Tao Jingwen, director of Huawei, said: "Any digital transformation that does not involve process reconstruction is just pretending." Inspired.
Concept and value of
process Layered framework system of process
Relationship between process and surrounding
Process is the core
of digitalization Digital realization of process
1. The concept and value of process
In order to realize value creation, the E2E (end-to-end) business process from inputting customer requirements to delivering products and services to customers to obtain customer satisfaction and realize the enterprise's own value is the business process. Business flow exists naturally, and the process of adapting to business flow will bring value enhancement, which is the summary and solidification of excellent operation practices.
Ren Zhengfei proposed in the article "Surviving Rationality and Plainness" that the purpose of enterprise management is to establish a process-based organization.
So, what is the concrete definition of a process?
The definition of a process is: a complete set of end-to-end activity connections and collections that create value for customers.
In this definition, if we further disassemble it, it includes 6 basic elements.
The first is the customer.
The target of each of our processes is the customer. The process is not for management, but for making money for customers.
The second is value.
After this process, has the customer made money, and has the customer been satisfied?
The third input, the fourth output.
The process must have input, there must be a signal to enter, and then the result will come out after the process is completed. For example, in the product development process, what is the input? It is customer demand and market demand, so what is the output? Is the product, is the customer value.
The fifth is activity.
Actions here are not nouns, but verbs. It is about doing the right thing and achieving the right result. And the constraints of this behavior are the activities of the process, so the activities 1, 2, and 3 in the process are essentially behavior 1, behavior 2, and behavior 3, and you must make correct behaviors to make the process output correct. All must be collectively trained to do the right thing.
Finally, there is a role between activities and activities.
How to move an organization when a customer demand comes in must be an interaction. This is the same principle as molecular interaction, atomic interaction, and optical interaction.
This definition has subverted the idea of scientific management for 100 years - Taylor's reasonable division of labor and the establishment of assembly lines. Specifically reflected in:
First: It is a complete end-to-end process.
Complete end-to-end means from customer needs to customer needs, and functional organizations often separate the process, because we have established departments, and the rigid boundaries of departmental responsibilities interrupt the end-to-end process Yes, it’s like an expressway. Originally, there was an expressway from Shenzhen to Beijing, but the expressway has gone through five provinces, and each province has an expressway department. Collect money once. Because expressways are managed by region.
Second: create value for customers.
How do you understand this sentence? In fact, let customers succeed, let customers make money. In 1954, Drucker, a master of management, wrote a book called "The Practice of Management". In that book, he talked about the mission of the enterprise, and the mission of the enterprise is to create customers. He said that customers do not actually know the needs. When a company creates needs and products, it creates customers.
Third:
In the reality of enterprise management, system-based management always seems to be complicated, but the results are not accurate. As a norm, the process defines the path and method of people doing things. It can have a rigorous structure and can be With standard granularity, you can have a standardized language; more importantly, you can have very precise content to ensure that there will be no missing, overlapping, interlaced and conflicts, so that the results will be more stable, which makes the refinement of management a one possibility.
What we often say is that the process should allow different people to do the same thing with the same result, which raises the bottom line of an enterprise's business activities and prevents the enterprise from affecting business development due to personnel changes. It is a state that entrepreneurs are deliberately trying to achieve, because it means that the operating costs and quality of the enterprise are controllable, and the purpose of promoting the process is to enable different teams to achieve successful reproducibility when executing the process.
2. Process layered framework system
To manage the process well, we must first manage the hierarchical classification of the enterprise. For example, Huawei divides process management into operational processes (including strategic management, integrated product development, customer relationship management, integrated supply chain) and management support processes (each functional department process).
The process level is related to the management level. Different process levels correspond to different management levels. For example, Huawei uses the main process for middle and high-level business decision-making and end-to-end cross-functional business management, and the secondary sub-process for Intelligent domain management ensures that the delivery of functional domains meets the needs of main processes, and operational-level processes are used to guide grassroots activities.
Referring to Huawei's process framework, the process can be divided into six levels from top to bottom:
level 1 process classification;
level 2 process group;
level 3 process;
level 4 sub-process;
level 5 activity;
level 6 task.
Level 1 process classification and level 2 process group are used for process management, answer why to do questions, support the realization of the company's strategy and business goals, reflect the company's business model and cover all the company's businesses.
The level 3 process and level 4 sub-processes are used to implement policies and control requirements, answer what to do questions, focus on strategy execution, reflect the main business flow that creates customer value, and implement the high-efficiency and low-cost operation of the main business flow. required support business.
Level 5 activities and level 6 tasks are used to implement the process to people, make it executable, answer how to do questions, complete the specific activities and tasks required by the process goals, and reflect the diversification and flexibility of the business. An activity generally refers to the process by which a certain role transforms a specific input into a specific output according to certain requirements and standards by using specific tools and resources.
Here is an example of a company's process classification framework:
(1) The process of the enterprise can be divided into 8 categories, namely comprehensive office, market management, government and enterprise management, network service, IT support, engineering construction, finance, human resources, which are at level1 .
