Crucial and often missed factor of success for an automation initiative is careful evaluation of process interaction with other processes. As a rule, processes, which have excessive dependencies and external communications are especially difficult to automate. Complexity of automation may grow exponentially with the increase in process linking.
Overall degree of link density for processes inside a business model is essential but rarely discussed measure of integration and stability of business as a whole. Cascading process links with progressive nested dependencies further complicate and potentially delay positive process outcomes.
To correctly estimate true potential of process improvement, business analysts should never consider any process standalone but only in the context of its interaction with other parts of business model. Automating a process alone is as artificial as running a single department without the whole company in place. Preparing to enterprise automation, always begin with the study of business dependencies.
Density of links in a model can be objective and inherent to business. In this case it is not so easy to change voluntarily. Density of links can be also a distinguishing factor expressing business identity.
By analogy with chemistry, there can exist many entirely different chemical substances composed out of exactly same base elements. For instance, coal and a diamond are just different arrangements of one and the same carbon composite. Drastic difference in properties is just a result of different links between atoms inside. In the same way, structure and quality of links inside an organization may alone well make it a coal or a diamond.
Role of business processes in a digital company is far more important than in a traditional organization because digital organization literally consists of the digital business processes it implements. Traditionally, most business processes are in possession of workers or groups of workers, in other words, process stakeholders. Every worker holds in memory, experience, notes or corporate regulations certain course of action to follow in every particular situation. This implicit or partially formalized set of rules comprises a business model of a company. The model is subject to change by mere verbal discussion and agreement between workers and management, happen business environment evolves or new challenges appear. Situation is entirely different in a digital organization. Digital systems do not have any implicit awareness on business aspects, just an explicit algorithm to do exact functions, for which they were designed. Therefore, a digital business system is a manifestation of a bu...
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