Order Fulfillment: The Most Important Business Process
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Order Fulfillment: The Most Important Business Process
Introduction
Organizations put up a lot of effort and resources in developing an effective business process to guide the flow of business for efficiency, effectiveness, and profitability. In fact, organizations deliberate on activities which could help deliver the sets of expectations that customers have for a particular product or service that the organization provides. In some cases, organizations search the internet and relevant publications for the best practices in their industry to serve as a guide for their own business process. This paper would like to explore four fundamental business processes—strategy development, product development, systems of production, and order fulfillment. Furthermore, this paper would rationalize why order fulfillment is deemed as the most important business process among the four processes identified in this paper.
Defining the Concept of Business Process
Almost all organizations follow a specific process to guide them particularly in conducting business. This guide is commonly referred to as “business process”. In the book entitled “Business Process Management”, authors Howard Smith and Peter Fingar (2003) defined the business process, “as the series of interrelated activities designed to facilitate the development and production of a particular product or service as specified by the customer” (p. 53). Different texts would offer series of steps which is generally included in the business process cycle. While there could be several presentations, the four common components of a business process include (a) strategy development, (b) product development, (c) systems of production, and (d) order fulfillment (Weske, 2012).
Strategy Development
The author of the book entitled “Business Process Management: Concepts, Languages, Architectures” Mathias Weske (2012) has defined strategy development as “the process that paves the way to ensure sustainability through long-term competitiveness” (p.378). Organizations formulate ways and techniques which they call marketing strategy to ensure that they meet their goals and objectives. This strategy is religiously followed and constantly improved to adapt to the latest business trends.
Product Development
Product development is the culmination of taking in valued inputs based generated from on customer expectations (Weske, 2012, p. 47). This particular process operates based on the input-output model. It takes in the needs and demands of the market and work on this to produce an output that has value to the enterprise.
Systems of Production/ Production System
The “system of production”, also known as “production system” refers to the structured and repetitive process of developing the output (Weske, 2012, p. 20). This particular business process integrates the most effective, cost-efficient, and convenient approach to product development. Nevertheless, it is important to take note that not all production system that uses fewer phases or procedure is the most effective. In addition, production system should never compromise quality. Thus, organizations put in their best effort to develop a system that would ensure quality while maximizing their resources.
Order Fulfillment
Customers place their orders for the business and they expect their orders to be followed. The final step in a typical business process model is order fulfillment. In this stage, the organization ensures that the customer’s specific instructions and needs were met. Order fulfillment or role resolution, however, is not always completed within the business process management system because some requests made the customers may occur outside the supplier or producer’s domain (Weske, 2012, pp. 117-118). Nevertheless, it is still important to ensure that at any level of the business cycle, the customers request or order is adequately followed and fulfilled to ensure customer satisfaction.
Conclusion
Organizations go through the process of deliberating on what system and process work well for their specific needs and business. Regardless of the approach that organizations choose, the goal should always be focused on satisfying customers’ expectations. This would assure sustainability and profitability which is ultimately the objective of most organizations.
References
Smith, H., & Fingar, P. (2003). Business Process Management: The Third Wave. Kampala, Uganda: MK Publishers.
Weske, M. (2012). Business Process Management: Concepts, Languages, Architectures. Springer, New York: Springer Science & Business Media.
