GB560 — Unit 3: Designing, Improving, and Implementing Processes

BUSINESS PROCESS CHANGE PLAN

GB560 Designing, Improving, and Implementing Processes

Session # 1

Faye M. Williams

Kaplan University

August 30, 2016

Question1

The organization that the paper will focus on in this paper is Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is a significantly huge company, which is well known as a retail as well as grocery industry. It has established is operations in approximately twenty-seven countries (Harmon, 2008). Moreover, it is a source of employment for a large number of people due to the many employees it employs. The company further realizes a huge number of sales.

Wal-Mart was founded in 1962 by Sam Walton. Its first establishment was in Rogers, Arkansas. His focus was the provision of exceptional service to individual persons at a low price. The primary objective was, therefore, to offer lower prices than the competitors, hence being in a position to influence customers to seek their services (Wohl, 2012). As a result, the company will thus be a position to offer individuals a better life. This will consequently motivate the customers to seek frequently the services once they have an enjoyable experience.

Question 2

The single business process change that Wal-Mart will need to contemplate on is technology. This is due to the technological transformation which is manifested every day (Harmon, 2008). This will consequently place the company at a competitive edge with other companies in the market. Furthermore, the economic market change is the contributing factor for the need to be above other businesses. Besides, making its customers life easy, according to its mission, is one of the organization’s primary objectives. One of the current and main business process change for Wal-Mart is the iPhones use to checkout (Wohl, 2012).

The process involves carrying out a scan for your products by the use of your iPhone and consequently carrying out the payment at the check-out line. Therefore, this process of “Scan and Go” could hence enable the company to solve the major issue of having to wait long times to be able to checkout (Harmon, 2008). Moreover, it will further enable customers to feel that the shopping is personal and also speeding up the process. The speedy operations as consequently enabled the organization to realize high sales according to the company’s Chief Financial Officer Charles Holley, and this is because there is less wastage of time at the checkout lines.

Question 3.Utilizing the Capability Maturing Model (CMM), outline briefly what changes.'

Stage 1: Initial

At the initial stage, it is essential for Wal-Mart to establish a team in which its purpose is to work with the iPhone app and Apple and thus starting the provision of the services in all its stores (Wohl, 2012). Moreover, there is also a need for an additional team at Wal-Mart whose objective is to run numbers concerning the number of customers who use the iPhone app and also focus on ensuring there is an effective performance. The team will also aim at acquiring customer’s feedback concerning the new service.

Stage 2: Repeatable

This stage concerns data gathering to determine how the company’s operations will be affected. The aspect of cost, as well as scheduled events, is addressed at this stage, hence resulting in an easy adoption of technological changes (Harmon, 2008).

Stage 3: Defined

This stage requires the determination of processes that the new project will perform, and thus resulting in the need to outline standards that the project targets to achieve. There is, therefore, a need for the managers to understand the consumer’s needs for their service provision to be effective.

Stage 4: Managed

The company’s management at this stage should be in a position to control the new process and also establish its effectiveness through the use of measurements (Harmon, 2008). This will, therefore, enable Wal-Mart to carry out any necessary adjustment by addressing to any possible problems.

Stage 5: Optimizing

The company carries out a review, thus ensuring smooth operations of the company’s activities while the customer’s service is effective through the new implementation, hence addressing their needs in a satisfactory manner.

4. Evaluate Porter’s three-phase process

Reference

Harmon, P. (2008). Business Process Change. New York: Morgan Kaufmann.

Wohl, J. (2012). Walmart tests iPhone app checkout feature. New York: University Press.

What Wal-Mart is currently doing

The technological adoption is the focus of Wal-Mart in easing the customer’s life. This is in order for the company to compete effectively.

The occurrence in the Environment

The existence of competition has contributed to the consumers shopping at the lowest prices available. Wal-Mart thus addresses this and focuses on improving sales through technology.

What the company should carry out next Wal-mart should continue offering lowest prices. It further needs to ensure customers are assisted faster. The iPhone app should hence speed operations and fit with the business plan.