Clarity, Speed, and Precision: How to Unlock the Full Potential of Your Process Transformation Journey

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Sometimes, the old way of doing things is the best way.  

Cooking dinner over a campfire, turning the pages of a book, even actually hanging up a phone: these all feel satisfying in a way that can be difficult to capture using digital alternatives. 

Of course, this isn’t the case for everything, especially in a business environment. 256 MB floppy disks? Computers using punch cards? Changing the ribbon on a typewriter? No thanks!  

Unfortunately, while technological improvement may be evident all around us, the actual process for advancing an organization has remained relatively static.  

Transformation today 

Currently, organizations typically embark on an extensive scoping study to determine how their processes function and then match it to the company's business goals.  

This is often followed by an as-is analysis of the way the business functions, both internally and within its current operational context and market.  

This is usually where consultants are brought in to identify improvement potential. Typically, this is conducted through interviews and by tracking employee actions as they execute the organization's business processes. 

In many cases, workshops are also organized to determine the ideal state, or to-be model. That necessitates all the logistical and reporting requirements of gathering opinions from large groups of people, a challenge that is only exacerbated if the company's employees are based around the world. 

Only once all this information has been gathered and analyzed can the transformative work actually begin. In turn, the time between the start of your transformation efforts and seeing the business value can seem far too long. 

Sound familiar? If you're facing digital transformation, this approach may be the standard you expect. It's not wrong – it's just that these days, the same digitalization and technological improvements that have made elements of our working lives easier also apply to the process of digital transformation itself. 

A new approach to optimization 

Imagine being able to see exactly how your business processes are currently running, then deciding which processes to keep, which processes to remove, and which processes to adapt – all in the space of an afternoon. It's the difference between knowing you need to change – whether it's to reduce costs, save time, improve customer satisfaction, or any other reason – and knowing what you need to change. And this data-driven approach works for organizations of any size, too.  

For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) facing resource constraints and limited IT infrastructure, the plug and gain approach provides an opportunity to determine the best path to growth. By analyzing their existing processes, SMEs can identify process inefficiencies that are limiting expansion, determine the most cost-effective ways to make process changes, and ensure business processes scale up as the business grows.  

For larger enterprises, typically with complex and heterogeneous IT landscapes, it can be difficult to consolidate and analyze process data. The plug and gain approach gives large enterprises a holistic view of established end-to-end processes, making it easier to identify optimization opportunities in previously disconnected areas of the business.  

For organizations with a global presence, maintaining consistency and standardization across different regions can be a significant challenge. The plug and gain approach allows global organizations to harmonize their processes by first establishing internal best practices, then efficiently rolling out standardized process changes worldwide over the longer term.  

How to get started 

SAP Signavio solutions can collapse the time it takes to prepare for digital transformation from months to hours. The plug and gain approach does the same for SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) and SAP S/4HANA transformation projects. 

On a technical level, the plug and gain approach takes your existing data from SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA and connects it directly to SAP Signavio solutions, making sure your data is available, visible, and usable.    

SAP Signavio solutions at a glance 

SAP Signavio Process Manager: An intuitive and comprehensive modeling solution for business process management that enables organizations to capture, improve, and maintain their business processes, fast and at scale 

SAP Signavio Process Intelligence: A collaborative process mining solution that helps organizations unleash the power of process data and transform their business 

SAP Signavio Process Insights: A process analytics solution that helps organizations rapidly discover areas for improvement and automation within SAP business processes 

SAP Signavio Process Explorer: The gateway to access and explore a myriad of value accelerators and resources that can help organizations speed up time to value of transformation projects 

SAP Signavio Process Governance: A solution that turns business process models into standardized process governance workflows and enables organizations to increase internal and external compliance 

SAP Signavio Journey Modeler: A solution that helps intuitively design customer journeys and connect them to underlying processes, fostering customer centricity and operational excellence 

SAP Signavio Process Collaboration Hub: A single source of truth that unites employees across an organization at a transparent meeting point, combining their expertise and fostering teamwork  

No more guesswork

From there, you can immediately start generating information on how your processes are executed, as well as receive process correction and improvement recommendations in near-real time. No more gut feelings or guesswork – the plug and gain approach provides the information you need to prioritize your transformation efforts.

The plug and gain approach further reinforces this clear picture of your process environment with built-in content and hundreds of KPIs from other SAP Signavio solutions users. Using the SAP Signavio Process Insights solution, you gain access to over a thousand process performance indicators, nearly 100 process flows, examples of the most frequent process blockages, and even context on the value drivers that underpin your business processes. 

This provides a window into how your organization's process performance and execution stack up against others in your industry and around the world. You can learn from what has worked elsewhere and quickly identify the right steps to improve the areas that will deliver most value for your business.  

You can even perform individual deep-dive analysis using the SAP Signavio Process Intelligence solution to identify your own internal best practices, generate a process model, and then use that as the basis to optimize processes in other parts of your business.  

Next steps 

The plug and gain approach brings holistic ERP and process transformation into the modern world. The decisions are yours to make – SAP Signavio solutions exist to help you understand where to start, what to focus on, and what actions to prioritize as part of your transformation efforts.  

Of course, the insights you collect are just the first step. The plug and gain approach also helps you deploy any changes faster by fostering close collaboration between the business and IT areas of your organization, as well as supporting change management and driving internal adoption of new processes. 

Beyond that, plug and gain also helps you realize continuous value and supports you in building an ongoing, sustainable cycle of process improvement. With that goal in mind, you know your organization needs to change – but you've been looking for the first step.  

The speed and certainty offered by the plug and gain approach could be just what you need. To find out more about how you can take the risk out of transformation, visit our Web site today.