How Mapping Your Processes Improves Every Level of Your Organization
Processes Improves visually depicts the company’s process flow through charts, flowcharts, diagrams and symbols. The visual representation of the workflows and systems in a company is laid out for the stakeholders to understand and adhere to the optimum functioning.
Process mapping includes end-to-end sequencing of each step in a particular business process. It also sets the interrelation between different approaches to reduce the complexity. Process Mapping is a method of decoding a complex business process into a simple form via flow charts or diagrams. It can help your business in many ways by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of your business processes. It also helps in engaging your new workforce to learn your company systems better.
However, you must know that process mapping is a technique that is used in all levels of organisations. But do you know the benefits of process mapping at each level in your company? No, right. Well you don’t have to worry because we have you covered. In this blog, you will know how process mapping improves your workflows at each level of your organisation.
Benefits of Process Mapping at the Operational Level
There are several benefits of process mapping at the operational level. They are:
Streamlining workflows and eliminating bottlenecks
When you do process mapping at an operational level, you can easily streamline your workflows with the help of different mapping techniques, like value stream mapping, diagrams, flowcharts, mapping symbols, and other tools.
Also, with process mapping at operational level, you can easily identify the bottlenecks in the process flow and eliminate them if they’re redundant. You can also modify them by using tools or automation for better efficiency in the processes.
Standardising procedures and reducing errors
Process mapping at operational level helps organise and standardise your business processes. It helps in maintaining consistency across all business processes. It also enables constant process flow across different processes without any confusion.
Mapping also helps reduce errors at operational level. Through mapping, you can easily identify the loopholes in your business processes which gives you a scope of improvement which in turn reduces errors.
Enhancing employee productivity and efficiency
Process Mapping is the best way to enhance the productivity and efficiency of employees. Imagine you’re asked to read a whole chapter of a subject, will it be tedious and exhausting? Yes, it will be. On the contrary, imagine you’re given a flowchart and important points of the same chapter, will it be easier? Of Course, it will be much easier. The same concept applies here.
Process Maps are a visual representation of the complex business processes. Through process mapping, you’re saving employee’s time to understand your company’s business processes which eventually increases the efficiency and productivity of your employees and your company.
Identifying training and skill gaps.
Process Mapping can easily detect loopholes are necessities in business processes, like employee training or skill gaps. When you’re creating process maps at an operational level in a company, you must know whether your employees are well aware of the tasks or new additions in the business processes.
Through process maps, you can easily identify these shuttle gaps which can eventually help you understand what kind of employee training is necessary and what are the skill gaps to fill for the business process to run smoothly.
Facilitating decision-making and resource allocation
Process mapping enables you to make right decisions because it clearly shows you the process flow in a single frame. Decision making is a critical aspect of every business and making the right decisions is an art. The only way you can master this art is by having the complete process flow in front of you.
Process Mapping will also help you with resource allocation. You can understand the areas that require resources in a process flow. With mapping, it becomes easy to chalk out the resource allocation making it convenient in all possible ways.
Enabling effective communication and collaboration among teams.
Every business has several teams and each business process has involvement of more than one department. Hence, it is very crucial to have good coordination and communication between different departments in a company. Process Mapping is one such technique that brings everyone together.
When you are mapping business processes involving different departments, it requires communication and coordination between multiple teams and stakeholders. After proper collaboration, you can create an effective process map that will be suitable for use by everyone. Hence, process mapping enables effective communication and collaboration among teams.
Benefits of Process Mapping at the Strategic Level
When you begin process mapping the first step involves defining the objectives of the business process. It is one of the crucial steps because each task or activity of the business process must align with the scope and objectives of the business process.
Process mapping enables you to align your business processes with the objectives. It also helps maintain consistency in business processes as the aim of the workflows remains the same from the beginning till the end.
Transform your operations, achieve your goals
with our expert BPM consulting.
Identifying opportunities for innovation and competitive advantage
Process mapping helps in decoding the business processes via visual representation, like graphics, or diagrams. Hence, you can clearly identify areas that require some innovation. Process maps show the inefficiencies very clearly due to high visibility. So, you can identify the areas of improvement or innovation or upgrade as and when required.
Also, there can be some aspects of your business processes that your competitors are taking advantage of but you’re unable to identify the opportunity. Through process mapping, you can easily identify those aspects of your business processes that your competitors are leveraging and you can also improvise them and take advantage for maximum growth.
