It is generally accepted that organizations fulfill their missions and objectives by performing "business processes." Senior managers are told that it is imperative they manage and/or assign owners to "core" processes. What criteria do you use to determine which processes are "core" processes?
- Value-added vs. non-value-added?
- Departmental vs. cross-functional?
- Internal customer vs. external customer?
- Revenue generating vs. non-revenue generating?
Each of these criteria has its merits but none can be used to identify and label your organization’s core processes. For instance, in the pharmaceuticals industry the R&D Department may not be cross-functional, revenue-generating or directly serve external customers but R&D is certainly a core process for a company that produces life-saving drugs.
Core business processes are typically large, cross-functional collections of activities that:
