Abstract
D.Phil. (Engineering Management)
This research has its roots in Engineering Management, where the premise of improving and managing efficiency, effectiveness, productivity and quality is the most common and accepted source of organizational excellence and performance. This dissertation addresses a new paradigm for competitive advantage – business processes capability. The notion of capability is first and foremost the primary differentiator of organisational competitiveness ensuring sustained long-term prosperity.
The title of this dissertation is essentially imperative of every organisation functioning within the competitive domain to obtain business process capability. Where organisational capability and performance were traditionally considered antonymous, the assimilation of these two notions is fundamental to the assurance of long-term organisational prosperity.
Organisations are required, now more than ever, to grow and ensure that optimisation is achievable through well-defined systems and supporting business processes.
Organisations need to understand operational and individual business processes as well as their strategic impact they have on the entire supply network. The key to successful process decisions requires taking the following into consideration (a) the best fit for the situation (b) optimisation of one process at the expense of another, (c) processes are building blocks that create a total business value chain which include the cumulative phases of business processes affecting output, customer satisfaction and competitive advantage, (d) there is no distinction between any processes in the value chain either performed by internal or by outside suppliers, and (e) that managers must pay attention to interfacing all processes ensuring cross-functional coordination.