(2) There are 41 process groups under level1. For example, the IT support class includes six process groups such as demand management and data management, and these process groups are at level2.
(3) The data management group includes cross-departmental end-to-end business processes such as the data open process. These processes are at level 3. The data open process is divided into four stages: application, aggregation, shelf and subscription.
(4) The four stages of the data open process correspond to four sub-processes, namely the application process, aggregation process, listing process and subscription process, and these sub-processes are at level4.
(5) Each sub-process involves specific activities, which are at level5.
The following is an example of the flow diagram of the subscription sub-process, which identifies all roles in the process, including the data applicant, security manager, data owner, data decision-maker, etc., and identifies the key activities of each role, which are divided into There are three stages of application, approval, and opening, involving business activities such as demand filling, demand approval, security approval, business approval, decision-making approval, and data push. It can also be seen that the subscription sub-process distinguishes high, medium, and Low three open conditions.
(6) The business activity of "data push" actually includes many tasks. These tasks are at level 6, such as scheduling tasks, data exchange, user notification, etc. Each task can actually be refined into specific steps.
The process reflects the business essence of the enterprise. Only by sorting out the process system of the enterprise can we clarify what the digital process object refers to. Only by splitting the process layer by layer into specific tasks can we really do specific optimization work.
3. The relationship between the process and the surrounding
Understanding the process itself is not enough, we also need to understand how the process works. Huawei Xu Zhijun wrote an article "Huawei Xu Zhijun: Be the Master of the Process, Not a Slave", which mentioned process and business, data, IT, quality, operation, organization The following figure illustrates the relationship diagram:
1) The relationship between business flow and process
In order to realize value creation, the E2E (end-to-end) business process from inputting customer requirements to delivering products and services to customers to satisfy customers and realize the value of the enterprise itself is the business flow. Business flow exists naturally, and the process of adapting to the business flow will bring value enhancement, which is the summary and solidification of excellent operation practices. The purpose of promoting the process is to make the successful reproducibility of different teams when executing the process.
2) The relationship between data and process
What flows in the process is information, and the carrier of information is data, which is the output of each link in the business flow. Only when these outputs meet the downstream requirements can the process flow smoothly, otherwise the value creation process will be blocked or stagnant. However, if the data structure and standards of each link are not well-designed in advance, then the data in each link of the process cannot be effectively integrated. This is why data governance is extremely important to enterprises. The purpose of Huawei's data approach is to improve process efficiency .
3) The relationship between IT and process
IT carries the process and data. IT supports each job and the data output by the job. It realizes the integration of data and the automation of the process through IT, instead of relying on people to input and convert data, because people will make mistakes. The IT system does not, and is more efficient than people. Of course, not all processes need to rely on IT. Only when there are many people using it and there are efficiency issues can IT be used.
4) The relationship between quality and process
Quality requirements must be built into the process following the business flow. In order to make the delivery of each link just meet the downstream requirements, it is necessary to define the input and output deliverables and their quality requirements of each operation link, and based on the quality management method to ensure that each operation link meets the quality requirements, Internal control, information security, and network security are specific forms of quality requirements. For example, the key to ensuring information security is to identify core assets and protect them during the process, rather than building the Great Wall.
5) Relationship between operation and process
Operation is to aim at business goals, follow the process repeatedly, and achieve business goals through continuous and periodic business operation management activities (object is business process + management system). Without operations, the process and management system are dead (static), and the value creation of the enterprise cannot be realized, and the business goals cannot be achieved.
6) Relationship between organization and process
The organization needs to adapt the process. First, determine the main business flow based on the business model selected by the strategic design. Second, identify the key capabilities of the business flow for process design. Third, determine the role through the process. Finally, design the organization based on the role needs. Only when the process and the organization match can the operation be efficient, and the organization that does not serve the main business flow is a redundant organization.
Each functional organization is responsible for the E2E results, not segment-to-segment. The organizations are not a relay race, but similar to a football match. Therefore, project-based operation is the most effective way. Through the cross-functional organization of the project team work together to execute the main business flow to achieve business goals.
Only by correctly understanding the relationship between business flow, process, IT, quality, and operation can we more effectively build process, follow process, build quality in process, and solidify process through IT, effectively implement the purpose of enterprise management is process organization building.
4. Process is the core of digitalization
Since the company's value creation process is carried on the process, it is easy to understand that the core of digitalization should be to optimize the process.
Chen Guo wrote an article "Returning to Process from Middle Office｜Business Process Digitization Is Still the Core Topic of Enterprise Digital Transformation", which mentioned:
"Enterprises have been engaged in "digital transformation" for so many years. If you ask the boss of a traditional enterprise (manufacturing, distribution, financial services...) What problem do you want "digitalization" to solve for you? In reality, I The answer I heard from the vast majority of entrepreneurs is still: "business process". I appreciate the incisive summary of digitalization by the leader of a large private enterprise in China: "all business is online, data-driven business". According to this statement, business process Digitization is the foundation of enterprise digital transformation.
