The understanding of BPM and process management has not stood still over the last five years. The current business environment is categorized by fundamental shifts in business models, increased internalization, increased market transparency, a need to support mobile, social and cloud functionality, and a need to serve more informed, vocal, and demanding customers. Anticipating and leveraging these trends has therefore become essential in today’s business world, whilst the global financial crisis has meant that it is imperative that business create a sustainable competitive advantage.
It has been argued that an organization’s business processes may be one of the few levers available to an organization to create a distinct market advantage. Implementing a successful Business Process Management strategy can go a significant way towards creating an improved and sustainable competitive advantage and performance for many businesses, adding value to an organization by improving processes and achieving an optimal outcome. In simple terms, it is a philosophy of allowing management to focus on continuously changing and improving the business to make it more effective, and to make a significant contribution to its strategy and objectives.
Over the last decade, I have developed a new approach, called the 7FE Framework, designed to be appropriate for as many organizations and in as many circumstances as possible. Through many years of experience as a business executive, BPM practitioner and consultant, I have been able to apply this framework in all situations. I am confident that it is the most comprehensive approach available, as it has been proven to work on anything from a small individual project, through to the transformation programs of some of the largest organizations in the world.
The 7FE framework is unique in this respect - it can be applied to any organization for a positive outcome. The way it does this is through ten phases, combined with three essential components. In fact, the name comes from these phases – the four Fs relate to the grouping of the ten phases, and the three Es to the three Essentials in the process. The framework can be followed to implement any BPM program/project, and comprises breadth and flexibility to meet all the likely variations of different organizations, providing a set of common phases and steps capable of meeting these challenges. This is what makes this framework unique – the phases and essentials can be applied in any situation.
Six Sigma(implemented by Motorola in the 1980s) and Lean are just a couple of existing approaches which are subsets of this framework. The 7FE Framework goes far beyond these two methodologies, and has been used in a variety of companies and organizations to achieve process improvement - for example Sberbank (Russia’s largest bank, with 260,000 employees and 20,000 branches) and EDP (Portugal’s largest energy company). It is also popular within universities around the world, where it is frequently used it to teach undergraduate and postgraduate degrees to students and professionals who will go on to implement their own BPM strategies.
The recently published 3rd edition of my book Business Process Management takes all of this into account, to provide a step-by-step guide to implementing the framework within your business. The 3rd edition has re-worked the first two phases of the original framework, and uses real BPM experiences, and case studies to illustrate how it has been used in real life situations. The book moves away from what can be seen as a very dry and difficult subject, to make it easy to understand. It takes a highly practical approach to help you implement the phases of the 7FE Framework in your organization to improve processes and add value to your business.
Business Process Management, 3rd Edition, by John Jeston and Johan Nelis is available from the Routledge website. For a limited time, AIIM members are entitled to a 20% discount – enter the code PRK95 at the checkout on Routledge.com.*
* Please note, this offer is available until the 31stof May 2014, for individual purchases through the Routledge website only.
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