Developing Enterprise-Wide Business Process Management Capability: A Teaching Case From the Financial Sector

Abstract

Continuously managing business processes is globally a high organisational priority. The necessity for organisation-wide process management approaches (as opposed to ad hoc initiatives) is widely recognised. Yet, the required skills and capabilities for such enterprise-wide BPM is a well-known gap, with little resources to date to address this. This teaching case is based on the Bank of Queensland (BOQ—one of the oldest financial institutions in Australia). The narrative provides an overview of a range of Enterprise level business process management (hereafter referred to as ‘E-BPM’) activities that have taken place to date at BOQ to build its E-BPM capability.

This case was prepared for inclusion in Sage Business Cases primarily as a basis for classroom discussion or self-study, and is not meant to illustrate either effective or ineffective management styles. Nothing herein shall be deemed to be an endorsement of any kind. This case is for scholarly, educational, or personal use only within your university, and cannot be forwarded outside the university or used for other commercial purposes.

2024 Sage Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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Resources

Appendix 1: Position Descriptions of Selected BPM Roles From BOQ

Bank of Queensland—Business Analyst (at the IPCO)
Job Description

The Business Analyst role exists in the Investment Portfolio Change Office, part of the Enterprise Solutions team of BOQ. The purpose of a Business Analyst is to assist the customer to determine their actual needs and not just act on their expressed solution. This is achieved by understanding the business and their end-to-end processes, analysing the business problem and identifying solution options enabling the business to select a solution that best fits the problem.

Key Tasks

Analysis and research

  • Liaise with stakeholders to identify and understand the end-to-end current state as it relates to the initiative. Current state includes organisation, people, processes and system factors.
  • Identify deficiencies and improvement opportunities that will impact the initiative/project.
  • Identify discrepancies in information gathered and where additional clarification is needed.
  • Prepare Current State documentation that includes process models accompanied by clear, concise and accurate explanations, within the timeframe agreed with the manager.
  • Identify where detailed causal analysis around problems is required.
  • Confirm and validate all findings with relevant stakeholders.

Elicit and document business requirements

  • Use identified gaps between current and future states to identify the changes required.
  • Prepare Business Requirements documents in a form that is right for the initiative and meets internal quality criteria in the timeframe agreed with the manager.
  • Actively seek feedback from stakeholders and update the requirements as necessary. Monitor business requirements throughout the project to ensure delivery of the correct outcomes.
  • Assess the impact of change requests on the business requirements and against the agreed future state and provide feedback where necessary.

Solution development

  • Liaise with stakeholders to develop the high-level future state processes and undertake gap analysis with the current state.
  • Prepare high-level and detailed future state documentation and ensure this is kept up to date throughout the life of the initiative.

Customer focus

  • Display excellent interpersonal skills with an ability to communicate at all levels in a clear and unambiguous manner.
  • Establish and maintain key relationships with Business Units across the organisation to understand all critical business processes within BOQ.
  • Maintain communication and keep stakeholders informed as development progresses.
  • Assist in documenting processes for change management.
  • Support test, development, training and change management teams to ensure the changes are fully understood.

General

  • Assist with delivering projects on time, within budget and as specified within scope.
  • Ensure internal document quality standards are maintained.
  • Ensure internal CANDO principals are followed.
Required Skills
  • Strong communication skills (both written and verbal).
  • Analytical skills.
  • Teamwork/relationship building skills.
  • Ability to plan, organise and manage own time.
  • Achievement oriented.
  • Negotiation and influencing skills.
  • Exposure to different project management methodologies.
  • Exposure to different system development methodologies.
  • Understanding of business process improvement methodology.
Qualifications
  • A degree would be well regarded, however, it is not essential.
Required Experience
  • 5 years+ experience in a business analysis role on projects.
  • Process modelling and business writing experience.
  • Customer service roles.
Bank of Queensland—Business Excellence Manager
Job Description

The Business Excellence Manager reports to the Senior Manager, Business Excellence, and is responsible for assisting with the implementation of key initiatives to enable effective achievement of key process excellence initiatives across the BOQ Group. This involves managing key initiatives that support the BOQ Group strategy and may include participation in the development of policies and procedures, BAU processes and the communication of these activities to the GM Operations, COO and Executive.

