Business process management: A case of Virgo Services Malaysia

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie
Published: 7 December 2016

1.0 Introduction

In the course of every business undertaken, companies are forced to amend some of their business process in order to better meet the demands of the customers. These amendments normally come with an intention for improved business delivery. However, there is always the need to ask the question as to whether the amendments will always enhance the business process as intended or will actually influence the business even more negatively. On that ground, the question now is, what should companies do in order to manage their business process in such a way that improvement is always assured?

The above is what this paper seeks to address with respect to Virgo Services Malaysia. The company is a service firm that aims to provide companies with professional writing services in terms of rebranding and branding their products, public relationship management and market research. Additionally, the company also have a segment for training students on how to improve their academic Services competence. The company is currently facing the issue of how to align their business objectives with the needs of the customers in order to enhance the level of customers’ satisfaction. Although it has been in operation for over a decade, they still face a number of issues and customers are increasingly becoming more worried about their competence and delivery. The company has enacted a number of processes such as improved and continuous review through the process of completing works for their clients but this has not improved service delivery significantly and customers are still increasingly worried about their competence.

On that ground, this paper is designed to help Virgo Services improve their service delivery buy deigning a business process improvement model that will seek to address the issues faced by the company and how the company can improve its business process through an increase their service delivery quality.

2.0 The objectives of business process improvement

Business process improvement (BPI) is a common issue in businesses of the modern days, and companies adopt BPI for the purpose of keeping pace with changes in the business environment with respect to technological, organizational, political and other environmental changes (Davenport and Perez-Guardado, 1999; Coskun et al., 2008). On that ground, one should not be surprised with the fact that the need to improve business process was the main priority amongst companies in the top ten business priority of 2009 as measured by Gartner survey which covered more than 1,526 CIOs (Auringer, 2009). On the ground of the increase for improved business process following the business process reengineering (BPR) wave that blew around the early 1990s (Hammer, 1990; Hammer and Champy, 1993; Davenport, 1993), methodologies, techniques, and tools were developed for conducting BPR projects (see Shin and Jemella 2002; Kettinger et al.1997). On the same not, it is no longer amazing to see BPI issues amongst most discussion and literature in business management (Coskun et al., 2008).

On the account of the above discussions, the purpose of this paper is also aligned with understanding how to improve business process in Virgo Services Malaysia. The objective of BPI in this case is in line with the general design which is to understand how companies can adopt the model for the purpose of meeting changes in consumers’ demands with respect to technological, social, and other changes that can influence the performance of the company. These objectives are summarized below as:

1.      To understand BPI issue in Virgo Services Malaysia;

2.      To understand the causes of these issues; and

3.      To understand how these issues can be resolved in order to increase the quality of service delivery and level of consumers’ satisfaction in the company

3.0 Vital steps involved in analysing and improving a business process: Six Sigma & Unfreeze-Freeze-Refreeze

The understanding gathered earlier on is that BPI is an approach that is used for increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of business process that will enhance the output provided for internal and external customers (Harrington, 1991). Following the adoption of business process management amongst companies and the inclusion of BPR as the mainstream of business process improvement (Baines, 1996), the concept has been described with a number of names in relation to the improvement of business processes (Zairi and Sinclair, 1995). Examples are: “business process improvement (BPI)” (Harrington, 1991), “business process redesign” (Davenport and Short, 1990; Carr, 1993), “business (process) re-engineering (BPR)” (Hammer, 1990), “core process redesign” (Kaplan and Murdock, 1991; Heygate, 1993; Hagel III, 1993), “business restructuring” (Tanswell, 1993; Talwar, 1993), “continuous improvement process” (Imai, 1986; Juran, 1991; Juran and Gryna, 1993; Deming, 1986, 2000) and “Six Sigma” as a methodology (Pande et al., 2000; Breyfogle, 2003; Harry and Schroeder, 2006).

Depending on the extent of degree of improvement (either radical or incremental) that is needed in a company, the two areas as BPR and BPI distinguished based on how they are undertaken. While BPR is more of synonymous with radical improvement (Hammer, 1990; Hammer and Champy, 1993), BPI is more of incremental improvement (Hammer, 1990; Hammer and Champy, 1993). However, both of the can be seen as a process of business redesign (Valiris and Glykas, 1999). and the approaches involved will be discussed with respect to six-sigma as an approach of BPI to highlight the steps involves, issues experienced and expected outcome of such business design.

