The benefits of moving manual processes to the web are well understood. But very few organizations have web-enabled product returns, bill disputes or other complex business processes. This paper discusses requirements for web-enabling complex processes.
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White Paper
Web-Enabling Self-Service
Business Processes
How existing web sites can be extended to improve service
quality, accountability, time-to-market and brand equityp5_Process_WP.qxd 5/6/04 1:34 PM Page 2
Web-Enabling Self-Service Business Processes
Contents
Introduction 1
Barriers to Web-Enabling Self-Service Business Processes 1
Solving Real-World Problems with Online Solutions 2
Consumer Services: Managing Consumer-to-Channel Processes 3
Manufacturing: Managing Product Defect Reports from Customers 4
Other Industry Examples 6
Requirements for Web-Enabling Self-Service Business Processes 7
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Web-Enabling Self-Service Business Processes
Introduction
Every one of us can recount stories of projects that dropped into a black hole or got caught in red tape. Howwe submitted an application that fell through the cracks. How cross functional projects were not completedwell or on time. How, after repeated phone calls, we were asked once again to state the original problem.
These stories relate to people-intensive processes-processes that involve subjective decision-making,human coordination, unanticipated exceptions and are integral to virtually every organization.
As businesses offer new products and services in new ways and to new markets, they need to integrate peopleinto flexible, reusable and semi-automated processes-rather than rigid, fully automated processes-tokeep the business running efficiently and effectively. Even some straight-through processes that at firstseem to have predictive outcomes repeatedly sprout up in customer call centers or an executive's e-mailinbox because clients do not conform to the business's original view of the process. The business catego-rizes this as an escalation. The person who has to resolve the issue mentally files it in their "grief folder."
There are many explanations for why this phenomenon is so prevalent, not least of which is the disconnectbetween business units and IT's developer teams. The good news is that new technology is available to helpsolve these problems. What is most compelling is that it leverages the most cost-effective and user-friendlyenvironment available: existing web sites.
Barriers to Web-Enabling Self-Service Business Processes
The cost benefits of transitioning manual processes to the web are well-understood and well-documented.Many web sites offer transactional self-service capabilities, such as online purchasing or bill-pay, showingtremendous ROI and efficiency gains. However, very few organizations have web-enabled more complexbusiness processes, such as product returns or bill disputes. This is because the more complex processesare not easily packaged into applications or reusable sample code.
Until now, web-enabling complex business processes required strong executive buy-in and organizationalcommitment because they required custom-coding. Custom-coding (with and without graphical studio toolkits) requires that: 1 The business user has to clearly articulate what is needed.2 The development team has to prioritize, negotiate and manage multiple business requests.3 The development team has to be competent in object-oriented programming and capable of graspingunderlying business drivers.
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Web-Enabling Self-Service Business Processes
Taking the requirements out of order, overcoming the second hurdle-resource allocation- demands thatthe business user has the budget and political clout to gain high priority for his or her projects. It alsodemands that the project can be completed in time to be relevant to the business. Overcoming the third hurdle-competency-is usually out of the hands of the business user. A junior programmer might beassigned a smaller programming task, regardless of its business significance. Overcoming the first hurdle-articulating what you need-is really impossible in most situations. This is because business requirementsalways expand and shift, so that the "final" code changes or becomes obsolete. Very few projects are ever done.
Custom-coding self-service web applications is so cost-prohibitive, and in the end so ineffective, that mostbusiness users have abandoned the thought that they can use the... [download for more]
