Preliminary Business Report For SmartShirt Pty Ltd

Introduction to the Business Process Management

his assignment will be completed by teams of 3 individuals.Your task is to prepare a preliminary business report for the CEO. The CEO has an in-house style which he expects for business reports, so the main body of your report must be structured using the following headings. A brief about what each section of the report must address is also provided. If you believe that there is insufficient information on which to carry out your analysis, you may make reasonable assumptions however, these must be clearly stated.

BPM and Strategy
? Advise the CEO why a BPM approach should now become part of the way SmartShirt Pty Ltd does business.
? Introduce the CEO to Business Process Management by stating in plain terms what it actually is and how it can help his business.
? In describing the benefits of BPM to the CEO, ensure that you briefly highlight how BPM connects to business strategy (internal and external perspectives), positioning, structure and value propositions and use this case to provide examples where you believe this will assist the reader’s understanding.Briefly describe the meaning of value chains and how using BPM, in conjunction with this concept,can assist the CEO to improve the business.

? Clearly describe the strategy that you believe the CEO should be following and provide a justification for your view.
Problem Analysis
? The CEO is aware that there are a number of problems within the company and is happy for you to briefly describe these but would like you to concentrate your efforts on the problem which you determine to be the most urgent. Failure to clearly identify, what you consider to be the most urgent problem, will result in a loss of five marks. In relation to this problem, the CEO would like you to identify the causes of the problem, the problem and the consequences of the problem; refer to the capabilities gap and the performance gap here if relevant.

? Show the current ‘As Is’ process using Bizagi Modeler software (or other graphical software if you are unable to use Bizagi).
? Identify any process flow problems and/or day to day management problems; output and input problems; and problems with controls and enablers; develop a project scoping diagram to illustrate the problem which you have identified.

Proposed Solution
? Advise the CEO what it means to develop a ‘business process architecture’ and, particularly, how valuable this can be to the success of the business.
? Bridge the identified gap, revealed in the previous section, by describing a ‘To Be’ process; what will the ‘To Be’ process do, or not do, when the change project is rolled out.
? Support your ‘To Be’ process with a BPMN process flow diagram using Bizagi Modeler software (or other graphical software if you are unable to use Bizagi).
? Are there any key aspects in your proposed solution that you should clearly describe to the CEO, for example: SOA; ERP; Master Data; Core, Support and Management processes; alignment issues; etc? 

? Based on the information provided in your proposed solution you must also include a fully annotated organisational structure chart. Large BPM driven organisational changes can be extremely valuable, they are also complex undertakings impacting the organisation, its people and its use of modern technologies.
? Identify and briefly describe significant considerations that might impact your client’s company, both during the redesign development stage and upon the implementation of your proposed solution.Some considerations might pertain to the costs of bridging the gap (time, effort, money, etc.), risks, opportunity costs, politics, etc.
? Specifically address any upstream or downstream implications (within or outside the organisation) of the solution you have proposed, stating why these implications are important.

Recommendations
? Provide the CEO with a succinct list of recommendations to conclude your report.Written Assignment Administrative Details
You should include a brief executive summary, table of contents and brief appendices. Do not include extensive appendices – this is a preliminary report – extensive appendices may result in a reduction of marks. Use the section headings above to structure the main body of your report (you should not need subheadings). The CEO will not read the report if it does not use the above headings in the body of your report.The CEO wants to see a reasonable use of references. While textbook references can be used, the CEO would prefer that you use industry research reports, case studies and any other industry-based evidence which can justify why his organisation should implement your proposed BPM solution.

You do not need to specify a particular commercial solution (such as SAP or another enterprise system),although you may specify commercial solutions to help you to clarify and support your proposed solution recommendations.
The report must be no longer than 2,000 words (approximately 4 to 5 pages of words, but by including diagrams and any other graphics or figures it will be considerably longer.

Words in diagrams such as the Gap Model, Project Scoping Diagram and As-Is and To-Be process diagrams will not be included in the word count provided they are used to explain necessary steps and highlight critical information. If paragraphs of text are included in these diagrams, they will be included in the word count. Words in tables are included in the word count of the main body of your report.

