Systems and Connections

OK, so we've been running with a bunch of cloud based systems for years now and I've been working with them full time for over 12 months. Generally, it's all hanging together well. Our system landscape looks something like this:

Gmail 

Gmail is the core email platform.

MailChimp 

Cloud based direct electronic marketing.
www.mailchimp.com

Neto 

Core system, used for managing the website, customers, sales, shipping and payments.
www.neto.com.au

Saasu 

Core system, accounting platform. Also used for creating Purchase Orders and managing stock/inventory values.
www.saasu.com

Dropbox

File storage and management. Also used for sharing documents.
www.dropbox.com

Process Frameworks

Rough Value Creation Hierarchy

So, APQC seem to offer some excellent basic structured. The overall cross-industry framework is fine - however they have recently released a Retail Process Classification Framework (PCF) as well as the existing Consumer Products PCF.

For us, we have two separate businesses, each needing it's own framework. To that end, I'm going to use both the Retail PCF and the Consumer Products PCF and a mix of the two. It could be tricky as it's not completely clear as to where the lines are drawn, but I'm going to try to use the Value Creation Hierarchy that Rummler et al. refer to.

Which goes something like this:-

This leaves me thinking about how this maps to the levels of the PCF. The Rummler VCH has 5+ levels:
1. Supersystem
2. Value Creation System
3. Processing Sub-Systems
4. Process
5+. Sub-Process/Task/Sub-Task

Compare with the APQC PCF:
1. Category
2. Process Group
3. Process
4. Activity
5. Task

This doesn't really align - especially at the top most level... needs thought...

Cheers
BC