Video Transcript: Process

Welcome back to Introduction to Information Systems. Believe it or not, you are  already in week nine, where we're going to be talking about business processes  and wrapping up those components. First, let's go ahead and get let's get  started in prayer. Shall we so? Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that you bless and  look over every student this week as they're studying. They have been called to  have an open mind and an open heart and learn new information. We know Lord that they still have commitments at home. We know they have commitments at  work, and we ask that you just help them manage everything as they're trying to  follow the path that you're leading and just trying to get better always. So we  appreciate this time we have together and in this opportunity to learn. So in your heavenly name, we pray amen. I would love to jump in to the last visual that  you're going to see here and there it is about our components. This should look  really familiar by now. And if there's anything you take away from this course, I  would certainly hope that it is that information systems has five components,  and that says software, I should say process up at the top that process is one of  those five components. The first three are under that technology umbrella, and  then people and process round out the list. We're going to wrap it up with  process today, and as we talk about business processes, we're going to be  talking about these learning objectives here by the end of this module or this  week, hopefully you'll be able to kind of define the term of what is a business  process and identify the different systems needed to support business  processes within an organization. We're going to be able to explain the value of  an enterprise resource planning system, the ERP that we've been kind of  alluding to and talking around this whole course, we're really going to bring it  home in this module about how an ERP affects every aspect of your  organization, and what you can do to make sure that it is prepared and  strengthened and will have a lasting impact. We're going to explain how  business process management and business process re engineering work, and  then we're going to understand how information technology combined with  business processes. Here let me move my picture there can bring an  organization a competitive advantage. And we've already really covered  competitive advantage on what it is, how you get it, how you keep it, and then  how information systems can really build into that. So now we're going to talk  about how business processes can bring into that. As I mentioned, I have a  fondness for for business processes. I am a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt looking  at business processes and how we can organize and re engineer. So as we're  talking about these, sometimes we're going to be talking about the re  engineering, where we're not starting from scratch. Other times we're going to  be talking about brand new processes. Each one of those has a very specific set of steps that you take, which brings us to this whole module on processes. So  here we go, what is a business process? Business Process is a series of tasks  that are completed in order to accomplish a goal. So sometimes you can, and 

this is where we see some organizations kind of stumble or fall, is that they  might be completing all the tasks, but they're not completed in a specific order.  So for instance, maybe there's not a quality control that's in place at the right  time. So even if you're doing all the right things, you need to make sure you're  doing them at the right time in the right order to be a successful business  process. Also, we're going to be focusing on achieving a goal. So we're not just  doing tasks to check them off. Usually, it's part of a strategic plan. Part of you  know, we're trying to achieve goals by accomplishing these processes. It's going to be something that businesses go through every single day in order to  accomplish their mission. It's not a project that's start and finish. It's a process  that's ongoing every day that the business is doing, the better that the process  is, the more effective the business is going to be. And you'll find that even in  your own homes, some of these concepts are going to transfer right over to the  way that you manage your families and your finances and your travel, and the  way you get your tasks done at home, the better that your process is, the more  effective you're going to be, and the more efficiencies you're going to gain. It's  very important we have here to document a process, so in your textbook, look at this example so you can follow along with me, if you'd like to the easiest way  that you can document a process is simply just to create a list. So if you were  going to create an account on eBay, documenting that process would look  something like this. Number one, go to ebay.com, number two, click on Register, enter your contact information, choose an ID and password. I hope it will be a  good password, like we talked about a couple modules ago. And then you agree to the user agreement and Privacy Policy, and you click on Submit, and there  you go. You have documented that process of creating an account on eBay, and you're getting ready to buy and trade another way. A list isn't good enough for  some processes. So Below is an example from your textbook of a process  diagram to see, should I add something to Wikipedia? I am personally not a  Wikipedia author. I have never created a Wikipedia article or amended any  article, but this would be a good process chart diagram to determine if it would  be appropriate or not. So this is another way to document a process of using a  visual like this. So we're searching Wikipedia. Can you find what you're looking  for? Yep. Okay, think of a different term then. But no, if you cannot find that term  on Wikipedia, it's going to ask you, are there related terms? So if there is a  related term, yes, then you create an entry and redirect to that entry to redirect  the related term to your term. If there's not a related term, then you would create a new article on Wikipedia and then start the process over. Think of another  term, search, Wikipedia for it, if that's your thing, if you're on the web 2.0 like we  talked about. So you want to leave your digital footprint, this would be something that we would certainly want to do. But this we're more so looking at the process on how it's documented by this flow chart of decisions, one leading to another.  This is called a process diagram. This is just another way to document your 

