Last August 13, I published an article entitled “Accelerating Process Culture” which talked about the four different levels of process culture maturity in a company. There are two underlying criteria used to qualify the different levels of process culture maturity– level executive management involvement and level of business process integration.
When executives exhibit a strong commitment to the process and technology evolution of the company, they always bring everyone on board. Executive management has the authority to push company-wide change as well as fund processes and IT initiatives. They are responsible for aligning the company’s structure to the business integration strategy; therefore, they enable the organization to advance to a higher process culture maturity. Let’s revisit the four levels of process culture maturity:
- Level 1: Individual heroes – dependence on individuals or a few company experts
- Level 2: Diverse Approach – initiatives per department but lacking in integration
- Level 3: Model Integration – business and IT align and model integration is achieved
- Level 4: Process Culture – executive passionately participates in process initiatives
This time, let’s examine closely the highest level of process maturity—The Process Culture. The final step of process culture maturity is when the organization achieves a high level of model integration by leveraging the consistent involvement of executive management as sponsors and facilitators of change.
There are three factors that determine the right approach towards process culture maturity. Let’s call it the “SIB factors”. S stands for senior management involvement, I for innovation and B for business model integration.
Senior managers and managers alike are the critical success factors in your organization’s process culture journey. They lead the way in building process culture and defining the operating model. Innovation in information technology is also a key component. Successful companies nowadays rely on an integrated set of electronic business processes, tools, information, and technologies. With proper support and funding, an IT organization should be able to provide the right platform and technology in which to build the foundation.
The next thing that the company needs to do is to make sure that they select the right business process model from among the many tested disciplines and existing operating models. The underlying logic here is that a company’s business model is limited by the environment. In other words, it depends on several factors, such as the industry it operates, the products and services it sells, its size and geographical diversity. Using all these factors, you determine the level of business process standardization and the level of integration of the company’s different businesses — with profitability and competitiveness requirements in mind. Shared services, outsourcing, diversification, standardization, model replication are some of the most prevalent business models multinational companies have implemented.
The real question is: how close are you and your company to getting to the highest level of process culture? This is a guide on how to assess the level of process culture maturity of an organization. Again, the examples are outlined using the “SIB factors”. Observe the following points and evaluate how your company is doing right now.
Senior management involvement
- Top executives participate in the IT and Processes evolution committee.
- Requires thoroughly analyzed business cases and encourages measurement of acquired benefits.
- Pushes for post-implementation audit to evaluate project output and acquire lessons learned.
- Encourages collaboration across business lines and functional teams.
- Funds IT and Process initiatives and actively support training in the use of IT.
Innovation:
- Exhibits a strong sense of innovation, feelings of shared interest to continue to improve and be ahead of competitors
- Holds regular management briefings on the impact of new technology developments and process innovations in the industry.
- Establishes a consolidated IT operation that manages a standard IT platform to sustain day-to-day support functions to business areas.
- Encourages use of IT in the business. Users possess a feeling of empowerment and confidence in the effectiveness and reliability of the processes and systems.
- Strives to leverage new technology, platform and methodology with sufficient effort in research and development in the area of processes and IT.
Business Integration:
- Defines a clear vision of model integration and process standardization.
- Uses a best-in-class enterprise resource planning software to run an integrated set of business processes
- Promotes implementation of end-to-end processes to ensure the efficient flow of activities and effective allocation of decision rights and accountabilities.
- Captures business information in one area and shares it to another business area. Possesses the willingness to share and use information to measure and improve key performance.
- Maximizes reuse of business processes and platform across different business lines.
Achieving a high level of process culture maturity presents a host of challenges to an organization. The SIB factors provide a structured framework where initiatives can be drawn and strategies derived. This will propel your company forward through its process culture maturity journey. Achieving the highest level of process culture maturity requires strong executive sponsorship and IT leadership in order to support the company through a change process. When achieved, the company is in a good position to leverage IT for profitable growth and gain competitive advantage in a global market that knows no boundaries. This leap begins with you and your company’s senior managers.
#Perspectives 
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Rom,
Good point you got here. I completely agree with you. The acronym BIS and succession of letters was not meant to show succesion in terms of importance. I always believe senior management support is the most important factor and it is where process initiatives like this should start. I think that it’s normal to think that since I used the acronym BIS, it implies Business model integration first then senior management support later, it does create some confusion. I will make changes in my article tonight to reverse the acronym to SIB as you pointed out– otherwise as you said, BIS might turn to abyss. Thanks for your suggestion.
Saludos!
Glenn
Thank you much for this well written post.
Bro Glenn,
I get that, you did not mean the succession of letters to indicate level of importance. Still I argue senior management’s initiative and involvement may matter less compared to the overwhelming drive of the business (corporate population) to improve, integrate and move to next level of multiple level operations fusion. There are other factors that will necessitate the leap to Process Culture, among which is the mentality and corporate behavior of the corporate body. In so much as the would be gods, demigods, or what have you of the corporation can dictate process culture the need for development prompted by logistic or operational impediments along with the realization of lesser tier corporate multitudes of this need will bring about the realization of Process Culture.
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Thanks for your comments Rye. I still believe that Senior management involvement is the most important of the three factors that I mentioned. Executive sponsonship will achieve the following– champion the project culture initiative, ensure support from all stakeholders, fund projects, rally employees to embrace process culture and accept accountability to changes.
Saludos!
Dude,
I knew that you´ve been missing my comments a lot, so here it is.
P.S. I´m a little bit short on alcohol so I´ll just try to tap the left hemisphere of my brain the best I could, ok.
Oh btw, I love the pictures of Ivy, they add spark and color to your page — like how she adds up spark and color to your life. Que cursi!
About the Article:
From BIS to Abyss
While it is true that Business Integration, Innovation, and Senior management support are the main ingredients to a successful concoction of a process maturity, I must say that the level of importance must be in a reverse order (i.e. SIB). This is simply because, whatever innovation you try to integrate into a bussiness world model, without the adequate universal senior management support, would be casted into the Abyss. Remember the Padawan case study?
Again, the tipping-point of a process maturity depends highly on management support. The process of evolution –meaning evolving a simple process to a comprehensive process and putting it in mainstream (like evolving from lower specie to higher specie or like evolving from amoeba to man or those crazy evolution theories) could and can only happen with the able permission of the ONE. The ONE, yes the one who racks the cradle. Whether we talk of universal life or the coporate world, there exist unseen by most, a force of greater power who could allow or disallow the change, the evolution, and that so-called process maturity to happen. Lest, BIS will turn into Abyss (abyss as described in Revelation 20:1-3 as the place where the future casting of Satan for a thousand years will occur, i.e. the bottom-less pit) if the support of the corporate god is not sought. Hence, thy will be done …