Role of Technology in Transforming Business Processes

The consistent advancement in technology over the past number of years has often been the catalyst for major improvements in processing efficiency. Technology is now no longer an inhibitor to efficiency but rather a vital cog in the wheel for organisations striving to remain ahead of the pack in today’s world of sophisticated customers, massive volumes and global competition.

There are great enablers available for process transformation, including solution offerings for process modelling, workflow automation, collaboration, systems integration, document management, business activity monitoring and business intelligence. The issues we grapple with now are not about whether we can make it work but which standards, toolsets and technologies to select, and how to practically implement the solutions into the organisation.

Being spoilt for choice brings its own set of challenges, though, especially in organisations that operate in functional silos where divisions within the same organisation are often implementing systems with overlapping or even duplicate functionality (and cost). If you are embarking (or have already started) on a process efficiency journey, then you may want to confirm that you have asked yourself at least the following questions about the required technology, and more importantly, gauge whether you have clear and confident answers for each:

• How will process technologies fit into our existing systems landscape?
• Should we automate processes or replace legacy line-of-business systems?
• How do we integrate with our existing legacy systems?
• Should we phase in the solution or go big bang?
• Will the solution cope with our business volumes?
• How difficult will it be to change again in future?
• Are there standards to consider that may simplify things for us?
• Should we reduce the use of paper, and how?
• How many people need to work on it at the same time?
• How do we train all our people in the new ways of working?
• Will we be able to find people with the appropriate skills to implement and support the solution?
• What is the actual total cost of ownership of the solution?
• How do we measure success, and how will we know that the cost is justified?

If we use the analogy of a train, then the tracks represent the design of the work (the process) and the train represents the flow of work along the tracks. Constructing a railway takes a lot of planning, and unless the terrain is properly prepared, the route carefully planned and the tracks well constructed the train will not reach its destination. The process will not perform well if the locomotive is not powerful enough to cope with the size and weight of the train, but a powerful locomotive will derail if the tracks are not properly laid or the route has too many sharp bends.

In process management, technology can be used to construct the tracks, the stations and the locomotive but they cannot be built in isolation. We must also take care to avoid constructing a railway service for a process that requires so much agility and change that it would be better served by all-terrain vehicles on a dirt track.

While there is feast rather than famine in terms of technology enablers there is no one size that fits all, and something that works very well in one organisation may well be a sub-optimal solution for another. It is essential to look at the organisation as a whole when evaluating the requirements for technology enablers, instead of buying into a specific technology and then looking around for something it could possibly be used for. If someone only knows how to use a hammer, things often resemble nails...

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