process. We're also going to talk about my picture again, managing business  process documentation. So that's a lot to manage. There's a lot of  documentation that happens, especially if you're an organization that has a lot of employees and members of the team that are all doing these documentations.  So the requirement to manage process documentation has been one of the  driving forces behind the creation of a document management system, and it  stores and tracks documents and supports a couple different functions. So what  we see here, it's going to have different versions and time stamps. If you have  ever been in an organization that has a version control issue, you'll know that  can be really frustrating when people are looking at different versions of a  document or a file. So this document management system is really going to help to document those processes and make sure that versioning and time stamping  is working for your organization and running smoothly. It's also going to manage  those approvals and workflows. So this is a cover your rear end document. So  as things change, if you're managing a project and you need to change the  scope, you need to change the budget or the timeline, having these processes  documented, where the approvals are on file and the workflows are on file,  helps everyone just be accountable for decisions that are made, and there's not  questions later on why decisions were made. It's all going to be documented in a place that is transparent to the organization. Lastly, it's really going to have good communication that comes about. So we know that a document management  system will notify the appropriate people if approvals needed, if it was through  the workflow, if these things are happening that that need attention from  personnel, it's going to automatically trigger that communication to take place.  So these are definitely some benefits of managing that business process,  documentation. If this is something your organization is not yet doing, I would  highly recommend you make that suggestion and you make this happen for the  betterment of everyone, and just making sure that all your bases are covered,  we are next going to talk about that ERP. And of course, if you remember our  ERP enterprise resource planning System is a software application with a  centralized database that can be used to run an entire company. So if we look at the ERP, I'm going to move over here. If we look at the graphic here, the  centralized database, all of these things are going to go through that database in the ERP all the business intelligence for good decision making, all the financials, the sales, accounting, purchasing, engineering, all the human resources, the  planning, the resource planning, are all going to be part of that centralized  database under that ERP umbrella. So here's some ERP systems. All data in an ERP system is stored in that single central database that we were talking about.  Data entered in one part of the company can be immediately available to other  parts of the company. Again, we're working on breaking down some of those  silos of people working simultaneously on things that are really unnecessary and maybe they don't have all the information. So this ERP system is going to give 

you a window of transparency into the organization and let things happen in a  more efficient way. It's going to be used to manage the entire organization's  operations and have a good purchasing model that represents different  functions. Some companies choose to purchase many modules as part of the  ERP. Others choose a subset of the modules. And what I mean by that is it's  usually a pretty robust suite of modules that are available to your organization.  Now, if you are an organization like Amazon or Walmart, that might be perfectly  appropriate for you, actually, they would need something pretty custom. If you're if you're a very large organization, that would be perfect for you. If you are right  on that borderline of needing a central database of an ERP system, you might  not need all of those modules. You might not be doing global trade, for instance.  So it might be better for your company to choose a subset of those modules.  And here we're going to talk about those modules. We go so when an ERP  vendor designs a module it has to implement the rule for the associated  business process. So the rules can be either dictated by that company, or it can  be a work in tandem. If it's something a little more custom, the rules reflect the  best practice for that process within the industry. Typically, it's going to be  something for the whole industry as a whole, and not for your in particular  organization, unless, again, you go a custom route. So for instance, an ERP for  a food service industry would all look pretty similar the ERP for commercial  tourism industry is all going to be pretty similar, but the implementation of an  ERP system is an excellent opportunity to improve business practices by, you  know, sharing some of those best practices among others in the in the same  industry. But it's not all perfect. Of course, implementing an ERP, we're going to  also talk about some challenges, I think next. Yep, so here's some questions I'm  just going to throw out to you and then. So do you think the process embedded  in an ERP is really better than the process that they're currently utilizing? So is it going to be worth it? And otherwise, can a company differentiate from its  competitors if they're using the same ERP, and we're going to come back to that  one in just a second, like we said, they're going to be using them using the same software with the same modules. So is differentiation really possible? And then  can an ERP be customized to match a given organization's processes? And  then we already said yes, but that has some challenges as well. So this has  been one of the biggest criticisms, I'd say, of an ERP system, is that they do kind of make the business process into a commodity, and thriving, all businesses are  really using kind of that same template, and so you lose what makes you really  unique. You lose that unique factor. But the good news is ERP systems also  have that capability of being configured with custom processes like that final  question. But if you do something custom, keep in mind you're going to have to  upkeep that ERP module on your own. It's not going to be inherently built into  the system with automatic updates, like some of the other templated designs. If  you do decide to have a custom ERP module made, it's going to have, you 

