Business Process Reengineering

Reviewing and documenting procedures to improve functionality and minimize expenses.

Santa Fe, New Mexico
New Mexico General Services Department

The New Mexico General Services Department (GSD) needed an overall assessment of its processes and procedures to determine how to function more efficiently and save money. RESPEC was contracted to identify and document the financial organizational structure of all GSD divisions, including Accounts Payable, Contracts, Accounts Receivable, Budget, General Ledger, as well as the management and Chief Financial Officer.

RESPEC and subcontractor DrakerCody identified personnel in key department staff positions, conducted interviews with them regarding their roles in processes-oriented functions, and documented their responses. We then identified current financial reporting requirements and scheduled events, internal control points, and external mandates. This information helped us to develop a business context diagram that illustrated the interconnections between the major GSD processes and the key stakeholders (i.e., customers, vendors, and other government organizations) and identify scopes, boundaries, and components of the GSD financial processes.

RESPEC’s second major deliverable was labeled “As-Is” Financial Organizational Structure and Process Mapping. All of the financial processes in the department, including those of Accounts Receivable, General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Budget, and Interagency Mail Delivery, were mapped. RESPEC staff created an “As-Is” business process map and workflows to indicate gaps, overlaps, concerns of noncompliance, and vulnerabilities, and to review documentation with the project team to obtain feedback on its findings for “As-Is” financial business processes. The finished product was the “As-Is” analysis report (discovery report) to the project team and stakeholders.

After thoroughly analyzing and documenting GSD’s processes and procedures, RESPEC was asked to recommend and reengineer new business processes and workflows. These recommendations included the organizational structure, reporting structure, minimal financial staff qualifications for positions, the progression and training for promoting members of the financial staff, parity of salaries for equal positions, policies and procedures, business process descriptions, process inputs and outputs, business rules, supporting systems, and process metrics. In addition to reengineering business processes for optimal operational efficiencies, RESPEC identified risks for implementing recommendations and prioritized recommended business process and structural changes based on the need for additional staff and/or changes to the existing systems. RESPEC then presented the proposed reengineered business processes and workflows to the GSD project team, the steering committee, and management for their approval before implementation.

RESPEC provided a Strategic Planning Guide for the GSD. In addition to recommendations concerning issues, training, and priority changes, the guide outlined the functional and/or technical skills and the estimated time investment required to implement the recommended changes as well as the associated risks, control compliance requirements, and constraints that would prevent the implementation process from being successful. The project was complete after user acceptance testing and approval, and the GSD was pleased with our extensive work.