We assume that the enterprise informatization has done a good job and has used and used management information systems such as CRM, ERP, HCM, etc., then it has only achieved "digitalization of business objects". Business information entities such as customers, suppliers, materials, accounts, orders, etc., but have not achieved "business process digitization". The "addition, deletion, query, modification" operation and operation combination of these business objects have not been structured and digitized - when we implemented SAP ERP in the past, the "business process" was actually just a business flow chart that existed on paper, and the actual System operation is uncontrolled. "
Only the "digital workflows" based on business process management (BPM) and SOA architecture is the real "digital process", that is, the operation itself is digitized, and realizes automatic connection, structure, and control. As shown below:
Tao Jingwen, director of Huawei, described the relationship between process and digitalization in "Huawei Director Tao Jingwen: Any digital transformation that does not involve process reconstruction is just pretending!"
"Our original business operations were all in accordance with the established process, such as design, manufacturing, operation and maintenance. The processes in each field, the process and the process are not connected, and the functions have breakpoints, so the efficiency is not high. We need to fully penetrate into the business In the scenario, the business flow is really designed from the perspective of the user experience of the whole process and the user experience of the whole scene. "Any digital transformation that does not involve process reconstruction is just pretending", which is going around on the periphery without touching the soul .I don’t think such a digital transformation can be successful, and the real success will definitely accelerate the efficiency of the enterprise by more than 10 times, breaking the boundaries of the original process.”
5. Digital realization of the process
So how to do the digitalization of the process? I think the methods given by Huawei are the most systematic. These methods are written in the two books "Huawei's Data Way" and "Huawei's Digital Transformation Way".
The premise of process digitalization is hierarchical decoupling. Through the previous process layered framework system, we finally realized the objectification of process elements, relatively decoupling the process with line sequence and the activities that can be programmed. Activities are like parts of Lego blocks, and processes are like toy models assembled from parts. Therefore, activities are responsible for the "stability" of the business, and processes are responsible for the "flexibility" of the business.
"Activity" is the key to the hierarchical decoupling of the process. We first decouple the activity from the process, and then structure the elements of the activity, including input and output, roles, and business rules.
For example, for the "Security Approval" activity of the subscription sub-process, the role is a security administrator, and the input is a data opening application form, which includes information such as the department applying for data, reason for application, data name, data table name, field name, and target end. The output is the approval opinion, and the business rules include the relationship between the sensitivity level of the data and the open type, the corresponding relationship between the data open type and the process, etc.
Huawei summarizes the structured process of the above activities and elements into three digitizations, namely, object digitization, process digitization, and rule digitization.
The decoupling of activities is the basis of process digitization: process digitization is the online, automation and intelligence of activities.
The standardization of input and output is the basis of object digitization: object digitization is based on the abstraction of output and output, and continuously enriches the information level of business objects.
The explicitness of rules is the basis of rule digitization: rule digitization is to extract business rules from business processes for structured management, and to drive processes to adapt to business changes with flexible rule configuration.
Still take the subscription sub-process as an example to illustrate the three digital meanings:
1) Object digitization
The "requirement work order" in the subscription sub-process can be regarded as a business object, and the digitization of the object is to record all the data involved in the work order circulation, such as the application form, approval form, push status, etc., such as the previous application It is possible to describe the data requirements in words, but now it can be represented based on the structured data deleted from the data directory, so that the amount of information has increased significantly.
2) Process digitization
The "data push" activity of subscribing to the sub-process used to be a black box for the user. Process digitization requires the "data push" activity to record all process data such as the preparation time, start time, completion time, and number of pushed records. The demand side can clearly understand the progress of data push, and also enable operators to discover the optimization points of "data push" activities in time.
For example, we once found that the push time was very long. Through data analysis, we found that the preparation time was extremely long, and the reason for the extremely long preparation time was that the scheduling task did not apply for resources.
The above is only for the optimization of the "data push" activity. The subscription sub-process is composed of various activities. If generalized, the whole process can be optimized.
3) Digitization of rules
The data sensitivity level and data opening type involved in the subscription sub-process were previously managed in the form of files. When security personnel want to approve whether the data can be opened, they often need to manually query the sensitivity level of the data, and then determine the data according to the sensitivity level. For the open type, these operations need to be performed offline, all relying on manual judgment.
The digitization of the rules is to explicitly and structurally define the rules of the sensitivity level. Security personnel do not need to manually determine which open type the data belongs to. The ability to digitize business objects) is matched with the sensitivity level table to automatically obtain the open type, and the security personnel can click to confirm, which is not only faster but also more accurate.
If the sensitivity level table is completely trusted, the subscription sub-process can even cancel the approval process of security personnel, which can further improve the automation and intelligence level of the process, as shown in the figure below.
Based on the above analysis, to realize the digitalization of the process, I will briefly summarize it into six steps:
1) Find the core business object in the process 2) Complete the full amount and full element data of the core business object 3) Record all the process data in the transfer of the core business object 4) Keep the judgment rule data related to the transfer 5) Find short boards in circulation based on process data 6) Improve circulation efficiency based on rule data 7) Repeat steps 1-6
Hope to enlighten you!
Note: This article is reprinted from "Walking with Data", if you need to reprint, please contact the original author for authorization~