The SmartShirt Pty Ltd is a Melbourne based business and the main profits gained by the organization is from the sales of the high-quality corporate shirts which are sold online. However, the competition is very fierce in these type of businesses and hence, there is need for the organization to provide high quality shirts for the customers and also maintain their overall break even factor so that the company is not hampered for upholding the quality of their products (Allweyer 2016).

There is a common misconception amongst the business community that business process management and its associated software is somehow reserved for large companies and governmental organizations. The opposite couldn’t be truer however, as small businesses are exceedingly more likely to encounter serious business competition and require methods to ‘stand out’ from the rest as well as compete against larger, highly financially resourceful global companies (Allweyer 2016).

The SmartShirt Pty Ltd organization has always focused on providing value for money for the customer. But with very low profit margins it would require the organization to avail lengthy procedures for the expansion of the company. Hence, the requirement to re-engineer the procedures of the organization has come up and the use of the BPM technique is assumed to be very useful for the organization.

Introduction to the Business Process Management

            For the implementation of the business process management it is very important that a considerable amount of knowledge is gained on the topic. Business process management is basically a concept in the field of management and the SmartShirt Pty Ltd organization which makes use of a number of methods like discovering the defects in the current model followed by company, analyse the model, make proper measurements about the model (Braun et al. 2015).

These processes would further help the organization improving and optimizing the business procedures of the organization. The organization can use BPM software for any process deemed necessary, some examples are sales, customer service, marketing, inwards and outwards of stock, and human resources. By using BPM software to analyse and design processes, a small business can greatly increase process efficiency and gain another competitive advantage in the ever increasing, globally competitive international marketplace as well as more applicably within the local and domestic market.

Benefits of the Business Process management

            The use of the Business Process management is very beneficial for any type of organization and the same goes for the SmartShirt Pty Ltd as they are looking to keep up to the quality that they have been providing and also maintain the business position in terms of sales and financial structure.

Benefits in Business Strategies:

            Business Process Management (BPM) provides benefits that are advantageous to any company, no matter their shape or industry. It specifically focuses on operations and a company’s business model (Braun et al. 2015). Nowadays, most BPM platforms have a customer-centric focus. It can streamline the decision-making process to get products out the door quicker. 

Benefits in Positioning:

            Considering how important it is for a business to respond to customer inquiries and demands, it’s not surprising that processes left to the way-side may hold a company back from growing. That’s why BPM, once adopted, is used continuously to maintain a competitive advantage. Hence, this can benefit the SmartShirt Pty Ltd organization in maintaining their place in the market so that they can uphold their position and maintain a steady cash inflow which would benefit their expansion. 

Benefits of the Business Process Management

Value Proposition:

The SmartShirt Pty Ltd organization is looking to maintain their policy of value for money for the customers along with the possible to keep up to their financial advantages gained from the business conducted by them. Hence the BPM technique would allow them to keep up with the value proposition (Cheikhrouhou et al. 2015).

Meaning of value chains and using BPM

            Value Chain management involves keeping up to the consistency in the business procedures and the SmartShirt Pty Ltd organization is no exception in this case they too have the requirement to keep up to the steady flow in their business. The process involves the transformations and the consumptions of the of the resources for the organization. The concept of value chain involves the processes that would be including management and innovation for the organization which would enable them to gain a competitive advantage with the integration of Business Process Management System into their Structure (Allweyer 2016).  The integration would allow the SmartShirt Pty Ltd organization to gain a sustainable competitive advantage.

Strategy

            It is important that the SmartShirt Pty Ltd organization should be able to identify the process which have been defined by the value chain before achieving an advantage of the full length integration of BPM with the value chain for the organization (Feja, Witt and Speck, 2014). The main concept for the SmartShirt Pty Ltd organization is to consider the activities which are involved with the creation of the products and the processes interrelated with the creation and the distribution of products to customers. The main aim is to gain competitive advantage over the others in competition for a prolonged period of time. Hence the area of production and production distribution are key core activities in the business process of the organization which are to be analysed and refurbished accordingly.

Problem Analysis

            There are a number of problems for the SmartShirt Pty Ltd organization and three major problems have been identified in this report.

