Dear colleagues,
It is a fact that to be successful, any company needs to have a proper integration of its operational processes and IT. After all, an IT organization is responsible for providing the technology to support the business strategy. This situation is valid for BESIX as well. But as our company is growing in size and depth every day, we need to create a new role in our organization to understand the business from a common process perspective: the role of “Business Process Owner” (BPO).
Putting in place an organization of Business Process Owners across the company is a major step towards aligning our ways of working within the Group. Therefore, in order to deliver on the BESIX strategic driver “Synergizing our ways of working”, Business Process Owners have been appointed.
What is concretely a BPO?
A Business Process Owner can be compared to a department manager in that he/she oversees part of the organization, but in contrast, his/her sphere of ownership is tied to a process, not a functional area like HR, finance or operations. A BPO oversees a complete end-to-end process, spanning multiple functional departments. The benefit of this synergy approach lies in its ability to federate resources to align the strategy with operations.
What are the BPOs main responsibilities?
Each BPO will be responsible for the standardization of processes in his/her area of expertise, and for evaluating and accompanying new initiatives of common interest in a defined functional area. The BPOs will work closely with all business units in all geographies.
Standardization of processes is often linked to the implementation of new IT systems. The BPO needs to ensure that the processes and systems implemented across the company are done in a consistent way. This is important if we want to be able to share knowledge, bundle our purchasing strength, define common performance indicators, and eliminate duplication of efforts. The BPOs will need to work very closely together with the IT colleagues on the selection of new software and the implementation of the new tools.
Who are the Group BPOs?
- Finance, controlling and procurement – James Devroe
- Plant, warehousing – Philippe Giltay
- Execution, Site procurement – Peter Van der Donckt
- Tendering – Bart Nagels/Peter Van der Donckt
- Engineering, methods, façades – François Lederer
- Commercial, sales – Olivier Vanderkerken
- Knowledge management (IMS, BPS) – Marc Becht
- Human Resources – Olivier De Ridder
Fred Reyniers will coordinate this BPO Community.
How is this going to work?
Each entity will be requested to appoint Local Process Owners. The BPOs will work to set up an agenda to deliver synergy together with the Local Process Owners.
These BPOs will meet on a regular basis with the IT colleagues led by Dennis de Baar, CIO. In this alignment meetings the BPO will bring forward priorities for his/her area and make proposals for new tools and new projects. After analysis of feasibility, common advantage for our business process, time and budget implication in a joint effort with the IT team, a final report shall then be presented to the Executive Committee for approval. Upon approval the BPO in team with IT and local process owners will then follow development and implementation.
What is going to change?
The typical example is the choice of a new software. Any type of software selection within the company will in the future be done through the BPOs. The BPO will align with their IT colleagues and IT will validate the fit within the common IT landscape and check the technical aspects.
What are the next steps?
- The BPOs will establish for their area of responsibility a team of local process owners.
- Together with IT a software selection policy will be drawn and presented for approval to the Executive Committee in the course of the second quarter of the year. Once the IT software selection policy is approved, a Steering Committee will be set up.
More info
For more info, contact Fred Reyniers or Dennis de Baar.
Thank you for your active participation.
Jan Gesquière, CFO BESIX Group
Fred Reyniers, General Manager Symphony
Dennis de Baar, CIO BESIX Group