know, it's going to be necessary for you to. Provide that manpower to upkeep.  So something to think about. Talk about some different ERP vendors. The most  common, the best known ERP vendors are SAP. I would assume that you have  seen this. This name thrown around quite a bit. I'm sorry, there's a very large  wasp. So if I pardon me, if I need to swap that Wasp away, Microsoft has  definitely a pretty robust ERP product Oracle known as PeopleSoft, is their ERP  vendor. I've worked in a couple organizations that had that were just  implementing PeopleSoft, kind of mixed, mixed reviews in terms of how fast they were able to transfer everything over into that ERP. So here's a these are some  list of the best known. Certainly there are others, and certainly there are custom  solutions that are ERP vendors. So we're going to look at the organ  organizational value of an ERP and those vendors combine the ERP modules  again to offer applications with the highest impact. So the most important  modules, and this is in my opinion, but in going through a lot of my work history  involves going into small businesses, digging through their files and digging  through their business plans and being able to make suggestions for process  improvement and organizational improvement in general, and those using an  ERP, I would say the most important modules are the CRM and the SCM. And  we're going to talk about that right now. That CRM is that customer relationship  management, and that is a CRM. You might have heard of. Salesforce is one.  HubSpot is one. There's quite a few that help you manage relationships with the  different clients that you have or customers that you have. Also, it helps you  manage relationships with your internal people. It's a kind of a way to  communicate, but more importantly, to manage those customer relationships.  Also, the SCM system is your supply chain management system, which has  been very forefront in people's minds over the last couple of years, in light of the pandemic with supply chain being so high profile, of some challenges that have  come to surface that we really haven't seen before in supply chain, and how we  get things from one place to another at the right time, in the right location,  exactly when we need them, just in time. A lot of those challenges have been  put into place where an organization using an ERP SCM module might not have  some of those challenges to the same degree that you're seeing others have.  okay, so CRM systems allow for managing a company's interaction with  customers like we talked about, and you might be familiar with some CRMs that  you are already communicating with. So every time your car dealer sends you a  letter in the mail lets you know, hey, it's time for you to get an oil change you  need. Your car needs service that's part of their CRM software. It's automatically triggering an event. It's helping keep that relationship alive. It's having a touch  point with you. Netflix, recommending which movies you should watch next,  Expedia, sending you offers for cities that you might have been googling in  another browser, or places that you've been recently that GPS would report  back. Those would be when I owned a small I owned a small business for 10 

years, and we use Salesforce as our CRM, and I would input my my clients  birthday. So if it was a very important client, we would automatically it would be  triggered to send them a birthday card on their birthday, of just another way to  have or their wedding anniversary. I was it was actually an event coordination  company. So if we were planning their wedding, we would make sure to send  them an anniversary card every year, just as a way to stay in touch, to stay on  their mind, to stay, as you know, build that loyalty with your brand. So CRM is  very, very good at doing that. This YouTube link right here will be actually in the  supplemental videos for you to watch as an excellent example of an ERP  module containing a CRM. Advantages of Using that CRM module as part of  your ERP it allows you to track goals and metrics for sales, customer services,  increase retention, just kind of build those personal relationships that keep  customers happy with you. You'll know who are your customers, what's  important to them, and be able to answer those knowledgeably, which ultimately  will lead to increased profitability and Opportunity Management as well. Okay, so I think we've, I mean, we've pretty much, we've covered this pretty well, I think,  with with supply chain management and and, and kind of what we need to do to  have the x the so these are all the project management tools, the design, the  plan, the execution, control monitoring of all those supply chain activities are  going to be part of that module. And so we know that those draw heavily from  the areas of operations, management, logistics, procurement, when you need to purchase materials and have them delivered at a very specific location at a very  specific time. And those aims for an integrated approach to optimize the flow of  goods and services, like we see here for using the Supply Chain Management  module as part of the ERP. There are some examples here that I'm going to put  in your these are part of your resources, your extra video resources that are  going to be good examples of supply chain management from Dell and from  Walmart. All right, so again, we talked about the advantages of using that supply chain management system. It really is just going to help your organization gain  as much efficiency as possible to improve productivity and profitability and good  visualization of how you're doing in the area of supply chain. All right, so  business process management. So if we go through the literature, we look at the papers there that are written about this topic, there's three alternatives to  business process management. And you're going to see these in I'm sure there  are quiz questions that are asking you about those three alternatives to  business process management, you can automatize, you can streamline, or you can engineer. And we're going to talk about those right now. So when we talk  about automation. While automation can make a business more efficient, it  cannot be used to create a competitive advantage, and the reason that is is  simply automating a process that's not a good process doesn't make it better, it  just makes it automated. So we want to make sure that when if you're trying to  build efficiencies, sometimes the best organizations that are serious about 

