Business owners often don’t realise that they lack understanding of how their business is operating, until something unexpected happens. The larger the business becomes, the greater the potential gulf between the business model and the actual processes.
To understand your own business, avoid unpleasant surprises, or implement changes – the key to success is to understand it as it is and not as you expect or want it to be. As-is process modelling should be the bedrock of your in-house business intelligence and should be a precursor to structural reforms or anticipated growth.
People Create Processes
The only reason businesses work at all is that people are inherently creative, loyal and cooperative. Because they’re not robots, they adapt the day to day working of the business – sometimes unconsciously, and usually to solve problems for their employer or a client.
The elements that get adapted can take many forms. These changes might involve the translation of vital information into different formats, or it might be code in a program that has been configured to execute in an unexpected way to avoid a conflict never reported to the design team. More often, we find that the way a department carries out its function may have evolved over time and now have unexpected dependencies or risks.
Whether it’s machine code, a mechanical relay, or a human procedure, this opacity blunts a management’s ability to control, evolve, protect, capitalise or even report on their own business.
An ‘As Is’ Model Enables Effective Control
You need an ‘as is’ process model to estimate risks, identify inefficiency and opportunity, incentivise workers, and demonstrate to regulators and clients that you understand how your business operates.
How Clearsight Consulting Can Help
An outside team provides confidentiality and motivation. Staff don’t automatically realise what information is relevant, and gain from having the big picture explained to them. We can provide the expertise to gather intelligence, record it and communicate it. It’s vital, across the business, and across time, that this intelligence is put into a consistent and comprehensible form.
Why not contact us to discuss how we can help you deliver your mapping requirements?