Six sigma has been described as very powerful business tool is used to gain reduction in business defects, errors, or mistakes that occur in service processes (Antony, 2005a, b). It is a very powerful methodology that has been developed for the purpose of accelerating improvement in service quality by focusing relentlessly on reducing differences that exist in business process and eliminating steps that doesn’t add value to the overall business (Kwak and Anbari, 2004). Improved processes in the business setting will mean an improvement in customers’ satisfaction, increase in business productivity, increase in market share, increase in profitability of the business and a host of other benefits to the company. Six sigma makes available the right methodology, infrastructures,, tools and techniques for enacting changes in the way business are conducted (Antony and Banuelas, 2001). Notwithstanding the level of success experienced by adopting six sigma in the manufacturing industry, a number of services firms such as Virgo Services Malaysia are still not yet convinced about the fact that such businesses can also be experienced in the service industry and this limits their intention to adopt six sigma.

While six sigma is predominantly and traditionally associated with the manufacturing firm, there is an experienced increase in its adoption within the service industry, and George (2003) has gone as a far as providing this by stating that while production is the main focus of the manufacturing firms, only 20% of the process are more into production while the outstanding 80% are more of services and production redesign supports that is into the services aspect of the business setting. On that account, it can easily be visualized that the concept of six sigma is not all about the production companies as previously conceived by can also be into the service industry. The main attraction for adopting six sigma in the service setting of present business environment is because of its customer oriented approach (Taghaboni-Dutta and Moreland, 2004).

In terms of understanding how six sigma is implemented, Lewin (1958) present a holistic view on the right framework for change management. In accordance with Lewin (1958), the initial step that is involved in the change management process is the unfreezing of the situation. It is only by so doing that the change process becomes possible. The final stages of the change process involve making the new behaviour stick, and refreezing to the new steps for business process. The interesting thing about the model is that it is apparently simple, and very elegant as a practical guide that can be used for the purpose of making a shift in complex environment. For instance, the model seeks to address the importance of unfreezing event that has occurred as a measure of laying down the code and steps for preparing especially the soft factors that will be used as the change process (Levasseur, 2001).

Figure 1: change management process

Source as adapted from: Lewin (1958)

From the above figure, the message downloaded is very direct in the sense that it deals with the understanding that the company should seek to understand issues they are facing, determine the factors that resulted in these issues and develop the right wing for continued growth by measuring the extent of progress developed from adopting the strategy.

In the content of Virgo Services Malaysia, the business change process will be managed by adopting the model discussed below. It will involve an understanding of issues faced by the company, the causes of these issues, how the company has tried to manage it in the past, the outcome of previous management approaches adopting, measures success based on the weaknesses of these approaches and determining the best way forward based on past experience.

Figure 2: business process improvement approach in Virgo Services Malaysia

From the figure 2 above, it can be seen that the business process management in the company will come in 5 steps. The first will be to define the problem. The problem has been defined earlier to be that the company is facing issues with respect to maintaining quality service delivery as customers are increasingly becoming worried about the quality of services delivered by the company. The indication in the view of that is that the company has not been able to align its business objectives of “increased customers’ satisfaction” with its actual service delivery and it makes it difficult for the company to maintain business sustainability because customers are increasingly becoming worried about their business delivery.

These issues has also been measured with respect on its impact in business growth and the outcome of such measurement is that it has not been the right framework for continued business sustainability, making change unavoidable in order to maintain business growth. Having analysed the issues, it is clear that it is emanating from the service delivery with respect to employing quality copywriters and researchers that will continue to deliver the kind of quality that customers seeks from the company. In order to ensure continued business growth, this process will be improved by having a better understanding of customers’ needs and aligning the business process in such a way that these needs are the focus of the company’s delivery and that they are constantly meet. In terms of the implementation, it will be done through clear set guidelines that determines what is expected of every employees and measures the business process in order to ensure that all the employees undertake their task in such a way that it is geared towards improving the overall service delivery. The business process improvement model for this company includes:

3.1 Increase consumers’ satisfaction – the company needs to study the demands of consumers more carefully and based their production process on these demands. Understanding consumers’ demands will help to ensure that services are delivered precisely as demanded by consumers and it will increase the level of consumers’ satisfaction.

