Aug 1, 2008
Business Automation - Part 2
Simplifying Business Automation
Mention Business Automation to a small business owner, and you will most likely get a blank stare. Yet the small business owner needs to automate as urgently as his bigger siblings if he is to survive. This article gives the VAR a plain English explanation of Business Automation that they can use with prospective clients, and a simple method to identify those areas of the client’s business which most need to be automated.
What Is Business Automation, and What Does It Mean to the Average Business?
The average business owner is unlikely to be able to answer the question, but would be certain that they didn’t want any part of it. Nor would they be particularly enthusiastic about discussing their Business Process Management.
Yet all businesses have business processes that they must manage if they are to operate their firms; and since all businesses have competition, they must become better at what they do if they are to survive. So, they must improve their processes, and use their computerized ‘tools’ to execute more of the processes for better efficiency and effectiveness. In other words, they must automate their businesses wherever it is possible and makes sense. We will address the hard stuff first.
What Holds Business Owners Back?
Ignoring for a moment the perceived cost of automating, the largest barrier is probably “Techno-speak.” And we are probably heavy contributors to this barrier. In short, business owners don’t understand what we are telling them. People usually back away from mysterious things. The gap between business and technology is so wide that an entire discipline has evolved to deal with the challenge of translating technical terms to ordinary business terminology, SBVR.
An Enterprise-Level Solution Points the Way
The Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules (SBVR) is a comprehensive specification that was developed for Enterprise-sized businesses to cover:
- Business Vocabulary (concepts; representations including terms, names, and definitions; definitional rules and advices of possibility) — in a special purpose language used to connect concepts, employed as a natural language.
- Behaviorial Guidance (business policies, operative business rules, and advices of permission) that governs business actions of an organization.
While employing a special purpose language is much too complicated for the average business, it does suggest a way to convert business requirements to technical plans.
Use Everyday Business Vocabulary, Except . . .
Everyday business language won’t work unless we do two things to give it more power:
- Create precise definitions for business terms, which all parties will use.
- Develop business rules to govern the actions of the organization.
By following the same principles as the enterprise solution, we can accomplish the same ends. One shouldn’t minimize the importance of these two actions. Of the two, the first will be the most difficult. For example, getting two or more people to agree on the definition of an “Order” is much harder than just saying it. Making sure that everyone sticks to that definition will be a task requiring mutual encouragement and frequent reminders.
What Words, and How to Find Them
Since you will be gathering words to describe business processes, you will need nouns, verbs, and modifiers to be able to describe the flow of a client’s business. The easiest way to start assembling the glossary is to have the client explain their business flow into a recorder from the first thought of promotion, all the way to final payment of an invoice. As you intend to automate wherever possible, make note of anyplace they duplicate actions, particularly large time wasters like keypunch. Let them know that you will need another session to discuss definitions of the words you gather.
Make a real effort to be dense as they explain their flow. This is not the place to dazzle them with your brilliance. Ask lots of questions about “Why” they do things, “How” they do things, “Where” they do things, and “What” they mean when they say something. This should surface hidden assumptions, as well as reveal what word meaning is generally ‘understood’ in the company. By the time you complete this exercise, you will have a list of words on whose definition both you and the client agree, and a very detailed understanding of their current process flow.
What Happened to the Simplify?
Yes, this is a lot of up-front work that doesn’t seem to be moving you forward very fast, but you will see the dividends later. First of all, the collaboration regarding terms should eliminate the “I thought you said . . .” discussion that frequently happens late in a project, necessitating rework. Continual questioning of word meaning in the context of business process serves to uncover importance and expectations that are not explicitly stated. This becomes a second ‘Discovery’ process, which brings into the open issues that need recognition and airing. The immediate benefit is a clearer understanding of the client’s processes and their fundamental objectives.
Eliminating Duplicate Processes
When you review the client’s processes, you will invariably find duplicates or conflicts which are candidates for elimination, and some processes that can be reused elsewhere in the client’s system. You will want that information for the next article, Business Processes and Business Automation.
Eliminating Double Entry
An enormous impediment to Business Automation is multiple databases. GoldMine has a database. QuickBooks or MAS 90/200 has a database. They never agree, and information from one must be keyed into the other all the time. If they can be connected to function as a single database, then some real business automation work can be done. BestFit Business MGR is a program that connects GoldMine to the most popular accounting software and unifies the database. The most immediate benefit is the complete elimination of keyed order entry. That’s right, complete elimination.
Until customers no longer need quotations, sales will have to prepare them. BestFit Business MGR converts the quotations directly into orders with a few key clicks. As a first step, it’s a big one. Keypunch errors should shrink to one-third, and key entry time should drop to somewhere in the 35-45% area. Additional benefits can be gained by simplifying and automating the client’s processes inside the program. This is made possible by configuring the program to use the new processes.
With an agreed-upon glossary of terms, and an understanding of what the client wants to accomplish, you are now prepared to begin the process of streamlining the client’s processes and applying automation techniques to them. The next article will deal with structuring business processes using the Zachman model, and testing them against the ‘old’ processes to insure they work equally as well or better.
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