With Digital Transformation and Business Process Automation accelerating, the Voice of Customer is paramount to the success of the transformation.

Business Process

One definition of a Business Process is offered by Thomas Davenport as follows: (1)

” a structured, measured set of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market. It implies a strong emphasis on how work is done within an organization, in contrast to a product focus’s emphasis on what. A process is thus a specific ordering of work activities across time and space, with a beginning and an end, and clearly defined inputs and outputs: a structure for action. … Taking a process approach implies adopting the customer’s point of view. Processes are the structure by which an organization does what is necessary to produce value for its customers.”

All organizations possess most if not all elements of Business Process, regardless of the size of the organization. The extent, size, scale and scope will vary depending on the organization.

Business Process can be categorized into three main areas:

• Management Process
• Operational Process
• Support Process

While these processes may seem independent of each other, they are not. The processes should not exist in a vacuum. Rather, they should be integrated with each other and aligned with corporate goals and objectives. For instance, Operational Process, such as your Sales and Marketing, should be closely tied to and aligned with your organizations Strategy. As such, your accounting function such as budgeting should support these Sales and Marketing efforts by providing adequate resources to meet your objectives. Human Resources, in turn, will strategically assist in acquiring the best candidates for the Sales & Marketing process. For the small business owner, who wears many hats, it’s important to appreciate and understand these relationships and utilize a best practice methodology.

Business Process Automation

BPA is a way for any organization to optimize efficiency and results within the underlying process. It is a methodical approach to identifying current workflows, practices and procedures within a department(s), product lifecycle, service or group. Once the current workflows and practices have been identified (AS-IS Process), BPA seeks to improve upon it by eliminating waste, redundancy and maximizing utilization of resources. It closely aligns the new processes with corporate objectives (TO-BE Process). These objectives are both inward facing to improve operations/efficiencies and outward facing to improve the customer experience. Again, the goal is to do things right.

One simple way to begin a BPA initiative is to develop Business Process Maps. The map will outline the workflow, step and data dependencies that are involved in performing a function by an individual, a group, a department or an organization within the defined process.

As you build out the new TO-BE process utilizing a new Business Process Map, customer feedback is essential. BPA initiatives should include: Aligning process goals with strategy; keeping the customer focus in the forefront of the initiative; establishing benchmarks and measures to gauge project performance and milestones; and finally, to assign project stakeholders who are accountable for the initiative.

The Voice of your Customer

One key consideration within any BPA Initiative is that the voice of your customer be heard. A happy customer is a return customer. And a return customer drives revenue for your organization.

Any good BPA initiative will include a set of customer improvements as key drivers and objectives (outcomes). These objectives will vary according to the underlying process that is being improved/automated and customer needs.

If the objective is, for example; ‘Improve Customer Satisfaction by decreasing product returns; improve product quality and reduce defects to X level)’, you might seek to improve aspects of the Purchasing and/or Manufacturing Process. The objective here is to improve the customer experience by improving product quality.

But how do we know what the customer wants? How can we align our strategy goals with customer objectives? It is one thing to assume or have a conceptual idea. Going forward with a BPA Initiative armed with only ‘an idea’ of what the customer wants can be an expensive lesson in the end. Consider wasting time, money and resources on an initiative that doesn’t produce a significant benefit for either you or your customer.

Tools you can Use

One effective way to help eliminate a poor outcome and improve your chances for success in a BPI Initiative is to build Focus Groups around the process. Focus Groups help get to the core of what the customer wants and will be drivers of a new and improved process. They are inexpensive to launch and can be used effectively by any organization, large or small, new or established.

A Customer Focus Group is comprised of 4 to 12 people in general. It is made up of people from within your organization and customer representatives. Additionally, you can also run separate Focus Groups for your business partners, suppliers and channel partners.

The goal of your Customer Focus Group will be to explore what your customer wants, how you can improve existing operations/processes for that customer(s) and if there are opportunities for new products/services. These meeting can be done in person, via conference call or over the internet via web conferences. They can be held as often as needed. Usually, there is one person who will lead the direction of the group’s meetings from within your organization; however you can rotate team leads per group meeting as you wish. The sessions should be focused, allow for open communication between members, be free flowing in nature and most importantly be fun.

Other tools organizations can use in collaboration with a BPI Initiative are Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) and Customer Feedback Management (CFM).  Both are software programs that enable you to drive and receive feedback from your customers, partners, employees and project stakeholders. In addition to standard questionnaires and surveys, these programs are configurable, allow you to build in user-based permissions, authoring and security into discussions and within documents.

Parting Thoughts:

As the economic landscape ebbs and flows, and customer needs shift, it is important to stay ahead of the curve and your competition. Business Process Automation offers a great way for your organization to compete at an optimal level in your market.

Works Cited

1. Davenport, Thomas. (1993) Process Innovation: Reengineering work through information technology. Harvard Business School Press, Boston