Information System Development and Business Process Maturity: Choosing a Solution

Information systems are an integral part of effective business process management, so it is vital to analyze their current state before starting development. SimbirSoft's lead analyst, Anna, will briefly touch on the reasons and nuances of such analysis.  

Spoiler! Analyzing business processes can expose problems and bottlenecks in a company's operations. This, in turn, will allow you to design an optimal system that will factor in all the business patterns and needs, boost productivity, and enable the company to grow confidently in the future.

Why analyze business process maturity?

The primary purpose of business process analysis is to help the client determine how to improve and change a particular business process to get the desired results.

Maturity is one of the key performance indicators of business processes. It reflects its logic, measurability, controllability, flexibility, and ability to evolve. Business process maturity analysis allows you to optimize processes and improve their efficiency. 

This, in turn, can help you achieve your ultimate goal, reduce costs and process execution time, and make your company ready to respond to market changes quickly.

To assess the maturity of your current business processes, you first need to choose an assessment methodology, like CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration). Analyzing the results will allow you to identify bottlenecks in your business processes and help you chart the development of your future information system. 

What other benefits does a business process maturity analysis offer?

• Improved product quality, which in turn leads to increased customer satisfaction.

• Cost reduction and process optimization. A maturity analysis can identify bottlenecks in a company's operations and provide directions for optimizing specific processes.

• Process automation. The analysis will highlight the processes that need to be automated first using an information system.

Examining the maturity of business processes allows you to clarify requirements and identify technical solutions that will be effective for a particular process.

This will enable your business to achieve its goals, respond to changes in the external environment, and remain competitive in the market.

Five levels of business process maturity

Let's briefly review the five levels of business process maturity — their essence, main characteristics, and examples. 

Level 1: Initial

Typical for companies that are just starting out and have only just released their product. They engage in aggressive marketing activities, spending a lot of effort to attract customers

They have a small team and a limited budget. There are no regulations; work sequence is not defined, and some stages may be skipped altogether. The company's goal may not be clear to its employees.

Example: a small coffee shop that has just opened. There is no business process automation yet: orders are written down by the waiters or are manually entered into a spreadsheet.

What can this business do to move on to the next stage? Identify its goal and ways to achieve it. For a coffee shop, it could be making a profit by increasing the average check and attracting new and regular customers by improving service and product quality. 

The entire business process must be aligned to successfully achieve the goal. It is then important to communicate it to each employee so that they understand their impact on the overall goal.

All employees contribute to the success of the business, so their participation and involvement in processes must be active. 

Job descriptions and workload plans should also be developed and distributed among the employees. This will allow the coffee shop to identify and allocate tasks and resources, keep processes running smoothly, maintain efficiency, and achieve its goals.

Level 2: Repeatable

The business has achieved its goal; the management and employees understand the processes, their jobs, and the tasks to be performed.

Processes have a logical sequence of execution. They are regulated, standardized, and can be partially automated. There are employee work and vacation schedules and process management: work planning, budgets, and risk governance. However, the issue of the final product quality has not yet been resolved.

Example: a manufacturing company that has already started optimizing its processes and implementing a systematic approach to business process management. You could say that the company produces results, but it can and should do better.

What can this business do to move on to the next stage? Analyze processes with regard to compliance with GOST and ISO standards for a specific professional field. This stage includes the development of process decomposition diagrams, i.e. their more detailed description, as well as evaluation of data flows. Particular attention should be given to regulatory documents. 

During the transition, processes are described and modified to reflect industry standards. This allows us to distinguish between major and minor processes. The key business processes are geared towards the achievement of the primary goals and objectives. Their optimization and improvement contributes to the efficiency of operations.

Secondary processes have a supporting role within process maturity. They are support functions that ensure the smooth functioning of core processes. The secondary processes can be modified and optimized to improve the overall efficiency of the whole system.

During the transition, it is important to identify and categorize processes in terms of their importance and impact on outcomes. This will allow you to set priorities and focus your efforts on optimizing key processes. In doing so, pay attention to the secondary processes that need to be improved to ensure that the entire system functions effectively.

Level 3: Defined 

All processes have a logical structure; there are functional links between departments and units; there is a responsible person and deadlines. The company introduces quality and process efficiency metrics. All standards and regulations comply with GOST and international ISO standards. Employees receive training on a regular basis. 

