Industry Overview
Hi-tech industry is characterized by short product life cycles, innovations, faster time to market and capital intensive research & development. Hi-tech industry eco system consists of various players like OEMs, Semi Conductor Manufacturers, Design organizations, Traders, distributors, resellers and many more. Most of these players are interlinked, but with their own unique set of processes.
Some of the key drivers of the industry are time to market in new products, Return on capital employed, rate of introducing innovative products.
Business Processes in hi-tech industry are linked to the role of the player in the industry (for that matter in any industry). One of the structured ways of depicting this linkage between industry and the organization's business processes is Value Chain diagram. This is represented as value added Chain diagram in ARIS as shown below.
In this blog, I tried to show how the high level business areas can be cascaded down to low level processes & process steps using an example of service delivery functions of a hi-tech product distributor.
Hi-tech distributors are one among these players. Distribution can be managed by an OEM or by a third party. In an industry where high capital expenditure and short product life cycle are common, getting products to customer needs to be quick and efficient.
Scenario Overview
After the product is sold, it is supported by after sales support. This scenario shows service operations of a hi-tech product distributor. Different scenario variants are possible for service operations, Including onsite service and return to base service.
Here we consider the drilling down of the processes from the value added diagram of the organization. The process of customer call management is chosen to depict the drill down.
Mapping of the scenario
Value Chain of a hi-tech distribution firm
Value added chain diagrams of a hi-tech distribution company has the following key functions as shown in the value added diagram in the dotted rectangle. These functionalities are in line with the SAP solution composer and encompass strategic processes, supply to market (Supply Chain Management), Go to Market (Marketing and Product Development), Quote to Cash (Sales Order Processing), after Sales Service and support functionalities like Finance and Human resources.
This value added chain gives the over view of the organization. Let's concentrate After Sales Service which is one of the function areas and drill down further. Value Added Chain for after sales service is mapped in ARIS as below. This value added chain has three parts viz. service sales which manages the sales of various service options, delivery of the service and the planning of the service parts to support the service delivery. Planning of resources for service is part of the service delivery.
Following diagram shows the Value added chain diagram for Service Delivery. Service delivery consists of warranty management, Customer call management, onsite service, return to base service, call resolution and billing of service rendered if required.
Service Delivery is initiated with customer call management, where warranty details of the product sold are checked. Warranty details like warranty start date; duration and types of service, extended warranty etc are managed here. Service is either delivered at the customer premises or the product is taken back to the service center for repair. Once the service is delivered, all documentation related to service is updated and invoicing is done. Invoice depends on the type of warranty.
Customer call management is the interface with customer. This process is further drilled down in an EPC (Event Driven Process Chain) as shown below. The process starts with an event of receiving the call from the customer. Further process steps include logging of the call check customer details & warranty details, checking of solution data base etc
Warranty check is one of the functions and it is further drilled down using a Function Allocation Diagram
This is an attempt to present a scenario in a top down interlinked manner. I invite all experts to add more to the scenario & enrich it further
