17.3 The process perspective

The basic units of value creation are business processes, which can be defined as a sequence of activities that takes one or more inputs and creates an output that is of value to the customer. In operations, order fulfilment, which has a client order as input and delivered goods as output, is perhaps the most important value-generating process.

Most major consultancy firms offer their own business process or performance improvement (BPI) programmes, which are usually part of an overall change management methodology. Apart from a change management methodology, process improvement involves looking into specific technical areas and applying the relevant industrial engineering techniques. In general, consultants will have to consider the following areas: