Business Process Transformation, BPR and its Relationship with software
The notion of business process transformation or business process reengineering (BPR) was first introduced in the late Michael Hammer’s 1990 Harvard Business Review article. The article saw a surge of popularity and attention a couple of years afterward when Hammer and James Champy released their best-selling book, Reengineering the Corporation. However, Process Transformation should not be regarded as a BPR exercise.
ERPs helped organizations boost their earnings by integrating data from other business areas (e.g., sales, production, accounts receivable, HR, finance, etc.). The challenge with the integration process presented itself in the form of the frequent requirement of the vital organizational processes to be redesigned before they could be deployed. That is where BPR came into the picture and started gaining popularity among organizations implementing the ERP software.
Business process transformation has an exciting relationship with applications. Before ERP software like SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, etc. became popular and a household name, the majority of the organizations, got their procedures developed by their respective IT departments.
Business Process Transformation, cloud and Its Impact On Business Processes
One significant component that cloud has changed forever is the ability of the organizations to customize the process to their liking. Hence, the onus of adapting to the best practice-based innovation offered by cloud service providers falls upon them.
The idea of doing a BPR is now a thing of the past and is a very politically incorrect word to use in the contemporary business conversation. ERPs, together with BPR, had a good run till the year 2000; around the time, Salesforce was launched.
Then came the disruptive trend of cloud computing or SaaS (Software as a Service). Cloud computing, because of its agility, low, upfront cost (CAPEX Vs. OPEX) and ability to deliver technological innovation much faster than aging ERP solutions, was a dream-come-true for business leaders.
The crux of your business’ success is dependent upon your HR and other integrated processes. However, this is often among the most neglected areas. All of the Cloud HR vendors, including SuccessFactors, others concentrate significantly on a technology-based process transformation.
In our experience, we have noticed that to reap benefits from the best practices and innovations offered by SuccessFactors, you will need to learn how your prospective To-Be process (based on SuccessFactors) would look like.
Socialize Your Business Process Transformation
Transformational change whether process-based cultural or otherwise means modifications in certain areas that are caused due to an interaction with the internal and external factors. This is certainly a case of Change Management intervention at the earliest stage possible.
Once you know that your processes might change in the future, the first step must be to empower and socialize the difference via an efficient change management initiative. The deficiency of a powerful change management process remains the single most common reason why cloud processes adaptation remains very low in several organizations.
We can look at standardizing your HR processes and map your processes to SuccessFactors cloud-based best practices early in the project. We do so as part of our “Implementation Pre- Planning (IPP)” exercise or as a standalone “Business Process Transformation” effort, much before you see them in the system.
SuccessFactors helps with Business Process Transformation out of the Box
SAP Best Practices for SAP SuccessFactors are a set of recommended HR business processes, designed to help a customer get the most out of their SAP SuccessFactors solution. The customer can pick and choose the process blocks which fit their requirements.
The following are the key benefits of using SAP Best Practices for SAP SuccessFactors in your implementation projects.
- An automated, free-of-cost, pre-designed system that shortens time-to-value for your customer, and allows a quick move to the cloud
- With a click of a button and in a matter of minutes, you can run the business process and showcase the same immediately to your senior management
- Leading practices content, based on experience and learnings from 6500+ customer projects across the globe in various industries
- Modular and flexible deployment where you can select only the part required for your business
- Regularly updated content with new features, localization, and process released along with the SAP SuccessFactors quarterly releases
