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.