What Are The Management Issues of Companies?
According to the Japan Information System Users Association’s Corporate IT Trend Survey 2021, the top three management issues to be solved by IT are as follows:
- Increased efficiency and speed of business processes
- New ways of working (new normal, telework)
- Enhanced security
The most common management issue currently being addressed is work style reform (new normal, telework), which appears to account for about 66% of the total.
On the other hand, the most frequently cited management issue that will be emphasized in the future is improving the efficiency and speed of business processes, accounting for approximately 74% of the respondents.
The phase of first tackling new initiatives such as work style reforms has ended, and many companies are expected to focus on strengthening existing initiatives and improving efficiency in the future.
How to Solve the Business Challenges That Many Companies Face?
So, what are the specific measures that many companies are planning to take to improve the efficiency and speed of their business processes in the future?
How to Make Business Processes More Efficient
To make business processes more efficient, it is necessary to identify problems in existing business processes and improve them. To achieve this, it is first necessary to visualize the business process.
Visualize Business Processes
Business processes can be visualized by using workflow diagrams.
The following diagram is a workflow diagram visualizing the business process of billing operations.
- The accountant prepares the invoices
- The accounting section manager will review the prepared invoices
- The accountant sends the invoice to the billing address
- Check to see if payment has been completed after the invoice is sent
The workflow diagram for billing operations is shown in the figure above, with arrows connecting the persons and tasks involved in the billing operation in the order in which they are processed. By visualizing the workflow diagram in this way, it is possible to understand the people in charge of the work (who), the tasks (what), and the flow of work (how).
Business Improvement
The advantage of visualizing business processes with workflow diagrams is that all parties involved can understand the current status of the business and share the business process with third parties. This makes it easier to identify current problems and study improvement measures.
Assume that the following issues have been raised by the parties involved in this project.
- The accounting manager is unable to request an amendment to the invoice from the accountant
- The accountant cannot modify the contents of the returned invoice
- The inability to respond to irregularities such as loss of pertinent claims
- It is possible to forget to reconfirm if payment status is pending
The following workflow diagram is an example of business improvement that addresses these issues.
- Added the ability to send back invoices. This made it possible to request / respond to corrections to the invoice.
- Allowed the accounting manager to terminate the process. This made it possible to respond to cancellations and other irregularities.
- Added conditional branching. This has included a task to check the settlement status, which is to be checked again if the payment has not been made.
- Added a Timer Event. This made it possible to process the task to check the settlement status again after waiting for one day, in case of non-settlement.
By adding tasks and flows (arrows) to the workflow diagram to resolve issues raised by related parties, the business process can be made more efficient.
How to Speed Up Business Processes
Systemization of business processes is recommended to further improve efficiency and speed up business processes.
For example, if you use the cloud workflow Questetra BPM Suite, you can draw workflow diagrams as well as systemize the created workflow diagrams with no code.
This ensures that the baton of work is automatically passed from task to task as it flows. In addition to tasks that are handled by humans, tasks that are handled by the system can also be used in the workflow diagram to automate tasks.
The following PayPal billing process workflow diagram is a systemized and automated version of the aforementioned billing process in Questetra BPM Suite.
Further improvements/automations from the previous billing process include:
– By linking Questetra BPM Suite and PayPal through API and setting up automatic processing tasks, the following points have become possible.
- Automatic generation of PayPal invoices
- Automatic sending of PayPal invoices
- Automatic retrieval of PayPal invoice status
– Some of the work was also automated by setting up the following automated processing tasks.
- Main conditional branch
- If the invoice amount exceeds 500,000 yen, the flow is always checked by the accounting section manager.
- PayPal invoice status will automatically repeat the flow if not yet settled. (All checking of the payment status is now automated until the payment is completed.)
- Major timer events (automatic processing items in workflow diagram)
- Automatically moves to the next task after 30 minutes of waiting
- Automatically moves to the next task after waiting for 1 hour
- Automatically moves to the next task after waiting one day
PayPal Billing Process
To streamline and speed up business processes we recommend the cloud workflow Questetra BPM Suite, which allows you to create workflow diagrams and systemize the created workflow diagrams as is.
You can try Questetra BPM Suite for free below. You can also import and immediately use the automated PayPal billing process template shown above. (To use PayPal, you need to apply for PayPal separately.)
