Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Business processes
The word
business
associated to the process definition can seem ambiguous, but it is
mostly due to how abstract the concept of business really is. From a developer-friendly per-
spective, we can think of business as a particular domain or context, or group of contexts. It
could be easily exchanged in this case for domain, field, company, company unit, and any
lingo that specifies a defined area of work. Business processes need to be evaluated, ana-
lyzed, designed, modeled, and validated by people who understand the domain where those
processes belong. Since there are different business roles within a company, each should
know a different perspective of the same process. Then, the business process becomes a
common point of interaction and a common language between those roles. Activities, de-
cisions, events, and many different components will define the structure of the way a pro-
cess that is relative to a business needs to be conducted.
It is important to notice that the goal of business processes is tightly associated to the busi-
ness goals, objectives, and strategies. With all these considerations in mind, we can arrive
to the following definition:
Business processes are a sequence of business activities done by business users and busi-
ness applications (company or third-party systems) to achieve a business goal for the pur-
pose of a specific increase in value from the business' perspective.
We'll analyze this definition in detail by splitting it into its three main concepts and cover-
ing them thoroughly.
