Business process mapping is an important exercise for any organisation, especially a small business looking for process improvement, innovation, and efficiency opportunities.
Analysing, designing, and adjusting workflows can unlock a number of productivity benefits, boost your ROI, and ensure you can create a customer-centric culture.
In this blog, we’ll explore what business process mapping is, why it’s important, basic steps to get started, and how it can help you foster innovation and improve business outcomes.
What is Business Process Mapping?
A business process map is essentially a visual diagram of a company’s core processes. Using diagrams and flow charts, the map spells out exactly how major tasks are performed, who’s involved, and how different processes relate to one another.
The mapping exercise is designed to help businesses understand their current processes and identify opportunities for improvement. You may have to interview staff, observe tasks, document processes, and so on.
It’s also important to recognise what’s missing from your current process — identifying gaps and inefficiencies can reveal where you can make changes and improvements, for example your organisation may benefit from having an AI chatbot to respond to routine questions so your agents are available for more complex tasks.
What Are the Objectives of Business Process Mapping?
Business process mapping serves many purposes. Whether you’re a small business, start-up agency, or medium-sized enterprise, business process mapping can help you:
- Clearly define processes and protocols within the business
- Demonstrate the relationship between certain processes
- Identify which teams and individuals are responsible for certain tasks
- Understand the end-to-end sequence of events for each complex process and the decision-making and interactions involved
- Visually communicate core business processes and changes
- Document and standardise procedures to optimise staff training, compliance, and service
- Discover gaps, inefficiencies, and bottlenecks
This exercise drives innovation by taking a magnifying glass to your business and identifying where new technologies or methods can be introduced.
For instance, if you’re already leveraging AI but you’re disappointed in the results, you might want to look at more advanced models, test out different software, or ask questions like ‘What is RAG?’ to help you find the most efficient solution.
Why Do You Need Business Process Mapping?
Now that we’ve answered ‘What is business process mapping?’, you might be wondering why it’s important. Simply put, the benefits of process mapping are huge. It helps you enhance productivity, improve business outcomes, and boost your bottom line.
Here are the benefits it can bring to your organisation:
Increased Collaboration
Putting together the process map requires participation from various departments. This effort fosters collaboration between teams, enabling cross-functional co-operation and encouraging individuals to work together on a shared goal.
Mapping out business processes can also uncover the need for solutions like Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP). With VoIP defined as a unified communications tool, this technology can be integrated into existing workflows to further enhance collaboration, automate manual processes, and ensure effective communication between employees and customers.
Better Decision-making
With a clear visual of workflows and processes, managers and senior leaders can better understand how core tasks are performed. This can reveal why some processes are slower than they should be, for instance, or which tools drive efficiency.
This data can inform future decision-making, helping leaders see exactly what’s working and what isn’t. Armed with these insights, businesses can prioritise the most important projects and feel confident in dedicating resources to the most appropriate areas.
Greater Flexibility to Manage Change
Organisations that map their processes are better prepared for growth or disruption. Businesses can understand exactly how a change will impact processes and teams, enabling them to prepare in advance and implement adjustments successfully.
Whether introducing new technology, reengineering workflows, or managing compliance shifts, detailed process maps serve as a guide to navigate change seamlessly.
What Are the Stages of Process Mapping?
So how exactly does process mapping work? Let’s take a look at the process steps in more detail.
1. Set Your Goals
First things first — what are you trying to map? Which processes are the biggest priority for your business? If you have the time and funds to cover every major process, this will give you a comprehensive overview of how everything works. But if resources are tight, consider which processes have the biggest impact on your business.
Getting a clear idea of your objectives will help shape the mapping process and keep everyone aligned. Are you hoping to reduce costs, for example? Or are you looking for ways to improve efficiency and drive innovation? Whatever your strategic goals, make sure you communicate these so they’re front of mind throughout the entire process.
2. Collect Data
Once you’ve outlined the scope, it’s time to start gathering information on how major tasks are currently performed. Using a wide range of methods, such as observations, interviews, and surveys, will allow you to get a thorough view of how things work, task owners, and the resources needed.
Make lists and document all of this data — no matter how big or small a detail might seem, it’s important to cover every part of the process. Not only will this form the basis of an effective process map, but it will also ensure existing and future staff know exactly how things should be done.
3. Create the Map and Get Feedback
Now you’ve collected these insights, you can begin creating the process map. Visuals like flow diagrams, charts, swimlane diagrams, or value stream maps should clearly demonstrate all inputs, outputs, and decision points.
Once this has been produced, share it with key stakeholders to get their feedback and check if anything needs to be changed. It’s crucial that all the information in your business process model is accurate, so be sure to spend time reviewing the map with the relevant teams.
4. Publish, Analyse, and Update
With your process map finalised, it’s time to publish and share it across the business. Now you can begin analysing the map for inefficiencies, redundancies, or delays and develop a plan to address these gaps and make improvements.
This might involve introducing new technology, redefining roles, restructuring workflows, implementing an embedding model, etc.
Building a process map isn’t a one-time activity. As processes change over time, you’ll need to make adjustments to make sure your map is up to date. Continuous improvement enables teams to constantly look out for ways to drive innovation and keep things running smoothly.
Drive Innovation and Improve Business Outcomes with Process Maps
Business process mapping provides a clear, visual understanding of workflows. This allows organisations to address inefficiencies, drive collaboration, and stay ahead of the competition. In an era when agility and innovation are paramount, investing in business process mapping isn’t just a choice — it’s a necessity.
