Business Process

Definition Of Business Process

A business process consists of a set of activities that are performed in coordination in an organizational and technical environment. These activities jointly realize a business goal. Each business process is enacted by a single organization, but it may interact with business processes performed by other organizations.

After a first consideration of business processes, their constituents, and their interactions, the view is broadened. Business process management not only covers the representation of business processes, but also additional activities.

Business process management includes concepts, methods, and techniques to support the design, administration, configuration, enactment, and analysis of business processes.

Traditionally, business processes are enacted manually, guided by the of the company’s personnel and assisted by the organizational regulations and procedures that are installed.

Enterprises can achieve additional benefits if they use software systems for coordinating the activities involved in business processes. These software systems are called business process management systems.

A business process management system is a generic software system that is driven by explicit process representations to coordinate the enactment of business processes.

Classification of Business Processes

Ø  Organizational versus Operational

Different levels can be identified in business process management, ranging from high-level business strategies to implemented business processes. These levels are depicted in Figure 1.6.

At the highest level, the strategy of the company is specified, which describes its long-term concepts to develop a sustainable competitive advantage in the market. An example of a business strategy is cost leadership for products in a certain domain.

At the second level, the business strategy is broken down to operational goals. These goals can be organized, so that each goal can be divided into a set of subgoals. Reducing the cost for supplied materials is a sample goal that contributes to the realization of the business strategy mentioned.

At the third level, organizational business processes can be found. Organizational business processes are high-level processes that are typically specified in textual form by their inputs, their outputs, their expected results, and their dependencies on other organizational business processes. These business processes act as supplier or consumer processes. An organizational business process to manage incoming raw materials provided by a set of suppliers is an example of an organizational business process.

Informal and semiformal techniques are used at these high levels. The strategy of a company, its goals, and its organizational business processes can be described in plain text, enriched with diagrams expressed in an adhoc or semiformal notation. A forms-based approach to express organizational business processes is discussed in the next chapter.

While organizational business processes characterize coarse-grained business functionality, typically there are multiple operational business processes required that contribute to one organizational business process. In operational business processes, the activities and their relationships are specified, but implementation aspects of the business process are disregarded. Operational business processes are specified by business process models.

Operational business processes are the basis for developing implemented business processes. Implemented business processes contain information on the execution of the process activities and the technical and organizational environment in which they will be executed.

Ø  Intraorganizational Processes versus Process Choreographies

As defined above, each business process is performed by a single organization. If there is no interaction with business processes performed by other parties, then the business process is called intraorganizational. Most business processes, however, interact with business processes in other organizations, forming process choreographies.

The primary focus of intraorganizational business processes is the streamlining of the internal processes by eliminating activities that do not provide value. The personnel of the enterprise is represented in organizational models used to allocate activities to persons who are skilled and competent to perform these activities. Traditional workflow management systems can be used to support intraorganizational business processes.

There are a number of issues to address when dealing with interacting business processes, including not only communication aspects related to the process structures, but also legal matters. Interactions between business processes need to be protected by legally binding contracts between the companies involved.

Also, the technical layer requires more thought, since multiple organizations have most likely a heterogeneous software infrastructure that hampers interoperability in the software layer.

Ø  Degree of Automation

Business processes can diverge in the level of automation. There are business processes that are fully automated, meaning that no human is involved in the enactment of such a business process. An example is ordering an airline ticket using Web interfaces. While the process is fully automated on the side of the airline, the customer is involved with manual activities, such as providing address information via Web browser interfaces.

Enterprise application integration is another area where automated business processes can be found. The goal is to integrate the functionality provided by a heterogeneous software landscape. While there are different techniques to integrate enterprise applications, process technology is an important technology, especially since the emergence of service-oriented software architectures that allow composing services to processes.

Many business processes require manual activities; but they also include automated activities. Processing an insurance claim is an example of such a process. Manual activities enter the customer data and determine the settlement of the damage, while automated activities are used to store data on the damage in the software systems of the company.

The interaction with the human user is essential in these settings. Early approaches that prescribe to human users “what to do next” often failed. User interfaces that accept the knowledge worker as an important source to improve and control the process provide more user acceptance.

Ø  Degree of Repetition

Business processes can be classified according to their degree of repetition. Examples of highly repetitive business processes include business processes without human involvement, such as online airline ticketing. However, business processes in which humans are involved can occur frequently, for example, insurance claim processing. If the degree of repetition is high, then investments  in modelling and supporting the automatic enactment of these processes pay off, because many process instances can benefit from these investments.

