Process management is the structured analysis and optimisation of end-to-end business activities to ensure efficiency, quality and alignment with strategic goals. It provides transparency about how work flows through your organisation and identifies opportunities for simplification and automation.
Customers demand shorter development cycles, higher product variety and seamless service interactions. To remain competitive, organisations need structured, reliable processes that deliver quality — every time. Our work begins with documenting current processes, identifying bottlenecks and inefficiencies, and prioritising improvements based on business impact.
We then support the design and implementation of the refined processes with measurable KPIs, so operational improvements are sustained over time. Where manual re-entry is the bottleneck, robotic process automation removes it; where the process changes how people work, structured change management carries the new process into daily operations.
A quick read before you spend a meeting on it. If most of this matches your situation, a process engagement is worth scoping — if it doesn't, we will say so.
Work stalls between departments rather than inside them
The same data is re-entered in two or three systems
A previous process project produced maps nobody uses
You need cycle time and error rate measured, not a notation debate
A decision-maker from the management team who attends the workshops
Access to the people who run the process day to day
Your current system landscape, even if incomplete
Agreement that process owners will be named and given decision rights
Two process projects can use the same notation and end up in completely different places. What separates them is where the work starts, who owns the process once the consultants leave, and whether anything is still being measured a year later.
Notation is a late decision, not a first one. From our experience, a process map changes nothing on its own — the durable output of process work is a named owner with decision rights and a number that keeps being measured. We choose EPC, BPMN or UML after the process is understood, and we leave governance behind, so the improvement holds.
We establish where the process stands, size the potential against real benchmarks, audit the systems underneath it, then plan and track the change.
A self-assessment that establishes the baseline and gives the first orientation.
Baseline assessmentProcess potential sized against best-in-class, industry and workflow indicators, with KPIs defined.
KPI definitionAnalysis of the IT solutions in use and of the manual entry happening in shadow systems.
System landscapeDocumentation of the feasible improvements, implementation planning and project planning for delivery.
Implementation planProject management and short audits confirming target achievement, with activities readjusted and KPIs tracked.
KPI trackingNamed owners and decision rights, per process, agreed by the management team.
In EPC, BPMN or UML, whichever notation your teams already read.
Every point where work changes hands, with the failure mode at each one.
Cycle time, error rate and rework, measured before and after, not estimated.
Sequenced by cost and benefit, not by which change is easiest.
Who reviews what, and how often, so the improvement does not decay.
Translates the corporate strategy into process management requirements: which processes are core processes and which are support processes, described and justified in text form. It defines the long-term orientation, anchors process management in the organisational structure and sets the key performance indicators that monitor its effectiveness — so the initiative does not lose momentum and fall asleep over time.
The central core processes are defined and described during implementation, with key process indicators alongside them: throughput time, process deviation frequency, necessary manual interventions, through to control variables that matter for your customer process. Only by measuring process quality can you generate the management information that helps achieve operational goals — often drawn from quality management and presented in a dashboard.
All activities involved in the analysis, evaluation and documentation of process improvements, including status meetings of all participants, the evaluation of achievements, and the determination of which additional information or data must be recorded.
Two areas: the performance of the IT organisation and the IT service itself, and process management through the use of IT as a data-processing tool. Converting analogue to digital processes usually reduces cost and improves competitiveness — which is why active process management challenges IT performance, and why roles such as CIO and CDO are increasingly defined at management level.
Where it works
Constantly changing customer expectations force business models to be redeveloped — the key points being customer orientation, agility and digital processes. These are the areas where process management pays off most reliably.
In many manufacturing and trading companies, logistics increasingly determines success. It is the overall package in the end-to-end process — from order to payment — that decides whether a company succeeds in the eyes of the customer, not only attractive products or services.
Modern process management considers the entire inbound and outbound logistics process, including complaints handling: from the notification of the complaint to the credit note, the new delivery, and the verification that the customer received satisfactory support.
Process management within a supply chain encourages and requires companies at all levels to become increasingly networked. Industry 4.0 requirements — new technologies, networking and automation — affect every company involved in the supply chain.
To avoid being classified as a commodity service provider or supplier, it is important to take the step towards systematic process management consistently.
The ideas of the smart factory are being applied more and more — one keyword is the ability to produce the digital twin before production takes place. Mass customisation and production in batch size 1 can only be implemented competitively at a high-wage location with excellent process management.
That includes the ability to deal with generated data, analyse it and derive actions for management from it. Reference models from production also serve this purpose, indicating where and how best practice can be applied.
Administration applies both to the administration of a company and to the public sector. In both, process management is a proven procedure for defining workflows, automating processes and reducing system breaks.
This usually covers document management, archives, resubmissions, GDPR compliance, personnel files and application management.
Networking and cooperation via the internet are accelerating enormously, creating new processes and structures for obtaining and passing on information. As these networks grow, process complexity and uncertainty rise with them.
Business processes define the rules and procedures while allowing the tolerances and freedom employees need for direct decisions in customer processes. Process management therefore has to be geared towards faster value propositions, greater flexibility in service provision and improved customer orientation.
Do first
high benefit · low cost
Plan properly
high benefit · high cost
Fill-in
low benefit · low cost
Question it
low benefit · high cost
Prioritisation
Every identified improvement is plotted by the benefit it carries and the cost of achieving it. The sequence follows from the matrix — not from which change is easiest.
Every improvement identified in stage 02 — Identify potential — is plotted here before anything is scheduled. The position, not the ease of the change, sets the order.
