Avoid Platform Chaos by Streamlining Modernization with a Business Process Catalog

Modernizing platform infrastructure is a priority for 75% of enterprises and SMBs, with many turning to cloud technologies to drive efficiency and scalability. However, without a structured change management plan, these efforts can quickly descend into disarray. When business processes don’t align with new technology, it often results in poor user experience, low adoption rates, and investments that ultimately fail to deliver value.

A Business Process Catalog (BPC) offers a practical solution for ensuring that processes align with new platforms, reducing risk and supporting successful modernization.

A Recipe for Addressing Modernization Challenges

A Business Process Catalog provides a blueprint for documenting and optimizing critical business processes. By aligning operations with new technology, a BPC helps prevent organizations from building new platforms on top of outdated workflows. 

Organizations that leverage a BPC are able to identify necessary changes, positioning themselves ahead of competitors by adopting updated processes more efficiently.

Streamlining Fragmented Processes

Legacy processes tend to evolve independently across departments, creating inefficiencies and silos. These challenges can be magnified during modernization efforts, leading to delays, data duplication, and integration issues. A BPC consolidates these processes, helping businesses identify and resolve potential issues for smoother platform transitions.

BPCs in Action: For instance, a healthcare provider undergoing modernization can use a BPC to align clinical, billing, and administrative processes, eliminating redundancies and avoiding costly delays during platform transitions.

Avoiding Over-Customization and Managing Long-Term Costs

While platforms like Microsoft Dynamics offer extensive customization options, too much customization can lead to higher costs, longer timelines, and technical debt that limits future flexibility. A BPC, supported by Microsoft’s Success by Design framework, helps organizations evaluate where customization is necessary and where standard solutions can suffice, reducing unnecessary complexity. When customization is unavoidable, Azure DevOps helps ensure these changes are tracked and integrated without disrupting the overall process flow.

Ensuring Scalability for Future Growth

As demand increases, processes must also scale — and time-consuming trial-and-error approaches aren’t sustainable long-term. A BPC can help organizations implement scalable processes that align with current needs and future business objectives from the beginning. 

Scalability in Action: A global retailer might use a BPC to manage their supply chain processes during platform modernization and help ensure scalability to position them to successfully handle increasing demand from multiple regions while keeping operations streamlined and efficient.

Overcoming Critical Modernization Roadblocks

Established companies often face the challenge of modernizing within the constraints of legacy infrastructure and fragmented processes. While younger companies may have the advantage of building processes around modern technology, older organizations must overhaul ingrained workflows. Rushing through these transformations can lead to misaligned processes, increased costs, and project delays or failure. In fact, 70% of digital transformations fail when strategy and planning are neglected.

Modernization partners must address the following areas:

1. Aligning Modernization with Business Goals: Clear alignment with business objectives helps ensure the project delivers value. A BPC provides a roadmap for change management, outlining current processes and identifying necessary adjustments.
2. Facilitating Cross-Department Collaboration: Fragmented processes can derail modernization efforts. How will the partner manage cross-functional teams to keep them informed and aligned?
3. Evaluating Customization Carefully: Over-customization can increase costs and complexity. A BPC helps evaluate where customization is truly needed and where standard solutions can be leveraged.

Driving Success with BPCs

CIOs and CTOs steering platform modernization efforts should understand the value a Business Process Catalog (BPC) brings to strike a balance between speed and success and minimize the chaos of digital transformations. By aligning business operations with modern technology and providing a clear roadmap for change, a BPC enables an intentional and scalable approach, helping to ensure every step of the process is purposeful.