At the other end of the repetition continuum, there are business processes that occur a few times only. Examples include large engineering efforts, such as designing a vessel. For these processes it is questionable whether the effort introduced by process modelling does in fact pay off, because the cost of process modelling per process instance is very high.

Since improving the collaboration between the persons involved is at the centre of attention, these processes are called collaborative business processes. In collaborative business processes, the goal of process modelling and enactment is not only efficiency, but also tracing exactly what has actually been done and which causal relationships between project tasks have occurred.

This aspect is also present in the management of scientific experiments, where data lineage is an important goal of process support. Since each experiment consists of a set of activities, an increasing fraction of the experimentation is performed by analyzing data using software systems. The data is transformed in a series of steps. Since experiments need to be repeatable, it is essential that the relationship of the data sets be documented properly.

Business processes with a low degree of repetition are often not fully automated and have a collaborative character, so that the effort in providingautomated solutions is not required, which lowers the cost.

Ø  Degree of Structuring

If the business process model prescribes the activities and their execution constraints in a complete fashion, then the process is structured. The different options for decisions that will be made during the enactment of the process have been defined at design time. For instance, a credit request process might use a threshold amount to decide whether a simple or a complex credit check is required, for instance, 5000 euros. Each process instance then uses the requested amount to decide on the branch to take.

Leymann and Roller have organized business processes according to dimensions structure and repetition. They coined the term production workflow. Production workflows are well structured and highly repetitive. Traditional workflow management system functionality is well suited to supporting production workflows.

If process participants who have the experience and competence to decide on their working procedures perform business process activities, structured processes are more of an obstacle than an asset. Skipping certain process activities the knowledge worker does not require or executing steps concurrently that are ordered sequentially in the process model is not possible in structured business processes.

To better support knowledge workers, business process models can define processes in a less rigid manner, so that activities can be executed in any order or even multiple times until the knowledge worker decides that the goals of these activities have been reached. So called ad hoc activities are an important concept for supporting unstructured parts of processes.

Case handling is an approach that supports knowledge workers performing business processes with a low level of structuring and, consequently, a high level of flexibility. Rather than prescribing control flow constraints between process activities, fine-grained data dependencies are used to control the enactment of the business process.
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Dari penjelasan diatas dapat diketahui bahwa sebuah proses bisnis terdiri dari serangkaian kegiatan yang dilakukan dalam koordinasi dalam lingkungan organisasi dan teknis untuk mewujudkan tujuan bisnis. 
Allah Subhanallahuta'ala juga telah menjelaskan melalui Alqur'anul karim bagaimana bisnis itu harus dijalankan. Berikut ini ialah salah satu  ayat Alqur'an tentang bisnis :
1. Albaqarah ayat 283

"Wahai orang-orang yang beriman! Apabila kamu melakukan utang piutang untuk waktu yang ditentukan, hendaklah kamu menuliskannya. Dan hendaklah seorang di antara kamumenuliskannya dengan benar. Janganlah penulis menolak untuk menuliskannya sebagaimana Allah telah mengajarkan kepadanya, maka hendaklah dia menuliskan. Dan hendaklah orang yang berutang itu mendiktekan, dan hendaklah dia bertakwa kepada Allah, Tuhannya, dan janganlahdia mengurangi sedikit pun daripadanya. Jika orang yang berutang itu orang kurang akalnya ataulemah (keadaanya), atau tidak mampu mendiktekan sendiri, maka hendaklah walinyamendiktekannya dengan benar. Dan persaksikanlah dengan dua orang saksi laki-laki di antarakamu. Jika tidak ada saksi dua orang laki-laki, maka boleh seorang laki-laki dan dua orang  perempuan di antara orang-orang yang kamu sukai dari para saksi yang ada, agar jika ada yang  seorang lupa maka yang seorang lagi mengingatkannya. Dan janganlah saksi-saksi itu menolak apabila dipanggil. Dan janganlah kamu bosan menuliskannya, untuk batas waktunya baik utang itu kecil maupun besar. Yang demikian itu, lebih adil di sisi Allah, lebih dekat menguatkankesaksian, dan lebih mendekatkan kamu kepada ketidakraguan, kecuali jika hal itu merupakan perdagangan tunai yang kamu jalankan di antara kamu, maka tidak ada dosa bagi kamu jikakamu tidak menuliskannya. Dan ambillah saksi apabila kamu berjual beli, dan janganlah penulisdipersulit dari begitu juga saksi. Jika kamu lakukan yang demikian, maka sungguh, hal itu suatukefasikan pada kamu. Dan bertakwalah kepada Allah, Allah memberikan pengajaran kepadamu,dan Allah Maha Mengetahui segala sesuatu"

Menurut Tafsir Ibnu Katsir :

وَإِن كُنتُمْ عَلَى سَفَرٍ "Jika kamu dalam perjalanan" yakni sedang dalam perjalanan dan terjadi hutang - piutang sampai batas waktu tertentu.

