Process management for optimized business processes

As an organization, you set goals that you want to achieve as efficiently as possible. Because the more efficient your organization is, the faster, better, and more cost-effectively you can deliver final products or services to your customers. You achieve this efficiency by optimizing your business processes.

This is primarily about the organization as a whole, rather than individual departments. In this blog, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about process management.

What is process management?

With process management, you ensure the optimal design and realization of organizational goals. The process manager is responsible for improving existing processes and setting up new ones.

Process management is particularly useful when individual departments within the organization function well on their own, but friction still exists between them. With process management, you improve communication between different departments, address bottlenecks in logistical handling, and fix issues with having too many or too few control moments during processes.

The difference between process management and project management

Process management revolves around continuous improvement. Processes are optimized and continuously re-evaluated.

Project management is primarily focused on successfully completing each project. While a project manager can certainly implement improvements along the way, that is not the main objective of their work. Furthermore, projects are finite, whereas processes are repeated continuously.

What does a project manager do?

The project manager keeps track of everything related to projects: budget, deadlines, resources, and personnel. Ultimately, a project manager is responsible for the successful initiation, guidance, and completion of projects.

What does a process manager do?

Where the project manager is concerned with the progress of a project, the process manager focuses on the flow of processes. To achieve this, the process manager is engaged in improving existing processes and setting up new ones.

Process management models and formats

There are various process management models and formats to ensure continuous improvement. Well-known models include the PDCA cycle, Lean Sigma, and Six Sigma.

Plan, Do, Check, Act: the PDCA cycle

The PDCA cycle consists of four continuously repeated steps: plan, do, check, act. The idea behind this is to ensure your organization is constantly improving.

• Plan: design a process and devise or calculate the expected outcome.
• Do: execute the process according to the design.
• Check: verify whether the outcome of the plan aligns with expectations.
• Act: make adjustments to the process based on the results.

Lean Sigma

Lean Sigma is primarily focused on the customer. You eliminate every step that adds no value for the customer. Ultimately, this leaves you with a process that is as streamlined as possible. Fast and efficient processes are central to this approach. The risk of Lean Sigma is that quality assurance can be lost. Therefore, keep a close eye on this when working with this model.

Six Sigma

Six Sigma focuses precisely on quality assurance. It is a quality tool that searches for the root cause of errors within a process. Where Lean Sigma implements improvements based on customer requirements, Six Sigma improves processes based on data analysis.

SIMPLR

At AFAS, we have created our own variant. We call this SIMPLR, and we use it for all our implementations. With SIMPLR, all tasks associated with the implementation are instantly ready for you in our customer portal. Together with all stakeholders, you ensure that your implementation becomes a success. The execution becomes much more of a co-production, placing the emphasis on mutual commitment and shared responsibilities, on knowledge sharing, and on a results-oriented approach.

Benefits of process management

Implementing new processes and improving existing ones takes time, money, and energy. Yet, it mostly yields benefits. We have briefly listed the biggest advantages for you.

Productivity

When you streamline processes, redundant and inefficient tasks change or disappear. Wherever possible, you automate tasks. This makes employees a lot more productive. And even more importantly: you enable them to focus on their core tasks. Bet you their job satisfaction will skyrocket?

Cost Reduction
Of course, cost reduction is an important part of business operations. When productivity rises, costs go down. You also save costs by eliminating redundant processes. Want to know more about cost reduction for projects instead of processes? Check out our blog on cost control.

Customer Focus

Ultimately, successful process management also has a positive impact on the customer. It could hardly be any other way with higher productivity, lower costs, and a continuous improvement process. The Lean Sigma method places the most emphasis on customers, but other forms of process management also aim to help customers faster and better.

How do you implement process management within your company?

After appointing a process manager, you need to provide them with the right resources. Think of process management software, for instance. Usually, this software is integrated into an ERP system.

Process management software makes business processes transparent and allows you to easily run analyses, monitor statuses, and ensure ownership. This gives you insight into processes and enables you to assess risks. The software also provides overviews and models, giving you clear reports.

Do you want to be certain that your processes run flawlessly and are continuously optimized? Then work on improving your process management. This way, you streamline processes, work more efficiently, and make customers happier!

Do you have the right tooling in-house for process management?

Many administrative business processes within your organization are interconnected. From managing your (customer) relationships to paying your employees, and from logging project hours to financial administration. That is why we have developed one complete system in which all these activities take place and come together. The result? You waste no time on duplicate data entry, work super-efficiently, and can focus on your core tasks without a care!

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