Much to the chagrin of my home life I was in London for 10 days in February and as a concession to my absence I though I would make a good impression by sending some surprise flowers on Valentines day. The joys on online commerce I thought as I selected a florist website, selected a bunch, filled in the details - and when I hit submit .... horror of horrers - the ultimate draed of the web-shop - a system crsh. So now what? Do I order again and hope they don't send two bunches? Do I let it be and hope they send a bunch? Hope is not a strategy.
In my interest to spend money locally I had cunningly selected a florist near my home in Sydney. It was 7.30am on Valentines Day - they must be up and at 'em. I phoned through and a very pleasant woman apologised profusely, assured me the order had not been placed and took all the details very efficiently over the phone.
What a result - a stunning bunch of flowers arrived, far more impressive than the modest arrangement I had chosen online, with a little side gift of heart shaped chocolates thrown in. Commendable care and unrequested compensation for my poor user experience with the website. Went down a treat on the home front as well
Now that is customer service. Need some flowers? Use the Crows Nest Florist - but don't order online!
Monday, March 13, 2006
What is a business process?
Everything in life is a process. Brushing your teeth is a process – a process that when done well results in rewards from the tooth fairy – and when done poorly ends up in tears at the dentist (can you tell I have got kids?).
A business process is any one of the day-to-day jobs that you have to do from 9 to 5. It may be the mundane business equivalent of teeth brushing or the enthusiastic reporting of the increase in annual profits, but either way, it is a business process. Many business processes are effectively managed within the confines of your software applications, company finances, customer service records, purchases and sales – all transaction based processes that you probably have a good handle on. What keeps you awake at night usually concerns the things that fall through the cracks and invariably those things are people dependant and exposed to the vagaries of human error.
Business Process Management is the definition, honing, documenting and automating of common business processes with special attention to those involving interpersonal communication and responsibility transfer. Another, probably more familiar, name for this is workflow.
There are two initial areas of importance in workflow – the concept of “end-to-end vs edge-to edge”, and the “process owner”.
Edge-to-edge usually replicates the responsibility of the org chart – step 1 is done by department X and then step 2 is done by department Y. Ownership and responsibility get handed over (hopefully) from department to department as the job progresses.
End-to-end is about addressing a process from inception to completion regardless of divisional or org. chart delineations and responsibilities. A process owner owns a process “end-to-end” and is the individual charged with ensuring the process starts, progresses and completes in an effective and efficient manner.
The business process management journey frequently starts in assessing these two areas in relation to the primary pain points in the business and devising ways of improving the inputs to achieve consistent, best quality outputs.
So when you look into the mouth of your business tonight which are the teeth that will earn money from the tooth fairy and which will have you in tears at the dentist?
A business process is any one of the day-to-day jobs that you have to do from 9 to 5. It may be the mundane business equivalent of teeth brushing or the enthusiastic reporting of the increase in annual profits, but either way, it is a business process. Many business processes are effectively managed within the confines of your software applications, company finances, customer service records, purchases and sales – all transaction based processes that you probably have a good handle on. What keeps you awake at night usually concerns the things that fall through the cracks and invariably those things are people dependant and exposed to the vagaries of human error.
Business Process Management is the definition, honing, documenting and automating of common business processes with special attention to those involving interpersonal communication and responsibility transfer. Another, probably more familiar, name for this is workflow.
There are two initial areas of importance in workflow – the concept of “end-to-end vs edge-to edge”, and the “process owner”.
Edge-to-edge usually replicates the responsibility of the org chart – step 1 is done by department X and then step 2 is done by department Y. Ownership and responsibility get handed over (hopefully) from department to department as the job progresses.
End-to-end is about addressing a process from inception to completion regardless of divisional or org. chart delineations and responsibilities. A process owner owns a process “end-to-end” and is the individual charged with ensuring the process starts, progresses and completes in an effective and efficient manner.
The business process management journey frequently starts in assessing these two areas in relation to the primary pain points in the business and devising ways of improving the inputs to achieve consistent, best quality outputs.
So when you look into the mouth of your business tonight which are the teeth that will earn money from the tooth fairy and which will have you in tears at the dentist?
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