Outsourcing and communications expert Martyn Hart looks at a hot
issue of the day.Many suppliers and users boast about their
knowledge of business process, often taking a process from one
market segment and applying it to another as "a proven
process".
But what makes a good process? Is it just documenting what happens
as entities pass from one place to another, then copying that in
software?
Or maybe it is a flow chart, on which you implement the systems of
choice?
Whatever is recorded, many National Outsourcing Association members
have said that there is a fundamental weakness in taking a strict
process approach. You need more than understanding of how the
process works and how to record it, especially if your supplier is
proposing business process re-engineering.
The real skill to understanding business process and, especially,
business process outsourcing, is capturing what happens when there
is no process!
In other words, when the process breaks down.
This is the key to successful business process outsourcing. You
need to understand (as does your supplier) what happens when the
process does break down. Answers like "but it doesn't break" get
automatic dismissal from procurement processes. And how do you get
over it - what's the remedy?
So it's not what you do know, but what you don't.
When you carry out process analysis you need to ask, what happens
if this piece doesn't work? Do you have a remedy for that? The
remedy has to be there. It can range from the simplest - take an
alternative route - to the most complex, a backed-up data centre.
The remedy may be dependent on the way the outsourcing processes
are implemented. Your existing remedies may no longer be valid,
even if the process remains correct. And if you're changing
business processes at the same time . . .
Could the key to business process outsourcing be what you
don't know?
What's your view?
What do you think is the key to
successful business process outsourcing?
Let us know with an e-mail >>CW360.com
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Martyn Hart is chairman of the
National Outsourcing
Association and practice director at
Mantix, a consultancy
that delivers value from complex programmes.