Securing business flexibility in conditions of war in Ukraine

Abstract

The article is devoted to development of provisions for securing business flexibility in conditions of war in Ukraine. It is recommended that even during the war Ukrainian companies should strive to follow the scientific approaches to management, including the process approach as one of the most widely used. The article stresses the advantages of process approach to management and Business Process Management as its practical implementation, such as standardization of business processes (allowing companies to continuously follow the optimal way to perform the business process, to automate it and to decrease the variability of its outputs); integration of different functional areas in company’s activity; improved productivity; continuous business process improvement; visibility, transparency and measurability of the company’s activity, allowing to determine and eliminate the root causes of business process failures; clear definition and distribution of duties, roles and responsibilities in the company; improved knowledge management and auditing procedures. Despite the point of view that Business Process Management decreases the business flexibility due to standardization of processes, the article states that being properly designed, business processes must have multiple alternative scenarios, allowing to quickly changing the way the business process is performed and thus improving its flexibility. But even if a company was not prepared for the scenario of war, it can follow the recommendations provided in this article in order to secure the flexibility of its entire business and separate business processes. Such recommendations include actualization the key reference points in the company’s activity (goals, customers, suppliers, products, etc.); identification of the most problematic business processes affected by the war; development or change of the business process descriptions, which must be more or less detailed depending on the level of process, its technological variability and the level of uncertainty in environment; reviewing the requirements to business processes outputs and inputs; and reviewing the business rules related to changes in business processes.