Seminar 2 Introduction to Business Process
This was the
first official seminar for BC3401, which means that our
learning journey to ERP has begun! I was glad that some new friends were here
joining us, although some students who were there last seminar had disappeared.
Anyway, I was looking forward to the first student led seminar, and having read
the material about GBI, I was curious about how exactly should an
organizational chart look like, since I thought I couldn't find enough
information to add to the existing organizational structure.
GBI Case Study: Organizational Structure
So here is the first part of this seminar, which was led by James,
who had only raised a question then relaxed (I mean he let us discuss on our
own). We were asked to extend the organizational structure of GBI. This was
exactly what I wanted to know! With the help of my teammates, I figured out
that sales, marketing,
service & support, IT, finance, human resources (HR) research, design, procurement
and manufacturing are
the so called function groups in the organizational structure. So what our
group did was adding the function groups and their locations to the respective
departments. After checking the answers with other groups, we found that since
it was mentioned that GBI was a “process-centric” organization, the functions
listed in the enterprise process map were also to be added. Next, James addressed some of our
questions. Some of the explanations are recorded below:
- CEO usually does not delicate his work to all over the world, and has video meetings all the time. Instead, there are sub-departments and their own managers who are responsible for the regional affairs. Therefore, we should try to add more layers to the organizational structure in this case.
- What are the differences between marketing department and sales department? The staff of Marketing need to go around and understand the market, and they are to figure out the marketing proposal which includes what to sell, where to sell, how to sell; while the staff from the sales departments should follow the proposal and sell the products. The sales department also comprises of a group of people who have the product knowledge and the resources to answer the questions from customers.
- Note that under Service&Support process, there is a partner support, which refers to the support from partner companies. These companies can be the suppliers or sponsors etc. For example, for the product distribution at different regions, some local express companies might serve as partner supports to help send out the products.
- There are some areas that are related to the entire process. Strategy Management is one among them, because after John and Peter have set the mission, the whole company must follow the strategy and be supervised to ensure that it is going on the right direction.
- Where should Material Management belongs to, Research, Design or Manufacturing? The material here refers to the raw material, which links to the issues like the categories, quantities, and the available time etc. Therefore, this is closely related to the manufacturing department rather than the other two.
- How about the sales channel? Should it belong to distribution or elsewhere? Distribution mainly includes the transport of the product, like by ship or by air, and where to store (the warehouse). But finding the channel to get to the customers is the task of the Marketing department. For instance, depending on the market demand, should we sell the bicycles in the supermarket or the exclusive agencies?
- For GBI here, the factory and the warehouse are likely to be a same compound and at the same location and facility. But this might not be the case for other companies.
Student Led Seminar: Business Process Modeling (BPM)
The first student led seminar was
really well prepared and presented. There were so much information in a just
one-hour session. I think the best thing about this session was that we were
given some hand-on practice questions. The first one was drawing the flow chart
that can show the business process of Amazon after one has made an order on the
web page. Although most of us would not get the process wrongly, we tend to
forget to consider it when dealing with some problems. So James reminded us
that when doing the lab exercise, we should always look to the business process
underlying the software.
The second one was business
process modeling using a swimlane diagram, which might be useful in our
projects later on. This was much like the flow chart, but with the pool lanes
representing the process participants, which makes it clearer to see the tasks
and which department they belong to. Different opinions raised on the number of
“End” symbols. The presenters insisted on one end for the whole diagram, which
did make sense that there was only one end point for the process. James
suggested that when the chart is too long, then it would not be user-friendly
if the reader is only able to find the end point at several pages later.
The objective of BPM is to make
the business process clearer and to make it easier to spot the errors or the
redundancies. So this is also significant for the Business Process Redesign,
which is to improve the process and make it more efficient.
Good news is that our group
got a new member, and she was very helpful! This was really a fruitful seminar,
and the presenters has indeed set a good model for the following groups.
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