3.2 Offer quality after sales services – even when the company has concluded the deal, there is still the need to ensure that the designed services meet exact purpose it has been designed for. This will be done through offering quality after services that will provide customers with end-to-end solutions with problems they face in adopting the developed services. The outcome will be an increase in utility of the services and a subsequent increase in consumers’ satisfaction. Adopting the two models above will led to the outcome as illustrated in the table 1 below.

 Table 1: Outcome of the business process models adopted

Before change	After change
Consumers needs where not clear understood and as such services are not designed to precisely solve these needs.	Change means that consumers’ needs are not well understood and the company will be able to develop services to meet these needs precisely. The outcome will then become an increase in consumers’ satisfaction and reduction in complaints as well as bargaining advantage as the company can always remind the consumer about his or her initial demands which influenced the production process.
Consumers don’t know how to solve issues with adopting the services because the company doesn’t offer any troubleshooting concept and it reduces the usability of the services as well as consumers’ satisfaction.	Following the decision to offer after sales services, the company will be well positioned to help consumers with respect to issues arising from adopting the services. It will increase usability and consumers’ satisfaction as well.

4.0 Resistance that can be expected from stakeholders and how it can be controlled

A number of authors (Lawrence, 1954; Maurer, 1996; Strebel, 1994; Waddell and Sohal, 1998) have stressed their view on process management in business by letting known that the reason why numerous businesses fail is because of the level of resistance to such change process. Resistance to change has been linked to the introduction of increased costs and delays in the change process (Ansoff, 1990), and they are very difficult to anticipate (Lorenzo, 2000) but must always be taken into consideration in the business process management. In terms of the positive side, it has also been viewed as a source of information and very useful in the process of developing a more successful change process (Beer and Eisenstat, 1996; Goldstein, 1988; Lawrence, 1954; Piderit, 2000; Waddell and Sohal, 1998). Without any doubt, it can be stated that resistance to change is an issue in the change management process and should always be taken seriously in order to ensure that the organization experiencing such change is given the right room to take full advantage of the transformation it is experiencing.

Basically, change process in the organizational setting comes in two different forms. The first is the evolutionary, incremental, or first order form of change. This is a form of change that comes in small pattern and used to alter certain minute aspects of the organizational settings, in search of an improvement in the present situation, while also keeping the general working framework (Blumenthal and Haspeslagh, 1994; Goodstein and Burke, 1991; Greiner, 1972; Levy, 1986; Mezias and Glynn, 1993; Nadler and Tushman, 1989; 1990). The second type of change is a strategic, transformational, revolutionary or second order change that is designed to be radical in nature and used for organizational transformation in cases where the company desires to totally change its essential framework (Blumenthal and Haspeslagh, 1994; Ghoshal and Bartlett, 1996; Goodstein and Burke, 1991; Marshak, 1993; Nadler and Tushman, 1989, 1990), generally seeking a new wing for competitive advantage (Hutt, Walker and Frankwick, 1995) and influencing the basic competences of the organization (Ruiz and Lorenzo, 1999). A number of factors can lead to the stakeholders being resistive to the change management process and these elements are as discussed below.

4.1 Myopic view of the situation – when the stakeholder don’t have a clear view and understanding of the change process, they will become resistive to the change process as they don’t seem to understand why the change is necessary and the required approaches that they need to implement in order to make the change a success (Barr et al., 1992; Krüger, 1996; Rumelt, 1995).

4.2 Denial or refusal to accept any information that is not expected or desire – when the stakeholders where not expecting the change process, they can become resistive because they might view the change process as being designed to take advantage of them or not well designed to incorporate their own personal needs. The outcome of the whole process can be resistance to the business process improvement (Barr et al., 1992; Rumelt, 1995; Starbuck et al., 1978).

Tendency to allow present thoughts to prevail – even when the change process has already occurred, it has been noted in some cases that the stakeholders still allow the past thoughts to prevail and the reason is mainly because they have not lived to aloe the change to influence their lives as they still find it difficult to let go their past perceptions (Barr et al., 1992; Krüger, 1996; Rumelt, 1995; Zeffane, 1996).

4.3 Lack of motivation to change – normally, the change process comes with hefty price tags and this limits the intention of stakeholders to adopt the change process. This is because the investors are worried of the expected outcome from the process as measured against the investment made in order to make the change process a success (Rumelt, 1995).

