Sundaymail Editor
Entrepreneurship Matters
Dr Kudzanai Vere
SUSTAINABILITY, growth and success in business are intentional. There is a need to plan, execute and review systems, processes and strategies. This is an iterative process.
Turning a blind eye on the strategic need to improve business processes and systems has a damaging effect on the organisation, as it will eventually become ineffective and fail to deliver the promise.
According to a study conducted by Lukasz Tartanus of Procesowcy on 236 Polish firms in 2016 to assess process maturity, 69 percent of the firms that confirmed having established procedures, only 4 percent monitored, controlled and sometimes reviewed them.
This speaks volumes about the laxity most organisations have on the processes they would have established.
Without constant review of processes, the organisation will eventually lose grip on the market for these have a direct relationship with organisational performance.
What is a business
process review?
A business process review (BPR) is a strategic management process designed to help a business identify areas of improvement within its processes to become more agile, current, efficient and streamlined.
The process evaluates the company’s current processes and identifies ways of improving them to become more effective, efficient and focused in the event that gaps are noted.
The BRP is perfectly done by experienced external consultants who come into your system with an independent and inquisitive mind, questioning the way things are done against expectations.
What a BPR does
Every organisation can benefit from a business process review. The process makes you understand your systems better and identity areas that need improvement.
You know the processes and systems that assist in achieving the organisation’s overall objective. So, as you strategise, focus on what you want to achieve as a company. The means to achieve that should also be in line with the current operational dictates.
You cannot continue to use an old system for a completely new challenge. You need to upgrade the means of achieving that new end.
A review helps identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies and duplicate processes within your processes. Duplicate processes have a tendency of wasting productive time. We cannot have two people or processes doing almost the same thing; that is a waste of time and resources.
Potential areas of process streamlining or automation are identified and plans to improve and implement the suggested changes put in place. There are certain processes that might be happening within an organisation but are not really necessary. These can be eliminated.
You will also find out, as you carry out the review, that there are other processes that might not be producing as they should. There must be ways of revisiting and reviewing these so that they align with the current expectations.
The process requires the involvement of everyone within an organisation. Everyone must, at the end of the day, understand and own the process. So, it is not an exercise that can be done overnight.
The length and duration of reviews depends on the size of the business and the complexity of its activities.
How to carry out a BPR
As mentioned earlier on, the process should be led by an external consultant or even someone internal who has a good understanding of how systems and processes work. An independent person would assist in giving an objective assessment.
The BPR is sequential, that is, it has defined steps that must be followed.
1. Identify and map out
your current processes.
The starting point is an understanding of the business process as it stands now. This includes examining the current roles, positions and processes. The major thrust here is to gain an overall understanding of how the processes and the entire business works.
Everyone involved in the organisational processes must be interviewed to get their comments and opinions on the current processes.
By processes, we mean everything that is done in the organisation, for example, procurement, recruitment and selection, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, how clients are served and every other aspect that makes the organisation tick.
2. Map out the new plan
As this is a review, the first stage would have revealed some gaps within the processes that need improvement. There is a need to come up with an improvement plan.
This is an action plan to put the desired processes in place. As you work on this stage, you need to be more realistic and come up with measurable objectives that align the overall direction of the organisation.
3. Business process re-engineering
This is the execution stage of the entire process. If it means you are coming up with a new ERP, it is secured and installed, and operation procedure manuals are written and implemented.
4. Evaluate the reviewed processes
After successful implementation of the reviewed processes, there is need to monitor them for some time for effectiveness before stamping them as final.
You consider factors such as customer satisfaction, transaction processing time, product costs and whatever you feel can give you an insight into the functionality of these new systems. This process will give you an assurance that the reviewed systems are able to achieve the organisation’s goals.
Dr Kudzanai Vere is the managing partner at Kudfort Zimbabwe, an accounting firm that has assisted a number of organisations formalise and standardise operations. He is a published author and transformational speaker in entrepreneurship, personal development, accounting and assurance. Contact Dr Vere on +263 719 592232 or [email protected]
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