Building an

Enterprise
Process Map
David Hamme
 Building an Enterprise Process Map

Documenting a process generally results in at least a 25% gain in productivity – and often even
greater gains. Translating work effort into discrete steps reduces confusion, drives consistency of
execution, accelerates training, and usually uncovers efficiency opportunities along the way. But it
comes with a risk – the risk of improving a segment of an organization to the detriment of other
areas. We call this a localized improvement.

To eliminate the occurrence of localized improvements, our teams ALWAYS begin the process
transformation journey by creating an Enterprise Process Map (also called an Enterprise Process
Blueprint). An enterprise process map is a birds-eye pictorial view of how an organization delivers
value for a customer. In contrast to an organizational chart, it is not the view to identify the
hierarchical reporting structure (at least in most instances) but rather it is the embodiment of the
market and operational approach currently in existence for an organization. Good enterprise process
maps depict the workflows from the acquisition of raw material to the delivery of a product or service
and on through the ongoing servicing of the customer’s needs.

An example of an Enterprise Process Map for a manufacturing company is depicted below.

 Building an Enterprise Process Map
An enterprise process map…

• Starts with the customer and identifies moments when the organization and the customer
interact on a regular basis (this is very useful for creating a cohesive and consistent customer
experience).
• Provides an end-to-end view of the processes spanning an enterprise (and even business
partners).
• Identifies how work flows through these processes to the end delivery of a solution for a
customer.
By documenting an enterprise process map, an organization reaps several immediate benefits.

• Clarity – Having a widespread perspective of how the organization operates in a business

as usual environment is critical to having intelligent and informed debate about the future
path of the organization.
• Customer Connections – Delivering a consistent and intentional brand requires an
awareness of all the times the customer and the organization interact.
• Capabilities Blueprint – Providing an operational view of the organization drives awareness
of the capabilities of the organization. This view is foundational to understanding the
opportunities and challenges of adjusting the strategic course of the organization.
• Mitigates risk of localized improvements – By understanding how the pieces of the
operational puzzle fit together, improvement teams can identify the processes potentially
impacted by a change and ensure there are not unintended consequences to their
improvement activities
• Ownership Identification – While the enterprise process map is not necessarily a
replacement for the organizational chart (although it can be), it can be used to map process
managers to end-to-end processes, major processes, or sub-processes. In doing so, leaders
anointed with authority are aligned to the value engine of the organization making it possible
to more rapidly address adjustments to product and service offerings.
Once an enterprise process map is created, confirmed, and made available to the employee
population, it routinely becomes the background for ideation activity. From experience, our team has
found permutations of the enterprise process map to add additional insight. For example, we often
adjust the size of a process box to align with the headcount, budget or identified opportunities for
that process. By overlaying these views of the enterprise process map, potential gaps in resource
allocation become immediately visible.
Due to the clarity and benefits delivered by the creation of an enterprise process map for an
organization, it has become the first step on any process-based exercise I undertake.
Enterprise process maps are a tool to enhance operational clarity and create a shared view of a
company’s capabilities. It is this shared perspective that accelerates business planning and
improvement activities as the time to get everyone on the same page is vastly reduced. In lieu of
such a foundational view, leaders setting strategy are essentially planning a road trip without
awareness of the roads to the destination.
In contrast to its rather simplistic appearance, an enterprise process map’s creation can be an
arduous undertaking. Building a process map forces leaders to delve into the often-ambiguous
operational boundaries in their company. Politics and knowledge gaps are to be expected. But upon
completion, the result is worth the discomfort. An enterprise process map defines the complete
customer relationship and clearly delineates how the company creates value.
Whether the goal is a process map for an enterprise or simply a business unit, our team has boiled
the approach down to four steps.
 Building an Enterprise Process Map

Step 1: Leadership Interviews

You need information on how things get done. Begin by speaking with the leaders and managers of
the major areas of the company. Generally, aim for individuals at the Vice President or departmental
leader level. The aim of these interviews is to gain an understanding into all corners of the company.
To collect this information, ask each leader these questions.
• When does your team interact with the customer?
• What are the major activities of your team?
• What are the outputs your team produces?
• What are the inputs to building these deliverables?
• Who are your business partners?
Generally when asking about the major activities, a collection of processes are named. For example,
if you meet with a Supply Chain Vice President, you will probably get a list along these lines:
• Receive product from manufacturing
• Receive orders from sales
• Pick orders out of warehouse
• Stage orders for delivery
• Plan transportation routes
• Load orders onto trucks
• Deliver orders to customer locations
On an enterprise process map, it would make sense to merge these processes together and label
them “Order Delivery” or something similar. “Order Delivery” in this example is a mega process that
defines the collection of processes above. Listing the processes with the associated mega process
adds further richness to the enterprise process map.

