Business Process Management and Systems Report: Woolworths Limited

This report focuses on Woolworths Limited, a major Australian retailer, and examines a business process management case study conducted by Leonardo Consulting. It illustrates the role of business process management in achieving Woolworths' strategic goals of continuous improvement and growth. The report includes an AS-IS process map of online order processing, highlighting key steps from customer website visit to order placement, including order validation and marketing suggestions. It discusses how BPM enhances agility, productivity, and efficiency by standardizing processes, reducing resource wastage, and improving communication between business and IT. The report also evaluates different BPM approaches, such as workflow-oriented, document-oriented, and EAI-oriented BPM, emphasizing the importance of integrating operational data from diverse systems. The conclusion emphasizes BPM's role in improving business operations and achieving organizational goals, suggesting that modeling a TO-BE process map could further reduce resource wastage and costs.

Running head: BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT & SYSTEMS
Business Process Development Plan of As-Is Situation
“Woolworths Limited”
Student Name:
University Name:

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
AS-IS Process Map......................................................................................................................2
Role of business process management............................................................................................3
Approaches to business process management and systems.............................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
The focus of this report is on “Woolworths Limited” which is considered as the largest
retail organization based in Australia and it encompasses various well-known brands. In this
report, a particular case study of business process management in Woolworths Limited which
was undertaken by Leonardo Consulting. The discussions in this report are presented to illustrate
the role of business process management in Woolworths Limited along with evaluation of
approaches to business process management and systems.
AS-IS Process Map
Figure 1: AS-IS Process Map of “Online Order” in Woolworths Limited
(Source: Created by Author)

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The above diagram presents the process flow that is being followed when a client visits
the online store of Woolworths Limited for ordering products from their store. The process starts
with customer visiting the online website to view products and finishes after successful placing
of order. The customer selects certain items to purchase and the order is sent to the seller who
checks the order for correctness to see if there is any modifications or update required. Then,
validation of the order is carried out to check if the ordered item or product is in stock or not and
it is done by the store. If the item is available then order is processed for completion and in case
of non-availability, the order is rejected alongside customer is informed. Meanwhile, during the
order processing from seller, marketing has also an important role of suggesting related products
to the customer as per their order.
Role of business process management
Woolworths Limited emphasizes on diversification and acquisition of further companies
along with a strategic goal towards continuous improvement as well as growth of the whole
organization and their divisions. It has been determined that the business process management
will help the organization to strive in future by achieving their strategic goals (Consulting, 2018).
There may be occurrence of various significant projects within the organization or their
divisions. Moreover, the organization determined to gather knowledge about the suitable
practices for the executing their processes within the divisions for optimizing their operations.
Hence, Business process management was implemented so that organization is capable of
constantly reviewing their processes. Business process management also played a vital role in
standardization, allowing reuse along with streamlining operational efficiency of the
organization.

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BPM has brought changes in business processes thus it has improved agility of the
organization in context to incorporating changes without much expense. The changes has helped
to improve productivity and minimize the resource wastage. The implementation of BPM has
also increased efficiency of the organization as well as saving resources. BPM also comprised of
efficient design and execution of processes by monitoring continuously which has helped to
reduce the risks of fraud. BPM has also enabled the organization to focus better on the
employees so that productivity and a quality of service can be improved. Implementing BPM has
helped to execute every task as per the plan and design so that there is no need of reinventing or
redesigning everything (Jeston, 2014). Thus, it can be said that BPM has been implemented for
bringing better consistency as well as repeatability within the business. The solutions with BPM
has enhanced communication among the customers associated with the business and IT such that
misunderstandings or misleading perceptions can be eliminated.
Approaches to business process management and systems
There are various approaches to business process management and systems from which
some are presented as below:
Workflow oriented BPM
The workflow is defined as the process of interaction between person to person or person
to system in a BPM space. In this BPM approach, the focus is on optimizing the activities within
business processes that are human oriented (Kumar, 2018). The activities that are included in this
approach involves monitoring of activity, governance of process and handling the unfinished
documents such that those can be processed further down the line.
Document oriented BPM

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The management of documents and workflow is carried out simultaneously where the
tracking of documents is done to determine the changes being made during their travel through
the workflow. This BPM approach also involves maintaining records about the authenticity,
security along with availability of documents (Rosemann & vom Brocke, 2015). Computer
technology is used by the present systems for document management for providing storage,
security along with indexing as well as options of retrieval. Availability is growing as a major
necessity of business organizations as a single document is often accessed by multiple parties
with the help of various applications (Hammer, 2015). Hence, a major criteria for successful
document oriented BPM is suitable integration with existing systems of a business organization.
EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) oriented BPM
The method of integrating operational data from diverse systems have improved through
past years in the form of EAI. The integration was hard wired that is it was carried out as one to
one integration, queuing of messages for application integration has become popular. Some
examples in which this approach is implied are clearing of bank checks or execution of inventory
orders which provided as essence of workflow oriented BPM to the integrations servers. But,
now a days, architect are using this approach for handling process automation in the business
organization for improving their processes as well as integration of Electronic Data Interchanges.
Conclusion
From the above report, it can be concluded that Business Process Management has an
important role to play in improving the efficiency of business operations. It has been identified
that Business Process Management (BPM) is an essential factor which enabled the organization
to achieve their desired goals. The implementation of BPM in Woolworths Limited has likewise

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helped the organization to achieve their desired goals with the help of proper planning and
design. The improvement of the existing process within the organization can be improved further
with the help of modelling a “TO-BE process map”. The remodeling of the existing process will
help to reduce the wastage of resources as well as cost.
References
Brocke, J. V., & Rosemann, M. (2014). Handbook on business process management 2: strategic
alignment, governance, people and culture. Springer Publishing Company, Incorporated.
Chang, J. F. (2016). Business process management systems: strategy and implementation.
Auerbach Publications.
Consulting, L. (2018). BPM Customer Casestudies - Woolworths Limited. Leonardo.com.au.
Retrieved 3 July 2018, from https://www.leonardo.com.au/case-studies-woolworths
Hammer, M. (2015). What is business process management?. In Handbook on business process
management 1 (pp. 3-16). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Jeston, J. (2014). Business process management. Routledge.
Kumar, A. (2018). Business process management. Routledge.
Rosemann, M., & vom Brocke, J. (2015). The six core elements of business process
management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer,
Berlin, Heidelberg.
Vom Brocke, J., Schmiedel, T., Recker, J., Trkman, P., Mertens, W., & Viaene, S. (2014). Ten
principles of good business process management. Business process management journal,
20(4), 530-548.

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