Ajman Free Zone Business Process Management

The goal of a business process management routine is to make the business more effective and efficient in its operations. The benefit of adopting such a strategy lies in making it easier for an organization to meet its objectives and goals, as well as improve profitability. The stated purpose of this business process management process is to streamline the operations involved in the application of a license for operation of a business within the Ajman Free Zone. The Ajman Free Zone is a free trade zone located at Ajman in the UAE with the stated purpose of providing an impetus for trade and industry in the region. Ajman’s proximity to Dubai and Sharjah, and its nearness to infrastructure like the four ports, two international airports and roads linking it to the other emirates make it particularly well suited for the location of a business (Int’L Business Publications, 2015, p. 287). The streamlining of a business process, and applying a cost of quality assessment ensures that the business process encourages rather than deters customers to opt for the business, thereby promoting better returns. For this reason business process management should be undertaken.

The main issue with this process as is, lies in the fact that the process takes way too much time to complete. Through the utilization of information technology, immense gains can be achieved which will go a long way towards reducing the time taken for registration of businesses. As opposed to having an in person interview when presenting the business proposal and documents, and again when looking up the availability of the business name, the process could be automated. By uploading the documents to a server, the officer in charge of looking at the business documents and proposal could check them online and give feedback to the applicants. Further, the process of looking up business names for availability could be accomplished in a similar manner. These two measures will reduce the amount of paperwork and cut down on the time it takes to process each individual application (Weske, 2007, p. 108). Paper work usually requires more time than a similar process applying digitized sources would. Also, the process as it stands has no mechanism through which customer feedback can be obtained and examined, and then integrated into the overall process so as to improve its effectiveness and efficiency. Incorporating such a strategy will ensure accurate and valuable feedback on how to improve the process from the parties that are in the best position to access the business process.

The development of a business process management strategy usually involves at least six steps. These are: design, modelling, implementation, execution, monitoring, and optimization. The design phase involves a discussion on existing processes as well as any processes being considered for replacement. Here, the importance of customer feedback proves important as customers are key stakeholders in any business process. The second phase involves modelling. Here, hypothetical situations are examined to identify how different changes in the process flow will influence the overall result. In this instance, a possible situation that could be examined would be what the effects of the submitting the business proposal and documents online would be. After modelling, the hypothetical situation identified to hold the most promise is implemented. In the previous instance, say the process was found to have benefitted from the automation of the process, typical implementation would call for the creation of process flows and mapping data to the models. Then, the business process management strategy would move on to the execution phase where the process will be made operational through deployment as the production business process management strategy. After execution, it is important to monitor the performance of the business processes. The importance of this step is underwritten by the fact that a successful business process management strategy is realized through constant planning and measurement. The final step involves the optimization of the business process strategy based on the metrics observed regarding how well the strategy performs under real business conditions.

To conclude, the business process management serves to make each process in suited to the overall business objectives of the organization. For this reason, a periodic review of the business processes within an organization should be done in order to ensure they serve their stated purpose, to improve business. A review of the process involved in the application of a license at the Ajman Free Zone reveal that the process would benefit from some process management. Applying the identified steps will ensure profitability levels are matched or surpassed. Overall, a cost of quality assessment makes it clear that the streamlining of the process will make it more likely that a client will not abandon the process midway resulting in loss of potential business. Implementing these strategies into the business process ensures there will be no lost revenue on account of an exerting process.

References

Int’L Business Publications, U. (2015). United arab emirates export-import trade and business directory. [S.l.]: Intl Business Pubns Usa.

Weske, M. (2007). Business process management. Berlin: Springer.