Enabling organisational agility and adaptability
With process mapping, your organisation will become more agile. The use of necessary tools, technologies, and automation increases the agility of your business processes. You’re increasing the efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity of your organisation significantly through process mapping.
With process mapping you’re also making your organisation more adaptable to unforeseen circumstances. Process maps involve inclusion of variations and exceptions in mapping. When you include exceptions and variations, you’re preparing your organisation for all circumstances.
Enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty
When you implement correct process mapping techniques, you bring positivity into your organisation. The efficiency and productivity of your business processes improve. It eventually enables you to serve your customers better. Your end user starts trusting your services and you gain customer satisfaction and loyalty.
You may notice that most brands or businesses with a huge customer base and loyalty focus on keeping their business processes crisp and clear through process mapping techniques.
How Mapping Your Processes Improves Every Level of Your Organizationl Levels
Here are some of the examples of how process mapping improves various organisational levels:
Operational Level: Streamlining order fulfilment process in an e-commerce company
At an operational level, streamlining the order fulfilment process in an e-commerce company is a great example to understand the worth of process mapping in the business.
The order fulfilment process in an e-commerce firm includes the following steps:
- Receiving Inventory
- Inventory Storage
- Order Processing
- Picking
- Packing
- Shipping
- Delivery
- Returns Processing
The best ways to streamline order fulfilment in an e-commerce company is by- automating delivery of tracking numbers and shipping updates, integrating CRM with order management, and matching customers and warehouse location.
You must also introduce multiple scans and checks. Automating carrier criteria and selection is another crucial aspect that you must include in your ecommerce order fulfilment process. You also must standardise reorders and inbound shipping. The best way to improvise in your service is by identifying service gaps, look for scope of improvement and innovation and keep achievable team goals.
You can introduce order management softwares to make your order fulfilment process easier and convenient. Also, some repetitive tasks may require automation for higher productivity.
Process mapping of order fulfilment enables you to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your e-commerce firm and bring in customers value and company growth significantly.
Managerial Level: Optimis ing inventory management process in a manufacturing firm
At the managerial level, optimising inventory management processes in a manufacturing firm is the best example to showcase the importance of process mapping.
The inventory management system includes creating and implementing an effective inventory management process in businesses that rely on physical form of inventories. Hence, these businesses require an effective method to record, analyse, and manage their stocks. Some of the best tech iqies for inventory management are- inventory control, stock review, cycle counting, and ABC analysis.
The benefits of mapping the inventory management process in a manufacturing firm are:
- You can easily manage orders.
- Inventory control (IMP) becomes extremely convenient.
- You can generate multichannel sales depending on your industry and customer base.
- It provides you with centralised and comprehensive reporting and data analysis.
- You can also do inventory forecasting.
- You can purchase order creation and management.
- Warehouse management and synchronisation becomes a cakewalk with mapping.
The inventory management process flow includes the following steps:
- Initially, you’ll receive and inspect the products.
- Now it’s time to sort and stock the products.
- Next you will accept the customer orders.
- Further you will fulfil package and ship order.
- It’s time to reorder new stock.
Strategic Level: Redesigning customer onboarding process in a software company
At a strategic level, the customer onboarding process in software companies is the best example of process mapping. Customer onboarding process decides the faith of the clients that they will put on the company in future. They are highly regulated processes, ensuring regulatory, legal, and credit-related due diligence.
There are five steps to redesign a customer onboarding process map in a software company; they are:
- You must set clear objectives initially to deliver a classy process map for the onboarding process.
- You must be able to identify the target user’s personality and define their goals.
- You can list out all the crucial touch points across the customer onboarding journey, like sign-up form, welcome emails, follow-up emails, product walkthroughs, customer, and technical support.
- You must define the limitations of the onboarding process.
- You can use analytics to determine the ideal path for.the customers.
You must also include the milestones in a customer’s journey, the various emotions that users experience at every touchpoint, pain points and friction of the customers, relevant solutions for different pain-points.
You can also automate the customer onboarding process by investing in the right software, divulging repetitive tasks to softwares, and bringing in innovation in the whole process. The customer onboarding process mapping has several benefits, like you can convert your potential lead to your customer, you can drive customer retention, you can improve the customer experience, and you can align different teams in your company under common goals.