 وَلَمْ تَجِدُواْ كَاتِباً "sedang kamu tidak memperoleh seorang penulis,"yaitu seorang penulis yang menulis transaksi untukmu. Ibnu Abbas mengartikan, ada penulis tapi tidak ada pena,kertas dan tinta, maka hendaklah ada barang jaminan yang dipegang oleh pemberi pinjaman. Maksudnya penulisan itu diganti dengan barang jaminan yang dipegang oleh pemberi pinjaman.

 فَرِهَانٌ مَّقْبُوضَةٌ "maka hendaklah ada barang tanggungan yang dipegang (oleh yang berpiutang)", ayat ini dijadikan sebagai dalil yang menunjukkan bahwa jaminan harus merupakan sesuatu yang harus dapat dipegang. Sebagaimana yang menjadi pendapat Imam Syafi'i dan jumhur Ulama dan ulama yang lain menjadikan ayat tersebut sebagai dalil  bahwa barang jaminan itu harus berada ditangan orang yang memberikan gadai. Ini merupakan riwayat dari Imam Ahmad dan sebagian ulama juga demikian.

 وَمَن يَكْتُمْهَا فَإِنَّهُ آثِمٌ قَلْبُهُ  "Dan barangsiapa yang menyembunyikannya, maka sesungguhnya ia adalah orang yang berdosa hatinya; "yaitu orang yang jahat hatinya. Ini juga dituangkan Allah dalam Surat Al Maidah ayat 106 dan AnNissa ayat 135.

QS. 5 ayat 106 : وَلاَ نَكْتُمُ شَهَادَةَ اللّهِ إِنَّا إِذاً لَّمِنَ الآثِمِينَ  dan tidak (pula) kami menyembunyikan persaksian Allah; sesungguhnya kami kalau demikian tentulah termasuk orang-orang yang berdosa".

QS.4 ayat 135 :

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ كُونُواْ قَوَّامِينَ بِالْقِسْطِ شُهَدَاء لِلّهِ وَلَوْ عَلَى أَنفُسِكُمْ أَوِ الْوَالِدَيْنِ وَالأَقْرَبِينَ إِن يَكُنْ غَنِيّاً أَوْ فَقَيراً فَاللّهُ أَوْلَى بِهِمَا فَلاَ تَتَّبِعُواْ الْهَوَى أَن تَعْدِلُواْ وَإِن تَلْوُواْ أَوْ تُعْرِضُواْ فَإِنَّ اللّهَ كَانَ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيراً  

4.135. Wahai orang-orang yang beriman, jadilah kamu orang yang benar-benar penegak keadilan, menjadi saksi karena Allah biarpun terhadap dirimu sendiri atau ibu bapa dan kaum kerabatmu. Jika ia kaya ataupun miskin, maka Allah lebih tahu kemaslahatannya. Maka janganlah kamu mengikuti hawa nafsu karena ingin menyimpang dari kebenaran. Dan jika kamu memutar balikkan (kata-kata) atau enggan menjadi saksi, maka sesungguhnya Allah adalah Maha Mengetahui segala apa yang kamu kerjakan.

Demikian juga Allah dalam surat Al Baqarah ayat 283 ini :

 وَلاَ تَكْتُمُواْ الشَّهَادَةَ وَمَن يَكْتُمْهَا فَإِنَّهُ آثِمٌ قَلْبُهُ وَاللّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ عَلِيمٌ dan janganlah kamu (para saksi) menyembunyikan persaksian. Dan barangsiapa yang menyembunyikannya, maka sesungguhnya ia adalah orang yang berdosa hatinya; dan Allah Maha Mengetahui apa yang kamu kerjakan.

2. An-Nisa ayat 29

"Wahai orang-orang yang beriman! Janganlah kamu saling memakan harta sesamamu dengan jalan yang bathil kecuali dalam perdagangan yang berlaku atas dasar suka sama suka di antarakamu. Dan janganlah kamu membunuh dirimu. Sungguh, Allah Maha Penyayang kepadamu"

reference : 
Alqur'an.

Weske, Mathias. 2007. "Business Process Management Concepts, Languages, Architectures". Potsdam 

Tafsir Ibnu Katsir.