Build quality, optimized, and standardized business processes

To create a process-focused solution for your Dynamics 365 implementation, follow these recommendations. They'll help you improve the quality, optimization, and standardization of your business processes.

• Create a business process catalog. A business process catalog serves as a baseline for deriving more detailed business processes.

• Define your business requirements and goals clearly. Your requirements should map to your processes, and your processes should map to your business goals.

• Map the current or as-is and the desired or to-be process (if applicable). Understand how your process works today and how you want it to work in the future to meet your business goals. If you're starting from scratch, focus on designing the desired process only.

• Choose the appropriate level and type of business process. Depending on the purpose, the hierarchy level, and the message of your process, you can use different forms of flows to illustrate it, such as:

  • Basic process flow
  • Cross-functional flow
  • Data flow
  • Decision flow
  • Workflow process
  • Business value process flow
  • Value stream map

• Build the end-to-end processes. The end-to-end process shows the overall purpose of the business by connecting the core processes across different areas. Identify the business areas of your organization and create the end-to-end business process for each. For example:

  • HR: Recruit to Retire
  • Sales: Order to Cash
  • Procurement: Procure to Pay
  • Customer: Quote to Cash
  • Marketing: Market to Order

• Define roles and responsibilities. Assign the right access and security to the users who will perform the business process tasks and activities. This will also help you estimate the number of users and licenses you need for your project budget.

• Determine what fits the standard and what the system gaps are. Sometimes, the current processes might not be fully covered by the new system, which can be an opportunity to find better or more optimal ways to execute them. You might need to develop more features to meet your business needs.

• Reassess your business processes. Plan to monitor and reassess your business processes during multiple iterations, for example, in every CRP (Conference Room Pilot), to verify that the information is still accurate and make any needed adjustments.

Learn more about end-to-end business processes in Dynamics 365.

Next steps

• Learn how to perform a fit-to-standard and a fit-gap analysis
• Define your requirements
• Follow the checklist to prepare for your implementation
• Read a case study about a company that implemented Dynamics 365 using a process-focused approach