At this level of maturity, the business addresses the quality of the final product but is still highly dependent on various factors and doesn't know how to adjust to changing market situations.

Example: a large manufacturer of home appliances. The company's processes are fine-tuned and regulated. But there is a high dependence on market conditions and a low level of serviceability.

What can this business do to move on to the next stage? Introduce performance and quality indicators for the finished product and schedule periods for monitoring said indicators. The company should develop methodologies for improving product quality. It should also  design regulations or process manuals for various situations and introduce them into the production process.

Level 4: Managed 

Various indicators are introduced to improve process management and control. The use of indicators allows to reduce resources consumption. For example, the introduction of an electronic document management system has allowed the company to reduce time spent on signing documents and paper costs.

Processes become flexible and can be revised and optimized based on the information gathered. The company can adapt to market changes but not as easily and effectively as at the fifth level of maturity.

Example: the Coca-Cola Company. It is actively working to optimize its business processes and implement new technologies to improve operational efficiency. It utilizes production risk management and quality control systems at all stages of production. The company has developed a risk management program that allows it to promptly respond to possible business threats and risks.

What can this business do to move on to the next stage? Focus on refining the risk management strategy and analyzing process metrics. This is a good time to review existing metrics or change the approach to measuring them.

Level 5: Optimized 

This level is distinguished by the presence of innovative processes. This high-tech stage of process maturity is quite resource-intensive in terms of analyzing the collected data and organizing process changes. 

The business applies new ways and tools for analyzing process metrics. It analyzes performance successes and failures. It develops and introduces a process optimization strategy.  

Example: Toyota Motor Corporation. The company pays great attention to optimizing business processes and introducing new technologies to improve operational efficiency. The corporation's most famous innovation process is the Just-In-Time system. It allows it to accurately determine customer needs and produce goods only in the required volume, thus reducing inventory holding costs and improving product quality.

Maturity is an unstable indicator. To ensure that processes are properly executed, it is necessary to continually analyze market conditions and trends, actively work on products quality, and actively engage employees in company values and philosophy.

How does analyzing business process maturity helps in designing an information system?

The results of business process maturity analysis can be applied to the following stages of information system development:

• Formulating system requirements. You need to determine what functions the system will perform, what data it will need, and what process management and control mechanisms it will contain.

• Developing system architecture. The requirements will help you in developing the system's architecture by identifying bottlenecks and problems that may arise during the implementation phase. This will ensure the system's high performance and reliability in the future.

• Information system development. The analysis helps developers to better understand the system's functionality.

• Testing. Testers should test the system against requirements related to the maturity of the client's business processes.

• System launch. Executed only after a successful test phase.

Ultimately, assessing the maturity of business processes helps to select the best solutions for the business and increases the chances of successful development.

Case study

A process maturity assessment conducted for a large company over several months helped the client decide between developing a proprietary solution or purchasing an out-of-the-box product with subsequent customization. During the assessment, we studied manufacturing industry regulations and standards and built a model of the company's processes, which involved grouping them into areas and describing their main indicators.

Based on the results of the process maturity analysis, a decision was made to purchase a ready-made product with subsequent adaptation and integration into the company's existing production processes. This allowed the client to quickly adapt to the new system and improve the efficiency of their processes.

Why do you need to know that?

Assessing the maturity of business processes is an important part of information system development. As you have already realized, it shows how much your business processes are ready for automation and helps to identify problem areas that need to be optimized.

Keep in mind that business process maturity is a dynamic marker. To maintain the system's effectiveness as a whole, the analysis should be carried out with a certain periodicity: once a month, a quarter, or a year. Each company chooses the frequency itself.

Why is it better to outsource business process maturity analysis? There are several reasons for this:

The expertise of a professional contractor in business process management and maturity assessment methodologies.

Independence. Thanks to the lack of family, psychological, or material dependence on the company, external consultants can offer an independent point of view that allows for an objective assessment of the current state of processes.

Experience. The outsourcing company employees have experience working on various projects in different fields and subject areas. This allows them to quickly identify the problem and propose ways to optimize processes.

Tools. External experts are proficient in various technologies and tools needed to conduct the assessment.

A comprehensive solution. An IT outsourcer can offer not only business process assessment but also the subsequent development and implementation of an information system; they may also provide specialists that will strengthen your team.

It's up to you to decide! Just remember that business maturity analysis is not an end in itself but a tool that helps you achieve your business goals.