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Business Process
By a business process, we mean a set of connected activities that transform an input into an output having additional value. Such input and output can both be artifacts and or information and human actors, machines, or sometimes both can carry out the process of transformation. |
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A business process can be divided into three categories: management process, operational process, and supporting process. While the management process governs the operation, the operational process is part of the core business that creates the primary value stream. The supporting process, as the name suggests, supports the core business.
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Manufacturing, purchasing, marketing and sales belong to the operational process, while the supporting process includes accounting, recruitment, information technology support etc. The management process includes corporate governance and strategic management in order to govern the operations.
A business process can have several sub-processes, which also play a role in achieving the goal of the super-process.
Over the years, many scholars in various ways have defined a business process. If we make a summary of those definitions, we can arrive at the aforementioned features for business process. First, a business process must encompass definability - it must have precise boundaries and output and input consistently.
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Secondly, it must have an order, which means the proper arrangement of actions in their normal position, both in time and room or space. Thirdly, it must have a customer, who is a recipient of the outcome of the business process. Fourthly, the recipient must enjoy value emanating to him/her from whatever makeover the business process produces. And this can come to him/her in one of two ways – downstream or upstream.
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Fifthly, it must be entrenched in the structure of the organization because, for a business process to the proven, it cannot exist in itself. The sixth feature is cross-functionality, which is possible, but not mandatory.
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Finally, it should be noted that normally, the process owner is also regarded as a prerequisite in the whole functions of the business process. |
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