INFS1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Business Process
4 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
WEEK 2: INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS PROCESSES
HOW DID THIS STUFF GET HERE?
• Various parts of a business must work together as an integrated system
o Flows of information + documents
o Flows of materials + products (within and across businesses)
o Flows of money
• For businesses to work, BPs need to be specified, executed and managed
• Often cross-functional
WHAT IS A BUSINESS PROCESS?
• “A business process (BP) is a structured network of activities supported by resources, facilities and information
that interact to achieve some business function”
o BPs turn input into higher value output
o BP is a system à aka business systems
• Characteristics of a well-designed BP:
o Complete à include all activities necessary to achieve business goal
o Minimal à do not include unnecessary activities = cost efficiency
o Well-structured à activities organised in logical sequence
o Embedded à logically connect with other BPs in org
• Outcomes of a well-designed business process are:
o Increased effectiveness à value for customer
o Increased efficiency à lower costs for company
• Levels of Abstraction
o BPs exist on many different levels of a business
o Highest level: core value creation of a business can be depicted as one high-level BP
§ Source
à
Produce
à
Sell
à
Ship
à
Provide Service
o BP can be broken into smaller sub-processes until describing granular activities on work level
§ Receive document
à
specify quantity
à
update document
à
send document to manager for
approval
à
(…)
WHAT ARE THE COMPONENTS OF A BUSINESS PROCESS?
• Activities à transforms resources and information of one type into another type
• Decisions à question with answer yes/no
• Roles à look after sets of procedures
• Resources à people, facilities or computer programs that are assigned to roles
• Repositories à collection of business records (databases)
• Data / information flow à movement of a data item from one activity to another OR a repository/database
• Business infrastructure: repetitive use of IS gets standardised over time and becomes part of the infrastructure
o BP + IS are both part of infrastructure
o Infrastructure drives efficiency
HOW DO INFORMATION SYSTEMS SUPPORT BUSINESS PROCESSES?
• IS supports activities in a BP
o Several activities may use one (integrated) IS
o Activity may have its own IT system
o Activity may use several IT systems
• New business processes may require design of new IT system
• New IS facilitate new activities and lead to changes in existing BPs