From the above discussion, it is now clear that a number of factors can hinder the chances of success with the desired business process management change that is expected to be enacted in Virgo Services Malaysia. The extent of success as such can be measured by the extent at which these limitations are controlled. In order to ensure that success is achieved, these limitations will be controlled by:

4.4 Educating the stakeholders on the benefits of the change process – in order to ensure that the issues of reluctance and denial to accept the change process is eliminated, the stakeholders will be educated on the importance of the change process, highlighting the expected benefits and reasons why the change process is necessary. In the context of Virgo Services Malaysia, the stakeholders mainly comprise of the staffs and employees. The staffs will be made to understand the need for improved service delivery as the customers are not presently satisfied with what they are being given, and the customers will also be integrated in the process in order to ensure that they are always carried along in the process of service delivery. This will mean that the customers will be able to help the company in eliminating issue even before they occur and the staffs on the other hand will be motivated for the change process because they will be made to understand that it is all about improving the satisfactions of the customers and the overall performance of the company.

5.0 Elements necessary for successful implementation of change process

In terms of what literatures view to be the main factors influence implementation process negatively, the ideas and conceptualization has been that the business leaders are very worried about the uncertainties that surround change process and in most cases seem to be afraid that such implementation will change the status quo (Beer and Eisenstat, 1996; Burdett, 1999; Hutt et al., 1995; Kanter, 1989; Krüger, 1996; Maurer, 1996; Rumelt, 1995) and embedded routines (Hannan and Freeman, 1984; Rumelt, 1995; Starbuck et al., 1978). On that ground, a number of elements need to be put in place in order to ensure that the change process is a success and these elements include:

5.1 Defined clear objectives – the implementation must have a clear objective which is it is desired to achieve and this objective will be the building block upon which the overall implementation process will be built upon.

5.2 Clear implementation plan – there should also be an implementation plan that breaks down all the implementation process into minute circles, detailing what is expected to be done at each stage, the people that will do such and how it will be done. This plan will help to design a clear guideline for meeting the overall implementation objectives.

5.3 Realistic budgets and cost plan – just having a budget is not enough, there is the need to ensure that the need to ensure that the budget will cover the whole implementation process and that all expenses are covered in the cost plan to ensure that the implementation is not halted in any case by the lack of necessary funding needed to make it a success.

5.4 Control measures – for any contingency that will or might arise in the course of the implementation process, there is the need to have a pre-plan for handling such contingencies. The lack of plan will sure give a negative blow on the successful implementation of the project process and it is important that companies have well established plans.

6.0 Elements necessary for monitoring and control of the business process

From the above discussions, it is now clear that change process is not an easy approach in terms of the business setting. This is because the company faces a number of pressures from stakeholders with respect to enacting new change model and they will have no reason not to address such pressures because the success of the new business model depends heavily on how the company is able to address these change management issues. As such, a number of elements need to be put in place in order for the control and monitoring process to be a success with respect to the new business process management designed for Virgo Services Malaysia. These elements are as discussed below.

6.1 Clear guideline for the new business process – in order to ensure that the staffs understand the change process and their change process is easily measured, a clear guideline of things they need to change and how they need to change it will be drawn. This will be used to measure each staffs in the effect that the change process is considered success if the staffs have been able to adopt the clear guidelines set and the progress of the whole process will also be measured. The progress will also be monitored through this clear guideline and unintended outcome will be controlled even before they occur.

6.2 Feedback and complaints analysis – once the business process change has been enacted, the feedbacks from both staffs and customers as well as the complaints from the customer will be analysed. Once the customers are giving positive feedback, then it can be viewed that the change process is successful, while high complaints will be a measure of unsuccessful change process.

6.3 Supervisors – in term of measuring and controlling the change process, personnel are needed and the supervisors are the right people to supervise the whole change process, monitor and control it to ensure that the outcome in the end is as designed in the objectives.

7.0 Conclusion

From the discussion above, it is clear that business process management is an inevitable aspect of any business. This is because as companies continue to growth both financially and otherwise, they are faced with a number of issues with respect to maintaining business sustainability and they must address these issues in order to ensure that their business is sustainable. However, a number of pressures are being emphasized on the business form stakeholders and they need to handle these pressures in order to ensure that the process change is a success. It was made known in the earlier discussions that the reason for these pressures is because the stakeholders don’t really understand the change process and they don’t see to get used to the new process because they are well accustomed with the old process. In the view of that, it was recommended that the Virgo Services Malaysia should need to understand the change process, plan it carefully, educate the stakeholders on the benefits of the new process and control the process in order to ensure that the outcome is as projected.

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