REPORT
Business processes is a set of linked activities that create value by transforming an input into a more valuable output.
Both input and output can be artifacts and/or information and the transformation can be performed by human actors, machines, or both.
There are three types of business processes :
1. Management processes - the processes that govern the operation.
Typical management processes include "Corporate Governance" and "Strategic Management".
2.Operational processes - these processes create the primary value stream, they are part of the core business .Typical operational processes are Purchasing, Manufacturing, Marketing, and Sales.
3. Supporting processes - these support the core processes.
Examples include Accounting, Recruitment, IT-support.
A business process can be decomposed into several sub-processes, which have their own attributes, but also contribute to achieving the goal of the super-process.
The analysis of business processes typically includes the mapping of processes and sub-processes down to activity level.A business process is usually the result of a business process design or business process reengineering activity.Business process modeling is used to capture, document and reengineer business processes.
The concept of processes is not new.Laying out inter-related activities in a sequence and creating a flow of work has been part of organization design for more than 300 years. One of the first to describe a process was Adam Smith (1776) in the famous example of an English pin factory.
In the early 1990s, US corporations, and subsequently companies all over the world, started to adopt the concept of reengineering in an attempt to re-achieve the competitiveness that they had lost during the previous decade.A key characteristic of Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) is the focus on business processes.Let us start our investigations with reviewing several business process definitions, as they are used in the reengineering literature.
Davenport (1993) defines a (business) process as a structured, measured set of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market.Processes are the structure by which an organization does what is necessary to produce value for its customers.Following Davenports definition of a process we can conclude that a process must have clearly defined boundaries, input and output, that it consists of smaller parts, activities, which are ordered in time and space, that there must be a receiver of the process outcome- a customer - and that the transformation taking place within the process must add customer value.
Hammer & Champy's (1993) definition can be considered as a subset of Davenport's.They define a process as a collection of activities that takes one or more kinds of input and creates an output that is of value to the customer.Some processes result in a product or service that is received by an organization's external customer.We call these primary processes.We call these support processes.Other processes produce products that are invisible to the external customer but essential to the effective management of the business.
Finally, let us consider the process definition of Johansson et (1993). They define a process as a set of linked activities that take an input and transform it to create an output. Ideally, the transformation that occurs in the process should add value to the input and create an output that is more useful and effective to the recipient .This definition also emphasizes the constitution of links between activities and the transformation that takes place within the process.
Summarizing the four definitions above, we can compile the following list of characteristics for a business process.
1. Business process must have clearty defined boundafies, input and output.
2. Business process must consist of activities that are ordered according to their position in time and space.
3. The transformation taking place within the process must add value to the recipient.
4. A process can not exist in itself, it must be embedded in an organizational structure.
REGISTER LITERATURE
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