What lands top-left enters the implementation plan first in stage 04 — Implementation planning. “Plan properly” measures get a proper business case before they are committed, and “Question it” measures are challenged rather than deferred: if the benefit cannot be argued, the measure comes off the list.
Business model innovation
Under the impression and perception of constantly changing customer expectations, business models must be redeveloped. The key points of new business models are customer orientation, agility and digital processes — and innovation rarely means the whole business model at once. It usually starts in one of four sub-areas, and process management is what carries it into daily operations.
Needs-based renewal and improvement of products or services
More efficient production of products and services
Innovation of individual elements — for example customer channels — and the combination of elements across the whole business model.
Identification of new markets and development of existing ones
Changes in personnel, organisational or legal arrangements
Competitive context
The framework was published by Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter in 1985 in “Competitive Advantage”. It names the five pressures a business model must answer — and that the processes behind it must withstand.
Barriers to entry such as cost advantages · established providers with difficult access to distribution channels · customer loyalty to established markets
Concentration of suppliers · possibility of forward integration
Number of competitors · market growth · product differentiation · barriers to exit
Concentration of customers · possibilities for backward integration
Similar area of application · price/performance ratio · technological developments
Modelling notations
The EPC is one of the best-known types of process modelling — known in German as the EPK. The method was developed under the direction of Professor Scheer at Saarland University on behalf of SAP in 1992, and became known as part of the Architecture of Integrated Information Systems (ARIS).
It was based on Petri nets, extended with symbols and semantics into today's extended event-driven process chain (eEPC). Complex processes are mapped by stringing together functions and events.
Created back in 1990 and continuously developed since, UML is based on an object-oriented view. Objects are extracted from real business processes, assigned specific attributes and described; similar objects are combined into classes, which become blueprints of the objects to be created.
Object, class, attribute and method form the basis of the diagram types, and both static and dynamic models can be developed.
BPMN has become the quasi-standard for modelling business processes, focused on a graphical representation that presents technical issues in an understandable way. Its business process diagrams use four element groups: flow objects, artefacts, connection objects and swimlanes, which divide processes into areas of responsibility.
The elements resemble the EPC's, but BPMN is easier to use because it avoids the EPC's restrictions.
Changes in the corporate environment have made process organisation — and with it the design of business processes — steadily more important. Internationalisation requires new processes and fiscal adjustments per country, and the rapid development of information technology has made time, price, flexibility, quality and service the decisive competitive differentiators.
The consequence: organisational structures must be aligned primarily with the horizontal perspective — the process organisation. Harvard professor Alfred D. Chandler documented it as “Structure follows process follows strategy”.
The value chain breaks processes into primary processes, which create value directly, and secondary processes, which support them. As companies concentrate on their core business, contract steps are outsourced to value-creation partners, embedding individual companies in cross-company value chains — national or international, up to OEMs manufacturing final products.
Individual companies no longer compete with each other; entire value chains do. Process management therefore has to consider the whole value chain: the supply chain.
Environmental protection equipment · Manufacturing
ProblemFragmented Excel landscapes, no integration between CAD and machine controls, and inadequate integration with financial accounting.
EngagementThree phases: process analysis, an IT strategy developed with management, then specifications covering interface integration, future viability and HR integration.
85%
reduction in Excel-based work processes · measured
15%
reduction in order processing times through streamlined workflows · measured
12%
optimisation of material stocks through supply chain planning · measured
No software licences. No implementation revenue.
Honest answers about methods, roles and durability — the questions that come up in nearly every first conversation about process management.
ANSWERS BY
Dr. Harald Dreher
Founder · Dreher Consulting
Since 1992 he has advised Mittelstand companies on process organisation and the systems that carry it. He advises vendor-neutrally, taking no commission from any software vendor.
VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity — the acronym describes the environment that forces companies to keep optimising their processes as globalisation advances and supply chains tighten. (The German form is VUKA: Volatilität, Unsicherheit, Komplexität, Ambiguität.) The constant competitive pressure, and the need to adapt processes that follows from it, creates uncertainty for companies, employees and management alike — which is why process management has to be anchored in the organisation rather than run as a one-off initiative.
The requirements are diverse: supporting customer processes with ERP software, displaying real-time information wherever it is required, and fast support of new organisational models through software that adapts easily to new challenges. IT also has to support users through ongoing training, ensure the integrity of data security and IT security, and keep to compliance rules within the framework of legal regulations and the GDPR. In short, IT is measured by how well it serves the process — not the other way round.
Functional organisational structures are organised vertically and work well within their own lines of authority. Coordination on the horizontal level is much harder, because process orientation has to cross organisational boundaries — sales, production and logistics routinely hold different views of the same promise. Individual optimisations limited to one function can even be counterproductive for the overall value stream. Systematic process management along the customer process is therefore the decisive initiative for realising a competitive advantage.
Gains decay because the focus stays on the previous, preserved functional processes — and because nothing governs the improvement after go-live. Participants often lack the courage to rethink a process completely, the green-field approach, so minor improvements are made and attention then fluctuates with the company’s strategic focus, a pattern studies such as the BPM Compass have confirmed. Durable optimisation needs named owners and KPIs that keep being measured after the project ends.
Process optimisation used to be run as self-contained re-engineering projects. Many companies have since moved to incremental optimisation, because sustainable improvement only happens when the employees involved support the organisational change. In most cases a process owner is installed — usually an experienced user who can oversee and manage a horizontal, end-to-end process flow. These process owners play a decisive role, especially in projects where new IT or ERP software is introduced at the same time.
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