Understanding Business Processes

Description

What do business organisations do? The results of business behaviour can be observed and experienced in the form of the goods that are produced. However what goes on within organisations is often hidden from the outside world. This reader enables the student to make sense of business behaviour by offering an understanding of what organisations do. The book is underpinned by a systems perspective and takes a process view of organisations. This enables it to demonstrate that any business is a number of interrelated business processes and that success is determined by the extent to which these activities add value whilst minimising cost. Specifically the book focuses on: activities through which the organisation interacts with its customers including marketing and sales how organisations process materials including purchasing and manufacturing forms of business organisation, with a critical account of new paradigms including Business Process Re-engineering The book features articles by leading business gurus including Michael Porter, Philip Kotler and John Kay.

David Barnes has pursued an industrial as well as academic career. He has worked for a number of organizations ranging from blue chip to small family owned businesses in the process plant contracting and building products manufacturing industries. He is a Lecturer in Management at The Open University Business School, where his interests centre on the strategic management of operations