Exploring How to Make Business Processes Clean Core Compliant

In this unit, we turn our attention to the individual dimensions of clean core. We briefly mentioned them in Unit 2 and now, we analyze each one more deeply. For each of them, we explore the specific outcomes that result in clean core "compliance".

Watch the video to get an overview of the dimension — business processes.

Clean core mantra: "Keep competitiveness while reducing complexity".

The first step in making business processes clean core compliant is to establish a strong organizational structure. This means defining clear roles and responsibilities for each team member involved in the process, from the business analysts and project managers to the developers and testers. By clearly defining who is responsible for what, organizations can ensure that there is accountability at every step of the process.

Once the organizational structure is in place, the next step is to build a robust technical foundation. This involves selecting the correct tools and technologies to support the business processes, as well as ensuring that the infrastructure is scalable and secure. By having a strong technical foundation, organizations can ensure that their processes are efficient and reliable, with minimal risk of downtime or security breaches. SAP S/4HANA Cloud along with SAP BTP to along with other tools fulfill this requirement.

The third key component of clean core compliance is having a transformation methodology in place, based on the different types of project implementation approaches discussed in Unit 2, Lesson 2: "Describing Implementation Types And Clean Core". This component involves having a clear, repeatable process for evaluating, implementing, and optimizing business processes. By following a structured methodology, organizations can ensure that they are continuously improving their processes and staying ahead of the competition.

Project teams can use the following as a guidepost:

• Define roles and responsibilities as part of a process transformation office (or similar instance driving the success of business process transformation).
• Set up an end-to-end toolchain connecting Enterprise Architecture Management with Business Process Management and Application Lifecycle Management.
• Establish guidelines for governing process enhancements and improvements.

Key solution capabilities to help project teams:

• LeanIX.

  LeanIX solutions allow teams to visualize their IT application landscape, identify applications that may become obsolete, facilitate the design of a target state, and help plan new architectural road maps.

• SAP Solution Manager and SAP Cloud ALM.

  Both solutions help to accelerate time to value and reduce TCO. SAP Cloud ALM particularly is a cloud native offering from SAP to customers which they can use to both implement SAP Cloud solutions and to operate cloud and hybrid landscapes.

• SAP Signavio Process Manager

  SAP Signavio Process Manager is an intuitive and comprehensive modeling platform for business process management (BPM) that enables organizations to capture, improve and maintain their business processes, fast and at scale.

• SAP Signavio Process Governance

  SAP Signavio Process Governance turns business process models created by Process Manager into standardized process governance workflows and enables organizations to increase internal and external compliance.

Use tools such as SAP Cloud Application Lifecycle Management and SAP Signavio Process Governance to establish a strong organizational structure.

The next step to be done is to establish a prioritized business process hierarchy. This involves identifying and categorizing core business processes based on their strategic importance, regulatory requirements, and impact on business operations. By prioritizing these processes, organizations can focus their efforts on optimizing the critical aspects of their business, leading to better outcomes and reduced compliance risk.

Once the prioritized business process hierarchy is in place, the next step is to segment the business process views into end-to-end and functional perspectives. End-to-end process views provide an overall understanding of how data flows through the organization. Functional process views focus on the specific activities and tasks within each business function. By segmenting the business process views, organizations can gain a comprehensive understanding of their operations and identify opportunities for improvement and optimization.

Project teams can use the following as a guidepost:

• Identify end-to-end processes and journeys based on corporate strategy and goals, identify and cluster functional processes into different layers. For example, commodity, differentiating, and innovating.
• Prioritization and segmentation of E2E and functional processes (optionally, apply pace layers from capability maps in EAM tool).

Key solution capabilities provided by SAP Signavio to help project teams:

• SAP Signavio Process Insights.
• SAP Signavio Process Intelligence

Both SAP Signavio Process Insights and SAP Signavio Process Intelligence provide a solution that helps customers rapidly discover areas for improvement and automation within their business processes. By utilization of these solutions customers can:

• Get a better understanding of processes
• Find the root cause of process problems
• Obtain faster value discovery pre-, mid-, or post-transformation
• Increase process transparency and process standardization
• Reduce transformation time and risks

SAP Signavio solutions are invaluable in understanding and prioritizing business processes.

Finally, it is important to align to-be process design and technical realization by applying best practices and centrally governing the to-be process, business requirements, and design approvals. This is crucial to ensure that your SAP ERP system operates efficiently and effectively, ultimately driving business growth and success.

One of the key aspects of aligning to-be process design with technical realization is applying best practices where possible. This inspect involves looking at how other companies in your industry or similar industries have optimized their business processes within their SAP ERP systems. By adopting and adapting these best practices to your own business, you can significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your processes while reducing the need for complex customizations.

Centrally governing the to-be process, business requirements, and design approvals can be accomplished by establishing a central authority or team to oversee the design and implementation of business processes in SAP ERP. By doing so, you can ensure that all processes are aligned with best practices, meet business requirements, and are approved in a standardized and consistent manner.

Project teams can use the following as a guidepost:

• Analyze as-is process execution and derive potential areas for improvement.
• Apply preconfigured best practice content as a baseline for to-be process design.
• Centrally govern to-be process design and associated business requirements all in one place.
• Link solution design, testing, realization, and rollout to the previously defined to-be process.

Key solution capabilities to help project teams:

• Methodology for SAP S/4HANA implementation: SAP Activate.
• General Guidance on SAP S/4HANA implementations and Best Practices.
• Preconfigured best practice processes, ready to consume: SAP Signavio Process Explorer, including, for example Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA).
• Business process and journey modeling: SAP Signavio Process Manager.
• Workflow engine to turn business process models into executable workflows: SAP Signavio Process Governance.
• Continuous commenting and collaboration on business processes: SAP Signavio Process Collaboration Hub.

You may have noticed that throughout this lesson we have mentioned how SAP Signavio through it's various capabilities is instrumental and invaluable in helping customers get their business processes clean. For more information on SAP Signavio learners can explore the learning journey Managing Business Processes with SAP Signavio Solutions as well as Analyzing Business Processes with SAP Signavio Solutions.

SAP Best Practices provides ready-to-run digitalized analytical and operational and integrative business processes (so called scope items) for an enterprise.

Making business processes clean core compliant is essential for organizations looking to stay competitive in today's fast-paced business environment. Organizations can ensure that their processes are efficient, reliable, and compliant with clean core by:

• establishing a strong organizational structure.
• implementing a robust technical foundation.
• using a transformation methodology.
• creating a detailed business process analysis, aligned with a strong technological foundation.

Applying SAP recommended best practices as much as possible leads clean core business processes.