A definition without jargon
A business process is the way a company regularly does something: accepts a request, approves an invoice, hires a person, ships goods. Every process has a start (a trigger event), steps, performers and a result that can be measured.
A simple example is paying a supplier invoice. The manager receives the invoice, the head of department approves it, the finance officer checks the budget, the accountant pays. If these steps aren’t written down anywhere, every invoice is “pushed through” by hand — with calls and messenger messages.
What a process consists of
| Element | What it is | Example: invoice approval |
|---|---|---|
| Trigger | The event that starts everything | An invoice arrived from a supplier |
| Steps | Actions in a set order | Check → approval → payment |
| Roles | Who is responsible for each step | Manager, head of department, finance officer, accountant |
| Rules | Conditions and branches | Over ₴10,000 — the director approves as well |
| Deadlines | How much time per step | Approval — within 1 business day |
| Result and metric | What we get and how we measure it | Invoice paid on time; average cycle time |
Types of business processes
Core
They create value for the customer and bring in money: sales, production, service delivery, shipping, customer service.
Supporting
They keep the core ones running: hiring and onboarding, procurement, accounting, IT support, training.
Management processes
They set the direction and control results: strategy, budgeting, planning, meetings, quality management.
You don’t need to document everything to start. Usually 8–12 key processes give 80% of control — that’s where we begin our business process work.
Signs your processes aren’t working
- The owner or CEO is the bottleneck: no decision is made without them.
- The same task is done differently each time, depending on who does it.
- A new employee takes months to deliver, because “it’s all in people’s heads”.
- Answering “where is this request now?” takes three phone calls.
- Mistakes repeat, and people look for someone to blame instead of the causes.
How to bring order: four steps
- Diagnostics. Interviews with the owner and key people, a list of processes, bottlenecks.
- Documentation and modelling. As-is diagram, roles and responsibilities, regulation.
- Optimisation. We remove unnecessary approvals, waiting and manual work.
- Automation. We launch the process in a system so it moves by itself and is measurable.
The order matters: automating chaos only gives you faster chaos. First we agree on how things should work — then we move that into the system.
Checklist: is your process documented
- It’s clear what starts the process and how it ends.
- Each step has one person responsible.
- Deadlines and branching rules are fixed.
- There’s a metric the manager can see without a manual report.
- A new employee can go through the process by following instructions.
If at least two items are “no”, the process is worth revisiting. We can run a diagnostic and show what these processes will look like in Folck.