Process management is currently one of the most widely discussed concepts in theory, as well as one of the most widely applied in practice. It is one of many coherent and holistic management methods currently in use. However, this idea is not a short-lived trend, but a new approach to business.
According to Skrzypek and Hofman, processes today do not serve only to create executive regimes in order to achieve complete symbiosis between the employee and organizational technology. They are intended to be a point of reference for employees, indicating the direction of actions considered optimal for the conditions of meeting customer expectations envisaged at the design stage. The variable environment of the enterprise requires great flexibility, which is the opposite of rigid organizational procedures that limit employee innovation. In a process-oriented enterprise, every employee is aware that they are participating in the performance of specific activities that are an essential part of the entire process. They are also aware of what results the process should generate and who is responsible for them. Constant elements of a process-oriented enterprise are process improvement teams.
Process management is therefore a response to the challenges that companies face in a dynamic, turbulent, and chaotic environment. It is also a reaction, stemming from many premises, to the need for changes in internal management systems, including shortening life cycles of not only technology but also products, customization, the transition of many functions into the e-business area, or the implementation of innovations in the sphere of personnel management, to name just a few.
The unpredictability of changes and increasing business risk make process management perceived by many theorists and business practitioners as a kind of necessity. Grajewski proves that the course of processes, their duration, and costs have a key impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization. The description of processes indicates the best sequence of actions to be performed with specific resources. A process organization has a high capacity for self-organization and as such possesses both permanent and variable elements. Today, companies are intensively looking for a platform on which they can shape their development. One such platform is process management, which in an agile way allows not only to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization but also to raise the quality of offered products and services, outline the directions of changes in both the short and long term, implement them, and objectively evaluate them.
Business process management is a science and practice that, in its assumptions, moves away from the functional structure of an enterprise in favor of a process architecture considered in a systemic way, generating, among other things, significant added value thanks to synergy effects. Each process is a sequence of sequentially linked activities that transforms input elements into other, output ones. The process model is flexible, allowing for the introduction of improvements and changes as well as continuous improvement of the organization. Process management therefore allows for efficient management of the organization in such a way as to focus on activities and actions that bring the greatest added value to the organization from the customer’s point of view and to eliminate those activities and actions that only generate high costs without bringing measurable benefits to the company. (…)
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Source: Logistyka Magazine 6/2012