4 Responses Sep 03

Dushyanth Work:

Week 2 Discussion Business Process Efficiency

            Bailey (2017) claims that, “Business processes are the core for executing successful business strategies.” Therefore, if the process are efficient the firms are guaranteed of increased sustainability. The efficiency relies on the technology, supporting structures, and the right employees in the organization. Moreover, firms have to ensure that, “the right process in place is the best way organizations can deliver value to their clients and continue to remain competitive.” (Bailey, 2017). The inferences show that firms have to define the strategies required in the development of  high-performing business processes.

            The study argues that firms require effective business process management (BPM) efforts. The BPM strategies are required in the examination and evaluation of existing processes in an organization (Bailey, 2017). They assist in improving efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the firm’s operations. The management has to guide in identification and improvement of the current processes. The strategies can either be  formal or informal (Bailey, 2017). Nevertheless, they have to ensure that the firm offers quality services and is secure.

            The management has to understand the implication of formal and informal process. “Formal processes have well-established steps, like creating and receiving invoices” (Bailey, 2017). They ensure that firms align their operation with legal and financial requirements. On the other hand, “Informal processes are typically those you have created yourself and may not be documented.” ” (Bailey, 2017). They assist firms in identifying new prospective customers.

            The study noted that BPM operations raise the firm’s productivity. They have to be implemented lest the firms become ineffective and dysfunctional. The reason being, “Many processes can become inefficient due to inadequate monitoring of progress or manual effort. Improving processes will increase efficiency and remove activities that waste time and resources.” ” (Bailey, 2017).  The trend might de-motivate employees and lower the firm’s reputation. Therefore, the firms have to ensure the “processes become more efficient, they also become more effective.” The approach raises the firm’s ability of making highly informed decisions.

            Ronan (2018) affirms the need for firms to reduce operational costs. However, the article stresses the need for efficiency in improve the firm’s financial position. Processes efficiency lowers the cost of quality in the enterprise. The reason being, “When processes are efficient they take less time to execute, can have fewer steps, and can make wasteful activities more obvious and therefore easier to eliminate.” (Ronan, 2018). The processes are more likely to convert customer quotes into code of conduct.

            Traditional process management processes tend to attract lots of salespeople. Therefore, most of costs goes to payment of salespeople (Ronan, 2018). However, there is need for formulating the process in disciplined strategies. The approach guarantee reduced mistakes on production and delivery. It also improves quality of data collected (Ronan, 2018). The study also argues that the efficiency improve the speed of commodity delivery and tracking purchases.

            Mxotech (2018) argued that firms should invest more on technology projects. The primary goals should be reduction of process completion time. Moreover, there is need for identification of wasted efforts. Firms should also assist in improving work output quality. The study notes that “Business process improvement (BPI) involves automating processes and restructuring operational resources to contain costs” Mxotech (2018). BPI guides in exposing the firm’s organizational inefficiencies and assist in solving the challenges.

 

 

References

Bailey, J. (2017). How o Gain Momentum Plus Increase the Efficiency Of Your Business Process Management (BPM) Efforts. AR Media, np

Mxotech Inc. (2018, April 23). 7 benefits of business process improvement. Retrieved from https://www.mxotech.com/2018/04/7-benefits-business-process-improvement/

Ronan, S. (2018, April 1). 5 ways to improve your business processes. Biz Journals, np.

Charanjeet Work:

Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) is any type of horizontal or vertical business process that’s delivered based on the cloud services model. Using BpaaS can increase the threat surface. With applications hosted in the cloud, there is always a possibility of attacks. Since applications hosted in the cloud are accessed by anyone from anywhere. Corporate companies or organizations should always monitor sensitive data for any suspicious activity.

To say that cloud adoption is accelerating is an understatement. You can almost sense the “uplift” of applications and data into the cloud evidenced across the massive growth in the volume of accounts, files, collaboration, and connected third-party cloud applications. Enterprises have begun to standardize on SaaS applications. Meanwhile, users are speeding by, taking advantage of self-provisioning capabilities enabled by the BYOD and cloud phenomena. “In 2015, it was reported that external collaboration via public cloud applications increased four times, and there were ten times as many files are being stored in public cloud applications” (Bhandarkar & Dewey, 2017).

As data, apps, and users shift to the cloud, we must ask ourselves what is the impact of our threat surfaces and what new attack opportunities will emerge. While most security professionals are aware of how traditional data breaches happen, few have dissected the who, what, when, where, and how a breach takes place in the cloud. “The traditional “kill chain” used by outside bad actors or the vehicle used by insider bad actors changes significantly” (Barcan, 2018). This presents a challenge to security teams as they must adjust their approach to identifying and evaluating breaches in this new environment.

This means that you can focus on how to enable and configure cloud applications and services as opposed to spending time patching systems. You can focus on user education and enablement and not blocking, which tends to lead to shadow IT. Also, consolidating users and data in several major cloud applications can lead to an overall reduction of your threat surface in comparison to the distributed and heterogeneous IT environment on-premises. You do, however, need to model these threats, assess their impact on your company, and prioritize which ones to deal with.

A universal security policy is an oversimplification at best, especially considering the hybrid nature of the modern enterprise’s IT infrastructure and application ecosystem. The layering of threat detection, prevention, and response mechanisms and practices is the way forward for IT-heavy enterprises.

The good news is that you can use the cloud itself to help. You can use the ultra-elastic and scalable cloud and the availability of APIs to connect cloud apps and platforms to build an intelligent, adaptive cloud security system that runs in the cloud and protects the cloud. 

“BPaaS is a new paradigm shift in the industry that not only affects IT executives but also line-of-business executives” (Wang, Wang, Su & Ge, 2020). BPaas is also a chance to transform your business processes and create an enterprise architecture that is agile and is flexible to rapidly changing business environments and opportunities arising out of globalization.

 

References

Bhandarkar, M. P., & Dewey, M. K. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,645,712. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Barcan, L. (2018). Business process management, an important aid in optimizing organizational processes in national security institutions. Journal of Defense Resources Management (JoDRM), 9(1), 92-97.

Wang, Z., Wang, N., Su, X., & Ge, S. (2020). An empirical study on business analytics affordances enhancing the management of cloud computing data security. International Journal of Information Management, 50, 387-394.