BPI - Terminology Flashcards
Business function
an activity that a company performs (order management, marketing, finances, product design)
Terms used by business people
KPI, Budget, ROI, CSAT, Usability
Terms used by IT people
Functionality, Use cases, release, bugs, scalability
Business process
Set of collaborative activities that respond to a business requirement and that delivers value to the customer.
Drivers for integration
Employees, legacy applications, Supply chain, internet, partners
Business process integration
The techniques and mechanisms for managing the movement of data and execution of processes to support management and execution of common business functions
Three historical integration waves
- Legacy Integration
- Enterprise Application Integration (A2A)
- Business process integration (B2B)
Business Process Redesign
The retooling of organizational processes. Begins with the design of a business process model
Business Process Integration
Goes beyond retooling of organizational processes:
- Integration in- & external processes
- Process models specify cross-org. process requirements
Business Process Modelling
A methodology for modelling business data and -processes Includes:
- Business Activities
- Collaborative activities
- Collaborative processes
Collaborative (business) process
Two business processes in separate organizations that rely on each other to execute the orgs. respective business function
Collaborative activity
Actions performed by the participating orgs. in response to messages they receive from other orgs.
e-Commerce
The buying and selling of information, products and services via the internet (electronic transactions). Four types: B2C, B2B, B2A, C2A.
e-Business
The conduct of automated business processes through electronic communication. It is about the integration of external processes (partners, suppliers, customers) with internal processes
Characteristics of e-Business (it enables)
- Collaborative product development
- Collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment
- Procurement and order mgngmnt
- Operations and logistics
e-Business - buy side
Organizations use e-Business facilities for buying needs, spot-purchasing, enterprise-wide procurement
e-Business - sell side
- Managing multiple selling channels
- Ability to take multiple types of orders from customers
- Ability to differentiate and customise products and services (from others)
- Ability to adapt and grow without dramatic technology changes, org restructuring and business process re-engineering
e-Business requirements
- Identify/measure business objectives
- Organisational flexibility
- Rethink supply chain
- Transform org. to be process centric
- Understand security
- Align Business/IT
- Establish standards (in process and integration)
e-Business advantages
- Efficiency, effectiveness
- Cost reduction of goods and services
- Competitive position
- Market penetration
- Harmonisation & standardisation
- Relationships
e-Business inhibitors
- Management support and strategy
- Cost and financing (cost & ROI)
- Insufficient trust
- Legal issues
- Technology concerns (interoperability)
e-Business integration
Coordinating the flow of information and processes among multiple enterprises. Combines automated services from multiple providers. Facilitate between partners:
- Supply
- Distributuion
- Cust. information
- Coordination & Collaboration
e-Business critical elements
- Integrated b. processes
- Information-exchange infra
- Syntax & Semantics
- Reliability & Security
e-Business integration objectives
- Integrate proces & data
- Non-intrusive
- Re-use existing systems
- Real-time, little end-user involvement
- End-user can integrate
- Common agreements
- Uniform process & data models
- Advanced security
System Dynamics
Mathematical modelling technique to frame, understand and discuss complex issues and problems. Consists of Stocks and Flows
Stock
Accumulation of things in a specific location. Can increase or decrease over time.
Flow
Movement of things between stocks within a system boundary
Value chain
Combination of primary & secondary activities used by an organization to make money. An organization can have multiple value chains (typically 10-15).
Value chain analysis
- Define the strategic business unit
- Identify critical activities
- Define products
- Define the value of activity
What does a Business process do?
- Defines results, context of-, and relationships between activities
- May receive & produce events
- May invoke application and post assignments to humans
Value Chain-to-Step decomposition
Value chain Business process Subprocess Activity (Simple or compound) Step
Workflow
A sequence of (logical) steps processing physical and information objects. Links technology and tools to automate events & tasks. Depicts various aspects of a BP, including:
- (manual+auto) activities
- decisions points
- parallel & sequential routines
- exceptions
Process-oriented workflows
Automate processes whose structure is well defined and stable over time. Often multiple machines/applications, Little user involvement
Business process characteristics
- Exists within an environment
- Has a customer and is initiated by it
- Implies processing (series of activities)
- Communication within process and with environment
- Has inventories and queues
- Has decision points
- Delivers a product
Types of Business Processes & Workflows
- Processes that support a physical process (product-oriented)
- Processes where information processing itself is the process (service-oriented)
Types of e-Business relationships
- Strategic level
- Tactical (inter-firm) level
- Operational level
Strategic level relationship
Collaborative effort in a specific market with specific product. Suppliers develops, designs and produces specific components (not off-the-shelf). Also called Value Added Partnerships.
Tactical inter-firm relationship
Agreement for a set period about amount and type of procurement (or selling). Agreements include capacity, moment of delivery, inventory to be kept. Is usually more stable than operational. In case of regular need for specific product
Operational level relationship
Internal decision to buy off-the-shelf product from any supplier. No information sharing, except concerning the order. Direct, spot, ordering. Problems:
- Independence
- Uncertainty
- No future opportunities
e-Business technology stack
- Collaborative technologies
- Web-based technologies & Applications
- Basic infrastructure
- Networking facilities
Networking facilities layer
The internet and protocols such as TCP/IP
Basic infrastructure layer
Contains the client/server and tiered architectures
Web-based technologies & applications layer
Technologies required to develop web-based applications
Collaborative technologies layer
Contains systems such as workflow systems and EDI
Client/server
Distributed computing. Is the classical paradigm in support of e-Business proces * applications. Allows both centralized data control and widespread accessibility. Allows both thin and thick clients
Client/Server features
- Clients and servers are functional modules
- Each relation is established between two functional modules
- Information exchange between modules through messages
- Message exchange is interactive
- Clients and servers may run on separate dedicated machines
Two-tier client/server architecture
Tiers refers to the number of logical elements in the network (not the number of physical hardware)