Best Practices for Effective Process Mapping
Here are best practices for effective process mapping in your company:
Engage cross-functional teams and stakeholders
If you’re looking for effectiveness in your process mopping, the best method is to engage cross-functional teams and relevant stakeholders. Conversing personally with all the people involved in your business processes can help you dwell inside your business processes, analyse areas that need correction, and understand the efficiency of every process. Involving relevant stakeholders and cross-functional teams may help you with several inputs to make corrections in your business processes. Also, it will help you find those minute errors which can enhance the quality of your business processes significantly.
The initial strategy is to ensure that your stakeholders and cross-functional teams are aware of the process mapping task going on in your organisation. You must identify the relevant stakeholders and cross-functional departments related to specific business processes. It is ideal to first begin with the process mapping and include your stakeholders and other teams at the end for validation. It gives you a scope to make any amends before implementation and execution of the process maps.
Another best way to involve your stakeholders and other departments is by conducting several meetings at different points of the mapping process, especially while seeking validation as it is the last step before implementation. Involving stakeholders will give you a different perspective about your process maps and you can identify the bottlenecks and inefficiencies in your processes to improvise further.
Document processes using appropriate mapping techniques
You must understand that there are several mapping techniques available, but not all techniques are suitable for all business processes. So among flowcharts, SIPOC diagrams, detailed mapping, value stream mapping, etc., you must choose the right one for multiple business processes you map.
When you use the proper technique to map relevant business processes, the visibility, clarity and accessibility of business processes improve significantly. It also helps you in creating a functional and aesthetic process map that ultimately benefits the organisation in all possible ways.
Another thing to consider while mapping business processes is Business Process Documentation. help understand a business process in detail. It can also help in assessing and analysing the loopholes in the business process to find the accountable person and correct it. It can also help in correcting minor mistakes made by your workforce, like crossing deadlines, etc.
When you use the correct mapping technique to document your process and incorporate supporting documentation as and when required, you are headed towards a beautiful start to your business processes. It will help you create high quality process maps and increase the productivity of your business.
Continuously review and update process maps
You must engage in reviewing and updating your process maps constantly as it will improve the efficiency of business processes significantly. Reviewing will help in understanding the business maps and coordinating the same with the actual processes that are happening in the organisation.
When you constantly review your process maps, you can easily eliminate inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and redundancies from your processes. Technology and company culture is dynamic and it keeps on changing with time. So, you must also learn to improvise or change your process maps as and when required.
There can be several updates from time-to-time in business processes due a tool or some recent technology. It is important to keep your process maps updated about the same. It can be extremely dissatisfying to have outdated process maps, so the best practice is to update your process maps as per schedule or requirement for better efficiency and productivity.
Incorporate feedback and lessons learned
In the process mapping steps, one of the most important steps is to validate and verify the process maps. You must include cross-functional teams and stakeholders’ opinions and feedback to design a useful and functional process map. These are the teams that can better understand the user perspective of the process maps. Hence, discussing and consulting with cross-functional teams and relevant stakeholders can help you get numerous constructive feedbacks.
You must implement these feedbacks to make the most of your business process mapping. With constructive feedback and your past lessons in process mapping, you can improve the efficiency and quality of process maps. It will help you incorporate necessary technologies, tools, and automation wherever required. You can eliminate or automate all the activities that are repetitive and redundant. Overall, feedback and past lessons are the best ways to enhance your process maps.
Conclusion.
Process Mapping is a very crucial technique of every business. It is a visual representation of the business processes in your company. However, each and every level in your company requires process mapping. Only when you understand the importance and benefits of process mapping at every level of your organisation, can you implement the same in your process maps and increase the productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness of your business processes significantly. Through this blog you will understand the advantages of process mapping at all levels in your company and implement the same to improve the quality of your process maps.
How Does Process Mapping Improve Efficiency at the Operational Level?
How Does Process Mapping Benefit Decision-Making at Different Levels?
Can You Provide Examples of How Process Mapping Enhances Organizational Levels?
You may also like,
1. What Additional Benefits can BPM Certification Training Provide for the Development of Our Organization?
2. BPM Online Training for an Individual: Career Path, Job and Salary
3. Compliance Risk Management Using ARIS
4. Why choose ARIS tool over other Process Management Tools?
5. How to improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)?
6. What is Overall Equipment Effectiveness OEE? How to Calculate it?
Take Action Now and Make a Difference
Feel Free To Contact Us for Further Information