes and fixing the boundaries before attempting to introduce any process improvement.
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