Figure 1: Enterprise Process Map for a Retail Company

 Building an Enterprise Process Map

Step 2: Initial Draft

Create an initial view of the enterprise process map.
1. Start with the customer. Draw a box to represent the customer at the top of the page. Draw
multiple boxes if there exist more than one distinct paying customer group.
2. Identify the intersection where the customer connects with the organization. Extrapolate
beyond these touch points to the value delivered at each connection. Draw a box and label
the activity that occurs. For example, “Resolve Customer Issues” could be the label of a
process for a customer service connection point. These boxes represent the customer-
facing processes. Don’t worry if you have a bunch of boxes. The numbers will be distilled at
a later point.
At this point, the focus shifts to the production processes.

1. From the interviews, take the identified mega processes and place them in order of their
general occurrence.
2. Identify the connection points between the mega processes and the customer facing
processes. With the mega processes identified, note their linkage to the customer-facing
processes. Draw a line to identify the flow of work products, decisions, or other information.
Use a simple label to clarify what is transferred. For example, an order might be generated
by a sales process and pushed to a manufacturing process for planning and execution. Write
“order” to show the flow of this line from sales to manufacturing.
3. Push support functions to a shared services area (Finance, Accounting, HR, Technology,
Legal, Facilities, Real Estate, Treasury, etc.). While shared services are necessary for any
organization, they serve a relatively similar function across organizations.

Step 3: Distribution and Feedback

Share the draft with associates of all levels of the company and ask for feedback. It is this
melding of perspectives that drives the accuracy and authenticity of the end product. Follow
up if they don’t respond in a timely fashion.

Step 4: Confirmation Session

As feedback rolls in, questions and differences of opinions will always surface. In order to complete
(and confirm) the process map, schedule a meeting to work through the outstanding questions and
drive to a shared perspective. On occasion, disagreements will require further investigation as to
what really occurs in the trenches of the company. Even after agreement is reached, continued
iterations will be required to keep it up to date.
When building the enterprise process map, there are several general rules to follow that will increase
its accuracy.
• Focus on the processes not the organizational structure. The goal is to build a view of
company without functional boundaries
• Avoid departmental or business unit names. Similarly, do not put owner’s names on
processes (at least not yet)
• Resist the temptation to jump to the future. Always build a current state process map before
beginning to plan a future state. A future state created prior to understanding the current
state invariably ignores critical operational elements.
 Building an Enterprise Process Map
The greatest benefits of enterprise process maps come from the clarity and shared perspective it
delivers. Share it widely across all levels of your organization. Update it as the organization evolves.
In this way, the clarity gained extends through the employee ranks and into the future.

About the Author

David Hamme serves as the Managing Director of Ephesus Consulting. Prior to

founding Ephesus, David worked stints as a management consultant for Ernst &
Young and The North Highland Company. His consulting work spans numerous
areas including Strategic Planning, Process Improvement, Change Management,
and Enterprise Wide Cost Reduction.
Over a 20-year consulting career, David has completed projects for over 40 clients
including such recognizable names such as GE Capital, Kellogg’s, Bank of
America, Wells Fargo, Family Dollar, Delhaize USA, Fifth Third Bank, Lowe’s Home
Improvement, Time Warner, Sonic Automotive, and Duke Energy. In addition to his
consulting career, David served as an executive in Lowe’s Home Improvement’s
Installation Business Unit. As a leader of this $3B business, David oversaw the
strategic planning, marketing, product management, pricing, new product development and sales functions.
David earned an M.B.A in Finance from Indiana University and a B.S. in Industrial Management and Electrical
Engineering from Purdue University.
His specific areas of consulting expertise include:
• Strategic & Business Analysis/Planning
• Process Analysis, Design, and Management
• Enterprise Cost Reduction
• Performance Management
• Program/Project Management
• Executive Coaching
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