In today’s economic climate, your business must operate at maximum efficiency to stay competitive. Building end-to-end processes is one way to make this happen.
Why is this approach to business process management (BPM) becoming so critical to organizations? It’s because the end result is a holistic view of how work is done, which enables you to identify problem areas and implement process improvements to optimize the efficiency of workflows.
But what exactly is an end-to-end-process? How does it help, and how do you build one?
Let’s dive in.
What is an end-to-end process?
An end-to-end process is one that captures an entire workflow from the beginning of a process to the end. Such a process connects “process steps across functional boundaries that are focused on the same end goal,” explains Holly Lyke-Ho-Gland, principal research lead at the American Productivity & Quality Center.
Defining processes in such a way essentially eliminates the middleman. End-to-end solutions enable businesses to reduce or eliminate inefficiencies and meet their deliverables without having to rely on a third-party solution at any point in the process. It’s a single solution to get from point A to point B.
Through an end-to-end process, you can see, monitor, and evaluate everything within processes to ensure they’re working as efficiently as possible. This reduces waste and helps companies reach their goals.
Some examples of end-to-end processes include
- The complete procurement cycle, from procurement to payment
- The complete worker lifecycle, from recruitment to retirement
- The complete customer product acquisition cycle, from order to cash
Why is an end-to-end process important?
Inefficient processes lead to missed deadlines, incomplete projects, and budget overruns. Holistic process management solutions, such as end-to-end processes, help you avoid these pitfalls that can keep your company from meeting its business objectives.
The team at Corporate Finance Institute (CFI) identifies a few of the many specific and tangible benefits to adopting end-to-end processes:
- Better process clarity and transparency
- Faster execution of new projects
- Better financial outcomes
Such processes also allow organizations to break down functional silos, create greater value for their customers, and achieve a competitive advantage, all of which play a key role in improving organizational performance.
End-to-end processes further play a role in helping to “ensure leading-class performance in terms of costs, performance, compliance, and insights,” note KPMG’s David Brown and Stan Lepeak.
What’s the best way to create end-to-end processes?
Building end-to-end processes starts with understanding and defining your workflows. For a lot of companies, the biggest challenge is identifying exactly where a process starts and where it ends. In order to successfully employ this methodology for improving processes, you must be able to precisely pinpoint where the process starts, where it ends, and how you’ll govern it.
From there, it’s all about implementing procedures and systems that maximize the efficiency of the workflows. An end-to-end solutions provider, such as Jotform, can automate this process for you.
With Jotform’s templates, you not only streamline processes but also collect and secure the data in one centralized location, which can help you make better, more informed business decisions. By combining all three of these template types as needed, you can build end-to-end processes without having to give control to a third-party vendor:
- Form templates: Jotform has more than 10,000 form templates you can use to create any forms you need to build any process. Evaluation forms, awards forms, inspection forms, interview forms, quote forms, quiz forms, and tracking forms are just a few of the many you can choose from.
- Table templates: With over 300 table templates, Jotform makes it easy for you to create templates to make processes more efficient. Whether you need attendance sheets, inventory templates, calendar templates, budget sheets, or any other custom template, Jotform’s table templates can meet your needs.
- App templates: Jotform’s app templates enable you to build a custom no-code app to meet the demands of your processes. With over 400 templates to choose from, you’re guaranteed to find one that suits your situation. Jotform offers booking apps, inventory apps, inspection apps, reservation apps, and more that are useful in any industry.
Using these templates to automate as many of your processes as possible from beginning to end will increase their efficiency, thereby improving your company’s overall performance. It’s worth your time and effort to implement this business process management methodology to improve every aspect of your business.
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