improving their business processes need to create structures to manage those  processes. And then we see here under automation, that BPM, that business  process management can be thought of as an intentional effort to plan to  document, distribute the processes with with IT so it is working hand in hand  with those IT departments that we were talking about earlier, to automate your  business processes. The next option is to streamline so we can, if you don't  want to do this, you can either automate or now we're we can streamline, and  that has a better impact on efficiency and productivity, but it can't warranty a  competitive or sustained, a sustainable advantage, for the same reason, it's a  good strategy for processes that are essential to the company, but again, it's not going to bring You the competitive advantage, so BPM is going to provide  several key benefits to your organization, which is just a better a better plan than streamlining. And then our business process management empowers  employees. It has built in reporting. It enforces some of those best practices,  and it really is going to enforce consistency when you when you go through and  manage each one of those processes, and take a look at what's working, what's  not, what can be better, where are there inefficiencies that you could really  tackle? It involves talking to your people on the ground who are actually part of  the teams working with these processes, and asking them. How's it going? What do you like about this? What do you what are you always doing rework for? Tell  me how your time could be better spent, and that's how you're really going to  improve those processes. Talking about re engineering, excuse me,  organizations looking to manage their processes to gain a competitive  advantage can also re engineer, which we're going to look at, the study from  Hammer out of 1990 and who famously said that companies should blow up  their processes and not and just develop new ones, rather than. To do this re  engineering approach, so do not optimize, obliterate. Is what is Hammer's  famous quote. And we're going to come back to that of why that was  recommended. So this BPR, this process, re engineering is fully understanding  the goals and processes and then dramatically redesigning them from the  ground up, so there's dramatic improvements in productivity and quality. You  know, it's not just making little tweaks, it is a ground up redesign that  dramatically is going to change your results. So that's when we're talking about  process re engineering. That's what we're actually talking about. So how do we  do that? How do we re engineer a business process, and we're going to  organize around outcomes, not around the tasks. So have those who use the  outcomes of the process, perform it, watch them, talk to them, and subsume  information processing work into the real work that produces the information.  We're going to treat geographically dispersed resources as though they were  centralized. We're going to link parallel activities instead of integrating their  results. We're going to link them and look for patterns. We're going to put the  decision points where the work is performed, and build controls into the process 

so that nothing is going to get overlooked. And then we're going to capture the  information all at once at the source. So we're going to ask the people doing the  processes all of these questions. And then once we have those parallels linked,  we can look to see how to, you know, how is it improving? We can look at our  KPIs, those key performance indicators, and make sure that we're making  progress in the right direction. Here is an example, and this is we are almost  wrapped up. Here. We're going to look at an example of re engineering a  college bookstore. So this is one of my first jobs. When I was 18. I worked in my  college bookstore, and this is their before, what looked very much like our  business processes as well. If you go through their process flow chart, here, we  can see what the process was and the before, and we can answer these  questions and go through the flow chart, and then you can see the redesigned  process and how how much cleaner it is, and the efficiencies gained from just  making some, I would say, simple changes. They're not simple changes. They  were very necessary changes just in the right places, and a lot of the steps are  the same, you'll notice the order might be different, and some of those  contingencies are different. So if you want to take a look at this flow chart, this is in your textbook as well, and just looking at what a true business process re  engineering looks like. Okay, you have made it through week nine about  business processes. To summarize, we have defined the term. We know what a  business process is we can identify the different systems needed to support  those business processes and organization. We know the value of an ERP  system. If there's anything you're going to walk away from this course, hopefully  you will know inside and out the benefits and the value of implementing a true  ERP system enterprise resource planning, hopefully you can explain how  business process management and business process re engineering work, how  they're the same and how they're different, and which one you would use. And  then hopefully you would understand how information technology combined with business processes, so IT, combined with business processes, can bring an  organization a competitive advantage that they can't get on their own. You really  do need the integration of both to have that competitive advantage. Have a note  here for also that ISO 9000 just one of the one of the processes that an  organization can go through to certify that they are they've looked at their  processes. So there are some formal ways that an organization can audit  themselves. They can have an external entity here. I'm going to jump up here.  There we go. Have an external entity come in, look at their processes, see if  there are efficiencies to be gained. So that ISO 9000 is the current certification  for just making sure that your business processes are where they need to be, or  actually at the very highest stellar level. So if you are interested in this topic of  process improvement and. Business processing, look into ISO and what that  what that entails, and if that is something that your organization should be really  trying to achieve. So I appreciate you sticking with me here, through Module, 

through week nine, next week for week 10, we are going to be talking about  systems development and what it takes to actually develop these information  systems. So we're going to get a little technical again and talk about what goes  on behind the curtain and how we can actually develop some of these ISS that  we've been talking about. So I look forward to seeing you soon. Thanks.