Value Management provides a platform for presenting process intelligence information in a strategic context. Providing information on the process perspective across an organisation and putting issues timely on the senior management board’s agenda, is at the heart of BPM. Identification of Strategic Business Objectives (SBO) defined within a Value Management scope is a starting place for the strategic process approach. The more structured the Value Management is handled in a company the more effectively the implemented BPM Function can align the process governance with the overall vision and value policy.

It should be highlighted that identified strategic process descriptions must have a clear relationship to the company’s value-based SBOs. All of them, that is. If not all main business processes have a clear value reference, the strategic basis for BPM is not fully in place and the identified processes are either not appropriate or the senior management is not fully monitoring the success of their business model.

Reporting on performance indicators and documenting how well the business performs in support of the business objectives is essential to both the BPM and the Value Management disciplines. Robust and systematic information on the business process perspective is exactly what the BPM Function can deliver from monitoring and governing processes. This information is also exactly, what is required for Value Management to align and balance the various objectives.

Understanding this strategic value perspective of BPM is mandatory if any attempt to establish a BPM function should be successful and the wish to maintain a value perspective for the operational BPM work should be realistic.

What the Value Driver Model© tells a BPM function through the Value Driver Field “Value Management”, is that the unit should give highest priority to delivering value based process intelligence for senior strategic Business Process Owners. This process intelligence provided must contribute to the formulation of useful Strategic Business Objectives (SBO) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI).
By contributing a strategic process perspective, the BPM function provides not just focal points for top management when setting SBOs but, by doing so, also establishes the starting point for breaking down KPI’s and identifying related Process Performance Indicators (PPI) to processes. In addition, this identification of process related indicators provides also input to strategic risk management.

Altogether, this is a challenging picture to hold together and even more so when the elements are broken down further into more detail. To handle this the BPM function will need to build a truly strategically anchored process architecture, an anchor which so far has been very difficult establish so far. The Value Driver Model© tells us that the anchor can be established by running proper BPM and focusing on value rather than line of business.

The line of argument above leads to the clear conclusion that Value Management in a company cannot be separated from BPM and EA and that all these aspects must be worked on if a BPM function should have any chance of delivering on objectives.