Aligning business processes to the strategic goals of the organisation

Abstract: The aim of this study is to understand the role that business process engineering domain plays in aligning business processes to the strategic goals of the organization. Business processes are characterised by the receipt of input, conversion, and a specific output as required by the need that triggered the process. As a result, the execution of a business process is subject to numerous inefficiencies that prohibit the successful implementation of strategic goals that an organisation is intending to achieve. These inefficiencies could be eliminated by considering best practices that are applied to improve business processes. This study was seeking to understand the relationship between inefficiencies, business process redesign best practices, and process performance indicators. A great deal of work has been developed by various authors in understanding the effects of inefficiencies, and also a great deal of work has been done in studying best practices within business processes. There is also a lot of work done by various authors within different sectors regarding strategic alignment. There are probably few studies that have examined this relationship between inefficiencies, business process redesign best practices, and strategic goals. This study outlined a conceptual research model which consisted of the following factors: Identification of inefficiencies, Classification of inefficiencies, Business process redesign best practices, and Business process outcome. The model basically considers that identification of inefficiencies will lead to proper classification of inefficiencies, and classification of inefficiencies will result in applying an appropriate business process redesign best practice, which will influence the performance indicators that are normally associated with any business process leading to an aligned business process. A survey was conducted at the South African Post Office by distributing a questionnaire where respondents were allowed to rank each question in order to test the proposed research model. The results obtained were then analysed by applying statistical tools and the model was further analysed through the use of partial least square structural equation modelling. The research confirmed that the classification of inefficiencies is an important factor for the selection of an appropriate business process redesign best practice. The research also confirmed that business process redesign best practices that impact flexibility, time, and quality factors are more important in influencing the business process outcome factor leading to an aligned business process.M.Phil. (Engineering Management