Dear fellow member of the Financial
Leadership Team,
During the latest session with potential
buyers we received a lot of questions pertaining to the documentation of our business
processes, specifically flowcharts. When we went through the outsourcing activity
a few years ago we spend a significant amount of time with process owners to
document, in great detail, all actions associated with completing their day-to-day
activities. We never really fully explored using charts as opposed to process
narratives and therefore I wanted to research and provide you with my
assessment of this option. We all agree that we need to satisfy the
requirements of potential buyers and answer their process related inquiries. I
prepared a very basic decision flow chart that will help us determine the basic
business need.
Let me outline just a couple of
advantages that flow charts present. They help visualize what really takes
place in the process and thereby help the viewer understand the process, find
potential flaws, bottlenecks, and other less-obvious features within it. Since
they are a clear visualization of the process, they can potentially reduce the
time needed to learn and understand the details of a process. Flowcharts are an
easy way of communicating the logic of a system or process to all concerned.
They use standard symbols to depict various actions. They look professional and
are easy to grasp since majority of business people are familiar with the
meaning of each figure. Flowcharts can be used to map processes, aid
brainstorming sessions, create marketing, sales and organizational charts,
schedule diagrams and timelines, as well as track project progress.
Based on the above, I believe that flowcharting
our processes will help us answer questions coming from potential buyers. There
is a variety of applications that can suit this purpose. I specifically
reviewed Google Draw and Microsoft Visio. Per review of the associated license
fees, I noted that Vision 2013 Standard is $299.99 per user license, Visio 2013 Professional is
$589.99, and Visio Pro for Office 365 is $13 per user per month with annual
subscription or $18 per user per month without a subscription. Google Docs
Drawing is a free application. Despite the above referenced costs, I would
recommend the use Visio 2013 Standard. I used both applications to create
various basic flowcharts and it is my opinion that Visio is much more intuitive
and provides a better visual expression of the process. Since our employees are
already familiar with the Microsoft Office offering they should not take much
time to get familiar with the usability of the application, and therefore I am
convinced that the learning curve would not be significant. There are multiple
free videos from Microsoft that we can utilize for free to bring our people up
to speed, should they require assistance. Furthermore, I suggest that we assign
the task of flowcharting to our Project Management Office employees as I see it
as the most effective and efficient solution. Since we canceled all special
projects and development initiatives, this group can devote more time to assist
us. Subject matter experts are tied up in providing information for the data
rooms and having them learn the application and then map the process may not be
the most effective way of handling this project. I estimate the need for up to 10 user licenses
for Visio 2013 Standard, which would total to a cost of just about $3,000. I
also suggest placing the flowcharts on our SharePoint site for easy sharing and
review purposes.
I believe that our current need and potential
benefit fully substantiate the associated cost of the software. Please second
my recommendation and let’s get the ball rolling.
Best regards,
MKO
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