If you’re interested in learning more about how your business really works, consider an investment in business process mapping. Through process mapping, you will discover how workflows through different departments and also across the larger organization. You will uncover the good, the bad, and the ugly of your business, including opportunities that need to be addressed as well as processes that may serve as best practice examples. Business process mapping goals should be whatever best meets your organization needs, simplification for workflow improvements, process standardization for automation, process flow improvement for new products introduction, regulatory compliance, quality management systems, and assessing or merging a new acquisition.
When thinking about your organization’s goals for business process mapping, consider where you want to gain a better understanding and/or make improvements. It could be the key to unlock the how and why of your organization’s performance and capability.
Business process mapping goals
1. Solve a problem.
As a leader in an organization, you probably see inefficiencies or problems that need solving but aren’t sure where to start. Mapping is often used as a primary tool to understand a process. Business process maps for this purpose are typically high level with a goal of basic understanding to begin working on a solution to a problem. The map is considered a consumable product on the path to process improvement.
2. Prepare for a new information system solution.
Does your business dive into purchasing new software without a true understanding of your business processes? Most companies skip this step on the path to a new system implementation, often causing unnecessary headaches and difficulties. Avoid these problems and have the Business Enterprise Mapping team map the impacted processes to build a roadmap for new software. It will save you time, money, and resources.
3. Document the business.
Do you have a fast growing team creating new processes on a seemingly weekly basis? It’s time to build process maps to standardize how the business operates. BEM can quickly deliver a map that defines how work takes place in the organization. These maps are placed under control in a quality management system and are typically used as the basis for regulatory compliance efforts, such as ISO9001 registration.
4. Improve the business.
Are you unsure of how departments work together in the larger organization? Process maps can provide the foundation for workflow analysis, training, onboarding, performance measurement, monitoring, and improvement. In this case, process maps are kept current and are actively used to describe the current state of the business and the improvement goals being pursued.
5. Pursue real competitive advantage.
Do you need to get ahead of the competition? Best practice companies utilize process maps as the fundamental organizer for enterprise improvement strategy and competitive analysis. Their efforts are focused on well thought out and designed business processes and business systems, and active benchmarking analysis designed to monitor competitive performance and organization progress.
Whether you have a general goal to better understand your business processes or a specific goal to gain an edge on the competition, business process mapping goals will help you create customer value, solve problems and improve how you manage work.