Business process:Business process refer to the unique in which work is organized, coordinated,and focused to produce a valuable product or service.

Developing a new product,generating and fulfilling an order or hiring an employee are examplesfor the business process. Business process are concrete workflows of material information and knowledge .the way organizations accomplish their business process can be a source of competitive strength The below diagram shows information value chain. From business perspectives, information systems are part of a series of value-adding activities for acquiring,transforming , and distributing information that managers can use to iprove decision making , enhance organizational performances and ultimately increase firm profitablity. There are 4 major systems that help the organization. Supply chain management systems Customers releationship management Enterprise systems Knowledge management systems

The supply chain management systems is useful to automate the releationships between suppliers and the organization to optimize the planning, sourcing, manufacturing, and delivery of products and sevices. The customer relationship management systems develops a sound, integrated view of all the relationships an organization maintains with its customers. The knowledge management systems create, capture, store, and distribute firm expertise and knowledge. Business process can be: Functional Cross-functional

Phases in building and maintaining informations systems(SDLC):The system development life cycle frame work provides system designers and developers to follow a sequence of activities. It consists of a set of steps or phases in which each phase of the sdlc uses the result of the previous one. A systems development life cycle (SDLC) consists of important phases that are essential for developers such as planning,analysis,design,and implementation

Viewing business as a system:

A system is a set of interrelated components that work together to accomplish a purpose. Human body is an example for a system. A subsystem is a component of a system, to perform a part of the work of a system. For example consider the following manufacturing system consisting of five subsystems. 1)production design 2)production. 3)sales 4)delivery and 5)service The terms that are frequently used with the system are as follows: A systems purpose is the reason for existence. A system boundary defines what is inside the system and what is outside. A systems environment is every thing relevant to the system that is outside of its boundaries. A systems inputs are the physical objects and information that cross the boundary to enter it from its environment. A system outputs are the physical objects and information that go from the systems into its environment.

Business as a system consisting of business process:

A business process is a group of related steps are activities that use people,information,and other resources to create value for customers. The scope of a business process is the specific set of sub processes and activities it includes. sub processes are parts of a process that are processes in their own right. A processs value added is the amount of value it creates for its internal or external customer.

The value chain:

The set of processes is a firm uses to crate value for its customers is called its value chain. The value chain includes 1.Primary processes 2.Support processes The primary processes directly create the value for the firms. The support processes add value indirectly by making it easier for others to perform the primary processes.

Business processes and functional areas of business:

Businesses have organized around functional areas of business. The functional areas of the business include: 1.Engineering 2.Sales and marketing

3.Production. 4.Accounting and finance 5.Human resources There are 3 types of processes: Processes that cross functional areas: It includes creating a new product ,fulfilling customers orders. these processes span multiple functional areas. Process related to specific functional area : these include manufacturing products, identifying customers,paying taxes. These process belong to a particular functional area.

EVALUATING BUSINESS PROCESS PERFORMANCE:The manager must evaluate a business process performance to know how well it is contributes to improve the firms business value. The following are various performance measures: Rate of outputproductivity Constituency Cycle time Flexblity Security Rate of output: The rate of output for a business process is the amount of out put it actually produces in agiven time period. The measures for rate of output are the average units per hour. Productivity: Productivity is the releationship between the amount of output produced by a business process and the amount of money,time,and effort it consumes. The firms overall productivity improves if it can make a profit lower selling prices. The measures for productivity include output per machine hour,ratio of outputs to inputs scrap rate and cost of rework Constituency: Constituency in a business process means applying the same techniques in the same way to obtain the same desired results. The measures for constituency are the defect rate percentage of variation rework rate. Cycle time: The cycle time is the time a business process consumes to produce a product. The measures include elapsed time from start to finish and the work-in-process inventory divided by weekly output.

The information systems perform data processing data processing work more quickly. They make it possible to combine steps, execute them in parallel there by eliminating delays. Flexblity: The flexblity of a business process is how easily it can be adjusted to meet the immediate customer needs. The measures include number of possible product variations and ease of customizing to customer specifications. Security: The security of a business process is the likelihood that is not vulnerable(exposed)to unauthorized uses damage, or criminal activity. The measures include the number of process breaches in a time interval.The seriousness of process breach.