YASEEN TOWETT MELLLY

SCT221-C004-0323/2015
ASSIGNEMENT ONE

QUESTION ONE
a. Describe any five benefits of applying business process modeling techniques in streamlining the performance of a
business enterprise [5marks]
(1) Align Operations with Business Strategy

Implementing a business strategy or a new business model requires changes in the operations and in how
people perform their work. This can be affected only by operationalizing the business changes to the actual
business processes, business rules and decisions that are made on a day to day basis by all the people in the
organization.
(2) Improve Process Communication

One area that distinguishes successful businesses and teams is that they have a very clear idea of what they are
supposed to do, how they are supposed to do it and what is the exact role of every team member. Clear
communication of the operational processes is critical to facilitate a smooth functioning of a team.
(3) Increase Control and Consistency

Organizations and companies that succeed are ones that ensure their business processes and rules are well
designed and that they are consistently applied the same way every single time. This process control and
consistency is key for success in organizations ranging from fast-food chains to hospitals to NASA Space Shuttle
operations.
(4) Improve Operational Efficiencies

In today's business environment, every business and every manager wants to ensure that they are achieving the
best possible results with the resources available to them. There is no room for inefficiencies and wastage.
The Process simulation and analysis steps of Business Process Modeling are critical tools for managers and
analysts to ensure that their processes are optimized and are running like a well-oiled machine:
(5) Gain Competitive Advantage

All the benefits mentioned above lead to a significant competitive advantage for an organization that has invested
the time and effort to document, simulate and improve its business processes. Studies of many wildly successful
companies has often shown that their success was not due to better ideas or better business models but
because they invested significantly in business process modeling to constantly refine and improve their
processes
b. Describe any five characteristics of a business process [5marks]
scope: Starting point and end point for the series of steps.
purpose: Overall objective or reason why the process is performed.
steps: Actions performed by operators.
sequence: Order in which steps are performed.
operators: Individuals that perform the steps.
c. Explain the importance of metrics in the modeling of business processes [5marks]

1) They provide the information that the manager needs for each stage of the process
2) They provide greater accuracy in managerial decision making
3) They aim to bring more efficiency and effectiveness to processes
4) They bring speed, a better understanding, and transparency to disclosing results
5) Process Performance Metrics become the measure of a company’s excellence
6) They allow the creation of a dashboard with all the information available in a panoramic way

d. Explain the role of BPM in enhancing the value chain process [5marks]
Several researchers have indicated an increasing interest in SCC . SCC occurs when two or more firms in a SC work closely
together in planning and delivering products to end customers to optimise profits for the SC members and gain mutual
benefits. It is necessary to develop closer relationships, integrating processes and sharing information with customers and
suppliers. According to Barratt, “Internal collaboration must be married with external collaboration”. Thus, firms need to
collaborate in order to gain access to combinations of resources or improved capabilities that allow them to achieve
collaborative advantage and higher performance. Collaborative advantage refers to strategic benefits achieved over
competitors in the marketplace which could not have been achieved without working through the SC partnership.Therefore,
these benefits achieved should be more than those achievable by a firm working in isolation. Synthesising the literature, the
important elements of SCC that have been commonly used in previous research [based on a number of citations from
Harzing’s “Publish or Perish”] are information sharing and communication, sharing common goals, joint activities and
incentive alignment. Information sharing and communication are described as important for effective collaboration to
achieve a greater shared understanding within the SC partnership; therefore, an environment of innovative thinking will be
encouraged and supported. Joint activities refer to joint decision-making and the sharing of resources between SC partners.
A firm and its SC partners jointly performing activities could result in the development of a deeper understanding between
partners, leading to more efficient communication in a virtuous cycle. Sharing common goals is important for good
relationships between firms, as they work for mutual benefits. Incentive alignment refers to the degree to which participating
SC members share costs, risks and benefits. It provides a system for repositioning the benefits and problems that are
encountered when process changes occur within the SC.

e. Discuss two approaches that can be used to model a business process giving the advantages of each [10marks]

1. Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)

Simply put BPMN is a graphical representation of your business process using standard objects. If you want to get more
technical It can also be defined as a set of graphical objects and rules defining available connections between the objects.
BPMN consists of the following basic building blocks;

 Flow objects: events (circles), activities (rectangles with rounded corners), and gateways (diamonds)
 Connecting objects: mainly comprising arrows, these indicate sequence flow (filled arrows), message flow
(dashed arrows), and associations
 Swim lanes: pools (graphic container) and lanes (sub-partition of the pool)
 Artifacts: data objects, groups, and annotations

The biggest advantage of BPMN is that it’s a standard with well-defined syntax. So many business analysts are familiar with
it which makes collaboration much easier. Also, most modeling tools support BPMN which makes it much easier to share
and edit if even using different software.
2. UML Diagrams

UML is a modeling language mainly used for specification, visualization, development and documenting of
software systems. But business professionals have adapted it as a powerful business process modeling technique.

With 14 different UML diagram types, it offers a flexible and powerful way to visualize almost any business
process. They are typically used for modeling the detailed logic of a business process. In many ways, UML
diagrams are the object-oriented equivalent of flow charts.

Its main advantages is its flexibility. But with 14 different diagram types, some might find it difficult to
understand the diagrams. Add to that the same process can be modeled using different UML diagrams. So
probably not the most popular choice among analysts.
QUESTION TWO
a. Identify at least five business processes. These should not include Apply Invoices which is the subject of Question
(b). For each process identified, specify the event that triggers the process, the main beneficiary of the process, a major
outcome that the beneficiary is looking for from the process and an example of a metric that helps to define the quality
of the process. [8 marks]

b. Show the dependencies between these processes (including Apply Invoices) in the form, for example, of an overall
process map. [5 marks]

c. The Apply Invoices processing is described in detail in the preceding text. Develop a business process model to
represent this process. [8 marks]

d. Sonko Credit Dynamics are aware that their internal processes are inefficient. In particular, they have been
compared to those of their competitors and found to be slow and error-prone. Suggest five ways in which the processes
outlined in the scenario could be improved. [9 marks]

QUESTION THREE

a. Critically evaluate the decision made by the CEO to use a software package approach to automating the production
process at Plasticpipe limited, and explain why this approach was unlikely to succeed.

b. The CEO recommends that the company now adopts a formal process for procuring, evaluating and implementing
software packages which they can use in the future when a software package approach appears to be more appropriate.

c. Analyse how a formal process for software package procurement, evaluation and implementation would have
addressed the problems experienced at Plasticpipe limited in the production process project. [30 marks]