Business process fusion

IT leaders will need to work closely with business managers to successfully implement business process fusion, according to Gartner. Business process fusion is the transformation of business activities achieved by integrating previously autonomous business processes.

Such a move will create new management challenges. The goal is to integrate business processes to increase value, and the challenges include choosing where to invest to create savings or enhance competitive position. “Enterprises will need more complex and precise management to perform these processes effectively and deliver on their business value potential,” says Michael Gerrard, vice president for Gartner.

Gartner says this vision requires real-time enterprise practices in which a company uses up-to-date information to progressively remove delays in the management and execution of critical business processes. Companies are already beginning to build the real-time enterprise, according to the results of a Gartner survey of 100 companies. A full 87% have projects under way to improve the speed of business processes, 49% expect to launch similar projects within the next 12 months, and 40% during the next 13 to 24 months.

Respondents attributed the biggest challenge in redeveloping business processes to a lack of funding, as chosen by 64% of those polled. 45% cited the inability of business management to visualize how the real-time enterprise would improve financial performance, 40% said a lack of senior management understanding, and 35% cited management’s inability to visualize how the real-time enterprise could affect market performance.

“Focus on the business model and key business processes, and how changes in the speed and dynamics of these processes can have significant, even transformational, effects,” Gerrard recommends.