Support and Assistance
  • Provision of high-quality Business Process Management support to enable successful execution of the Group’s key initiatives to enable effective achievement of key process excellence initiatives.
  • Manage the implementation of process change across the organisation.
  • Undertake process analysis to identify systemic issues for the organisation.
  • Establish appropriate action plans to support improved Business Process Management maturity.
  • Support the management of the quality and productivity Management Tool Kit.
  • Work with department leaders, and prepare recommendations for process excellence, workflow and productivity metrics.
  • Support the Business Excellence Team’s responsibilities to effectively manage Policy and Procedures for the group.
Change Management
  • Participate in the consultation process with key stakeholders.
  • Co-ordinate and plan Business Process Management initiatives.
  • Effectively manage BPM projects, with both internal and external stakeholders.
Management Reporting and Communication
  • Manage the preparation of reports and presentations relating to operational efficiency, policy changes and cost efficiency matters for distribution to General Managers, Management Committees, Executive, the Board and other stakeholders.
  • Engage with the Group’s key leaders to review operational performance and use this to understand required improvements.
  • Coordinate forums and reviews as required.
  • Respond to ad hoc enquiries.
Required Experience
  • Experience in business process management within the Financial Services industry.
  • Knowledge and understanding of financial markets.
  • Knowledge of productivity and quality management.
  • Exposure to financial models.
  • Strong analytical and problem solving skills.
  • Previous experience as a mentor/coach to other team members.
  • Knowledge of risk policies and governance standards.
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills.
  • Sound business acumen.
  • Change management focus.
  • Strong attention to detail.
  • Excellent time management skills.
  • Results orientated with a strong customer service focus.
  • Superior working knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel, Visio, PowerPoint.
  • Tertiary qualifications in Finance or other Business/Commerce-related discipline.
Bank of Queensland—Technical Writer

BOQ is one of Australia’s most dynamic and innovative financial institutions. One of Australia’s top 100 listed companies, BOQ is a retail bank offering a network of more than 270 branches across Australia, almost 200 of which are operated under a unique Owner–Manager Model, an insurance group and a Finance division.

The Technical Writer is responsible for supporting the Business Architecture & Productivity team’s review of policy, procedures, forms and templates governance. Specifically the role will establish definitions, templates and guides to support further enhancements to the bank’s current process. In addition, the role will support the rewriting of a number of the bank’s procedures into the new formats.

Responsibilities Include
  • Create new and amend existing procedures for the business as required.
  • Extract and document information in a clear and succinct manner, record in a logical context, within company guidelines.
  • Prepare all reports, correspondence and documentation.
  • Ensure all appropriate stakeholders are engaged to obtain feedback and approval on new or amended procedures.
  • Collaborate closely with business analysts, document owners and stakeholders to ensure all necessary policy and procedure documents have been captured and are in scope.
  • Support other members of the team to effectively support successful implementation of projects.
To Be Considered for This Role, You Will Demonstrate
  • Previous Technical Writing experience.
  • Financial Services experience is preferred.
  • Prior process improvement and training experience preferred.
  • Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
  • Sound knowledge of Best Practice for Policy and Procedure practice.
  • Expert knowledge of MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Adobe LiveCycle.
  • Ability to work with people at all levels of the organisation.
  • Ability to work as part of a team or individually.
  • Exceptional attention to detail.
  • Process mapping experience would be beneficial.
  • Degree in relevant discipline, e.g. English, Business preferred.

Appendix 2: Screen Shots From Selected Corporate Web Sites

The website has two panels – a small one on the left that is titled, useful links and a large one on the right that is titled, business excellence tools. The text in the useful links panel reads: American Society for Quality

Australian Institute of Management

TED Talks – innovation

Charles Leadbeater: The era of open innovation.

How to innovate organisations.

Dr. Michael Rosemann from QUT – Video

Dr. Michael Rosemann on howto

Create innovation

Business Excellence Team

Contact us with your ideas and questions.

The business excellence tools panel on the right has a grid with the image of the tool on the left column and the name of the tool on the right. The list reads as follows:

(A garbage bin): Lean – 7 wastes handbook.

(A thumbnail image of a graph) – Fishbone overview.

(A thumbnail image of a graph) – Fishbone template.

(A thumbnail image of a graph) – Impact effort matrix.

(A thumbnail image of a graph) –Pareto chart template.

(A thumbnail image of a bar graph) – Histogram template.

(A thumbnail image of a graph) – 8 D scoping tool.

