What are processes?
Processes are the repeating series of structured activities by which an organisation adds value and achieves its goals.
Processes include things like manufacturing products, delivering services, marketing, sales, procuring raw materials and services, as well as maintaining equipment, conducting R&D, etc.
In StratNavApp.com, processes appear on the Business Model Canvas, the Lean Canvas and the Value Chain under Analysis -> Business Model. They can also be linked to many other strategy components throughout the system (See Do Next below)
The role of processes in strategy
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Strategic Alignment: Business processes are often designed or modified to align with the strategic goals of the organization. For instance, if a company's strategy focuses on customer service excellence, its business processes will be tailored to enhance customer interactions and satisfaction.
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Efficiency and Effectiveness: Efficient business processes enable the organization to utilise resources optimally and achieve desired outcomes with minimal waste. Effectiveness ensures that these processes contribute to the strategic goals, such as increasing market share, improving product quality, or reducing costs.
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Continuous Improvement: In a strategic context, business processes are not static. They are subject to continuous review and improvement to adapt to changing market conditions, technological advancements, and evolving organizational goals. This agility ensures that the processes remain relevant and contribute to the long-term strategy.
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Measurement and Management: Key performance indicators (KPIs) are often used to measure the success of business processes. These metrics help in assessing how well the processes support the strategic objectives and where modifications are necessary.
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Integration and Collaboration: Business processes often cut across various departments and functions. Strategic processes require integration and collaboration across these units to ensure that the organization moves cohesively towards its strategic goals.
What information can you capture for processes?
StratNavApp.com allows you to capture all the information about processes which is relevant to developing and executing business strategies and Target Operating Models (TOMs).
Each process has:
- A title: this could be something like Sales, Marketing or Distribution, or a more full description like 'match buyers to sellers' or 'assemble products'.
- A general description providing general details of the process.
- A description of the people involved in the process. This could include roles, numbers of people, skills and basic cost information etc.
- A description of the process. This could include steps, decisions and policies, frequencies and volumes, as well as basic cost information etc.
- A description of the technology which the people use in the process. This could include plant and equipment, computer systems and manual systems.
What can you "Do Next" with processes
Do Next: Stakeholders
You can attach specific stakeholders to a process. Stakeholders can be people, organisations or groups (of people and/or organisations).
Stakeholders and be internal, such as staff, or external, such as suppliers or outsource partners.
The most naturally relate to the people, aspect of the process, but could also be suppliers of the technology.
Do Next: Insights
You can also attach specific insights to a process.
These would typically be strengths or weaknesses in the process as it currently stands. But they could also be threats or opportunities which will or could impact the process.
For example, an insight which is a process weakness could be a particularly low conversion rate in an area of a sales process or a quality problem in a manufacturing process. A strength could be a patent protecting a particularly valuable manufacturing process. A threat could be a new technology which threatens to make your existing manufacturing process obsolete, etc.
Any insights generated and/or attached to processes in this manner will also appear on the models under Analysis -> Insights (such as SWOT, McKinsey, 7-S, PESTEL or Porter's 5 Forces), depending on their specific characteristics. Insights attached to processes in this way are often more tangible than insights generated in more abstract ways.
See also:
Do Next: Actions, Initiatives and Goals
Finally, you can attach Goals, Initiatives and Actions to Processes.
Actions would typically be actions to conduct further fact-finding or analysis of a process.
Initiatives would typically change a process, for example when moving from a current to a target operating model.
Goals express either what the Process achieves, or what improvements changing the process would achieve.