            There are a number of shirts which have been on the waiting list and this can be very difficult for the dispatcher to manage the orders and as a result the short can fall from the pile (Rosa et al. 2017).

Problem:

            The problem is that the customers raise complains about the shirts and they also become unhappy as they have already made the payments for the shirts to the company.

Consequences:

            As a result of this, the customer satisfaction level for the customers of the organization is decreased. Hence this is a very big problem for the organization and hence this is to be sorted out for them.

            There are a number of Occasions where the shirts have been wrongly dispatched to the customers and hence the customers have not received the products they actually ordered for.

            The problem is that the process that are performed are manual and there has been various problems regarding incorrect labelling from the labelling machines (Allweyer 2016). Hence, customers raise complains about the incorrect shirts and they also become unhappy as they have already made the payments for the shirts to the company.As a result of this, the customer satisfaction level for the customers of the organization is decreased. Hence this is a very big problem for the organization and hence this is to be sorted out for them.

Problem Analysis

Problem 3: Complains from customers 

Causes:

            There are a number of occasions where the sales team has not informed that the customer had made a complain.

            As a result of this, the customer satisfaction level for the customers of the organization is decreased (Roseman and vom Brocke, 2015). Hence this is a very big problem for the organization and hence this is to be sorted out for them.The manual procedures are current followed in the system and hence, due to this, the procedures of the organization have been found problematic (Stavrou et al. 2014). In addition to this, there has been procedures in the organization where the procedures are sent for re-checks and this has been problematic for them.

            The main input problem is that the customers complains have not been registered properly and hence this has been a problem for the organization.The marking and the order processing has also been very problematic for the organization as there has been issues regarding the labelling of the shirts for the customers.

Business process architecture advice

            For the solution to the problems which have been identified in the previous portions of this report it can be advices that the organization automates the procedures in their business and develops an information system so that they can be perform the tasks automatically and there would be less number of iterations for the organizations and the business of the organization to completed.

            In the To-Be process model the task of labelling the shirts and the performing tasks of stacking up to the shirts are to be done automatically and also a customer feedback is to be added to the system so the complains are attended efficiently by the organization.

Organizational Structure

            The SmartShirt Pty Ltd organization involves around 20 employees which includes Martin the CEO of the company (Allweyer 2016). The organization chart provided below would be helpful in gaining efficient knowledge on the overall procedures performed by each departments of the organization:

The area which is to be redesigned is the labelling of the shirts.

Description of the significant considerations

            There has been various type of issues involving the labelling of the shirts and this results in the incorrect distribution of the shirts to the customers. Hence this process is to be redesigned and the system is the updated accordingly.In the proposed solution the feedback system for the customers is to be introduced in the system that is already existing in the organization.In the solution the feedback system is to be implemented which would benefit the organization as this would enable them to provide important inputs to the company for improvements.

Recommendations

            It has been recommended that the organization develops an information system which would be automating the tasks of the business procedures of the organization. This would enable them to increase the overall efficiency of the system (Biard et. 2015). In addition to this, the addition of the feedback system would help them in achieving important advices for the organization.

Allweyer, T., 2016. BPMN 2.0: introduction to the standard for business process modeling. BoD–Books on Demand.

Biard, T., Le Mauff, A., Bigand, M. and Bourey, J.P., 2015, October. Separation of decision modeling from business process modeling using new “Decision Model and Notation”(DMN) for automating operational decision-making. In Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises (pp. 489-496). Springer, Cham.

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Cheikhrouhou, S., Kallel, S., Guermouche, N. and Jmaiel, M., 2015. The temporal perspective in business process modeling: a survey and research challenges. Service Oriented Computing and Applications, 9(1), pp.75-85.

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Rosa, M.L., Van Der Aalst, W.M., Dumas, M. and Milani, F.P., 2017. Business process variability modeling: A survey. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), 50(1), p.2.

Rosemann, M. and vom Brocke, J., 2015. The six core elements of business process management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Stavrou, V., Kandias, M., Karoulas, G. and Gritzalis, D., 2014, September. Business Process Modeling for Insider threat monitoring and handling. In International Conference on Trust, Privacy and Security in Digital Business (pp. 119-131). Springer, Cham.