Abstract
The pace of development of products and services has rapidly increased in the last two decades. Enterprises are expected to respond to new market requirements with their products and services in the shortest possible time. Expanding globalized markets makes response to the changing demand for products and services even more imperative for enterprises. Executives in companies have become aware that the saying, “Fail to keep pace with time and time will pass you by,” applies more than ever. This situation has become a factor to be reckoned with by all enterprises, causing a lot of headache to executives.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Repository: A uniform database, business function descriptions, algorithms, rules, conditions, instructions, and so forth used in the reference models of an enterprise.
Process Owner: A person with suitable skills enabling understanding and managing the process. The process owner knows the underlying process in full and can therefore change and reform it, if required.
Process Performance Management: The overseeing of process instances to ensure their quality and timeliness. Also include proactive and reactive actions to ensure a good result.
Process Improvement: The priority management task, the purpose of which is to constantly monitor processes and their output and consequently prepare improvements for future performances.
Key Performance Indicator: An important criterion regarding the efficiency of achieving quantifiable business goals, which can be used either independently or in combination with other key performance indicators.
Organization: A company, corporation, firm, enterprise or institution, or part thereof that has its own function(s) and administration that supplies products or services to other organizations.
Process: A collection of activities consisting of one or more types of input creating output representing value for customers.
Efficiency: The indicator of performance of an enterprise, expressed as the ratio between output and input.
Business Process: A collection of related, structured activities (i.e., a chain of events) that produce a specific service or product for a particular customer or customers.