Organizational Culture to BPM Automation (Pillar Three)

"The culture of paper in a business today is still considered important, as a means of support and evidence of any activity carried out within an established process. The change into a culture oriented to the use of information technology is mainly based on the commitment of the end user to live in an environment of automated activities and operational activities within the process where paper is used mainly in necessary control processes. It is also important the integrity and reliability of the information are aspects the BPM tool and the leader of the process to be automated must take into account and not a concern of the end user."

The use of paper is usually, within a non automated process, important and taken as evidence of the execution of an activity. There exists a generation and use of paper that is sometimes unnecessary in the flow of activities, the actors are used to maintain their operation and use of paper, without taking into account the costs involved for the business. So, a change in the perspective of the user who has a "culture of paper” must be oriented to the use of information technology, which is considered an important pillar for a proper and successful process automation.

When the business wants to implement a BPM tool and maintaining the volume of automatic generation of documents based on paper, they are not thinking about adopting the benefit on the use of the process automation tool. One of the advantages on the use of a BPM tool is the cost savings in the activities automation and the use of electronic forms derived from one instance to another, digitally, instead of daily paperwork. Also, a proper validation of the electronic forms according to the user operations minimize any misunderstanding and ensures a proper record of information the organization considers important. So the end user will have a behaviour governed by the business rules which are formally defined in the automated process through a BPM tool.

Human capital and the management should be sufficiently committed to the business in order that the processes automation can be easily adopted by end users. The of support the implementation team, developing and giving socialization training about the BPM tool, becomes beneficial for the business and for the automated process implementation using any BPM tool. Socialization trainings must be strictly kept to the gradual change of the organization with the adoption of BPM tool that will automate business processes. Also, these trainings should show the importance of human capital for the organization and improving its operating.

According to the aspects mentioned above, the processes automation within an organization is focused as a change on the organizational culture, this has been defined as "a certain sum of values and norms that are shared by individuals and groups in an organization, that control the way they interact with each other, and with the organizational environment. The organizational values are beliefs and ideas about the type of goals and how appropriate they should achieve. The values of the organization develop standards, guidelines and expectations that determine an appropriate behaviour of the employees in particular situations. Also they control the behaviour of organizational members to one another "(Hill and Jones, 2001). The organizational change will turn it into a competitive organization, adopting information technologic tools such as BPM tool.

The adoption of new technologies and leadership in the organization are key issues for an organization to be considered successful. The performance of the organization must be oriented to life with information technologies as the technology growth, for some time, is exponential. Whoever fails to adopt information technologies mainly based on continuous and strategic improvements stays on enormous disadvantage with other organizations.

Organizational culture represents an important role for improving the productivity and the strategic procedure within the organization. Orientation (as leaders of process automation) within an organization involves a common benefit and a business opportunity. Customizing a process and validating it, focused on controls together with the leaders of the organization, minimize the existence of operational risk inherent in any manual activity. It is in this sense that the organizational culture plays an important role in process automation based on a tool for process automation (BPM).

Ramiro Cuentas, B.S. in Computer Science, has three years of experience in process automation implementations and more than five years of experience in information and communication technologies. Mr. Cuentas specializes in applying concepts, techniques, methodologies, and best practices in process automations. Currently he is the National BPM Technical Coordinator in a project financed by the World Bank with the goal of applying a BPM system in 100 small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) in Bolivia, in order to improve their productivity and strategic management.

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