Colin Armistead: Professor of Operations Strategy and Management and Head of the Strategy,
Operations and Decision Making Department in the Business School at Bournemouth University. He also holds
the Royal Mail Chair of Business Performance Improvement
Why worry about business processes? What is new? How might organizations perform better? Many
organizations are adopting the idea that their organization is made up of a set of business processes rather than
a set of functional activities. The reason for this move is simple to appreciate. In a functionally-based origination
the focus is upwards (see Figure 1). The customers, though, are for the most part served by activities in
processes which run through the hierarchy.
However, many organizations are changing their view of the way they structure and manage themselves, to
focus on business processes rather than business functions. They may be encouraged in this view by having
undertaken a business process re-engineering (BPR) project or they may be using the European Foundation of
Quality Management (EFQM) assessment framework.
The latter identifies nine elements for excellence: "enablers" which give capability, i.e. leadership; people
management; resources; policy and strategy; and processes. These enablers influence performance measured
by business results, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and impact of society. So identification of
business processes as a key enabler starts the change in thinking about the way in which managers set the
direction for their organization, provide products and/or services and support these operational activities. Also,
by using the EFQM framework, organizations can assess their capability at managing their business processes.
Many are not good at this and far worse at managing the other enablers in the framework. Anecdotal evidence
from judges for the European Quality Award indicates that organizations lag in their development of business
processes. They may identify a discrete process, but fail to look at an integrated set of processes.
Moving from a functional organization to one which is business process-based is not without problems. It