The next three rows do not have an image. The tools on the right read:

Process modelling guidelines.

Process model template.

Process model shape stencil.

Fig. 6: Screen Shot of the Business Excellence Tools’ Intranet Site That Lists BPI Tools (as of Date 9/7/2016)
A screen shot of the business excellence tools on their intranet site is seen here. The small text below this title reads, use these tools to help you improve your processes.

This page is titled, BOQ business process architecture. A repository of different types of documents is seen below. The headings seen for these documents are: type, name, description, modified, modified by and release. A snapshot of the process architecture release 1.6 is seen below this list of documents. This snapshot is an excel sheet with columns that read: level, node ID, title, description and PUID.

A business excellence panel on the left has links below that read:

Libraries:

Site pages.

Shared documents.

Lists:

Calendar.

Tasks.

Discussions:

Team discussions.

A small box below reads: recycle bin and all site content.

A drop-down menu in a box on the top banner reads, TeamSource and a search icon is seen on the far-right side of this banner.

Figure 7: Screenshot of the SharePoint Site for the Process Architecture (as of Date 9/7/2016)
This is a screen shot of the SharePoint site for the process architecture.

The website is labelled BIC platform. A menu bar is seen on top and three tabs labelled start, extras and tasks is seen above this menu banner. The menu banner has the following options: home, view, change history, favorite, invite to discussion, my home, logout and information.

A tab below the menu banner reads, to the start page of BIC platform. The next section has two panels. The panel on the left is titled, explorer, and the menu tab below reads, overview. This panel has a list of topics that starts with the BOQ working database. The option process architecture is seen below this option and a list of 20 topics are listed below. Product and projects are the next two options with drop-down menus below this list. A list of videos is seen below these two options.

The panel on the right side of this section has five tabs that read flow, graphic, table, documents and links, and details. The graphic tab is open and a banner below reads, BOQ Process architecture.

A large box below this banner reads: CA – customer acquisition, retention and management. A grid of boxes below read:

Row 1: AP – customer application; CTA – Customer account transactions, MCA – Customer account maintenance, DP – Mortgage, loans and lease maintenance, INS – Insurance maintenance, FM – Financial markets. The last two boxes are one on top of the other.

Row 2: PM – Product management, DC – Manage distribution network, FCH – Franchise management, ER – External relationship management.

Row 3: IT – Information technology, HR – Talent and culture, MFA – Manage financial assets and liabilities, M – Risk, compliance and resiliency.

Row 4: CF – Finance and accounting, PFM – Property and facilities management, KIC – Knowledge, improvement and change, BS – Business support and administration.

A large box below reads: ST – Strategy and management.

Figure 8: Screenshot of the Web Portal for the BIC Process Modelling Tool Displaying the Process Architecture (as of Date 9/7/2016)
This figure shows a screen shot of the Web Portal for the BIC process modelling tool displaying the process architecture.

This web page has five boxes. The first box on the top right corner is titled: IPCO Team. The three options seen below read: Business analysis, portfolio management and project delivery.

The next box below is titled, useful links. The three options below read: project lifecycle, project tool kit and small initiatives.

The next box below reads: Transformation in a dark-coloured box.

There are two large boxes on the right of these three boxes. The first box above reads: The central investment portfolio change office (IPCO), based in Brisbane, oversees small initiatives, projects and programs across the BOQ Group.

The IPCO:

  • Is the business owner of the bank’s project and portfolio management functions.

(There are three more points under this heading).

To be effective, the IPCO aims to achieve the following:

  • Lead, drive and coordinate all project planning and delivery across BOQ.

(There are six more points under this heading).

Another box below this one has an icon of figures sitting around a conference table with a jigsaw puzzle each, and a puzzle in the middle of the table. The caption on the right reads: Projects @ BOQ. Smaller text below reads: click here to access the Projects@BOQ page for information on the project lifecycle, tools, templates and processes.

Figure 9: Screen shot of the IPCO’s corporate web page (as of Date 9/7/16)
This is a screen shot of the IPCO’s corporate web page.

This case was prepared for inclusion in Sage Business Cases primarily as a basis for classroom discussion or self-study, and is not meant to illustrate either effective or ineffective management styles. Nothing herein shall be deemed to be an endorsement of any kind. This case is for scholarly, educational, or personal use only within your university, and cannot be forwarded outside the university or used for other commercial purposes.

2024 Sage Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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