Process and System Harmonization: Standardizing Processes, Systems, and Data Across Locations
Whether it’s a new location, digitalization initiatives, or a corporate merger—established process and system landscapes become more complex with each of these changes. When inconsistent standards and media discontinuities are added to the mix, this quickly acts as a brake on growth for the entire organization.
Process and system harmonization resolves this issue by synchronizing all systems and processes with one another—as a continuous optimization effort along an end-to-end process chain. The result is a robust process landscape and a harmonized system that can respond resiliently to internal and external changes across all locations.
What exactly does process and system harmonization entail?
Process and system harmonization means aligning business processes, IT systems, data structures, and corporate organization across locations, departments, and subsidiaries. The goal is not for everything to run identically, but for processes to function seamlessly—without media breaks or duplicate data maintenance, but with clear lines of responsibility. The foundation for this consists of an end-to-end process map, a target vision for the system and application landscape, a robust data model, and active process governance.
Process harmonization, Process Standardization and Process Optimization
Process harmonization is often used interchangeably with the terms “process optimization” and “process standardization,” but at its core, it refers to a distinct, overarching concept:
The advantage of process and system harmonization lies in its comprehensive scope: harmonization considers processes, systems, data, and organization as a whole. This holistic view reveals, for example, which data systems underlie an end-to-end process such as order-to-cash and which organizational units this process passes through. On this basis, the appropriate process standard can then be defined for each specific context.
Why now?
Several trends are currently converging, creating a need for action across all industries:
Key digital transformation initiatives and the growing use of AI—from process optimization with AI to AI-driven process automation—can only realize their full benefits when built on a robust foundation of processes and data. At the same time, ongoing M&A activity and carve-outs, increasing globalization, a shortage of skilled workers, and rising regulatory requirements are heightening the value of lean, cross-location harmonized processes.
Added to this are volatile, uncertainty-driven markets (VUCA), in which resilient process chains are increasingly becoming a decisive competitive advantage. In this environment, the following applies: Those who harmonize first and then digitize not only transfer clean processes into new systems but are also optimally positioned when system changes (such as an SAP transformation) or expansions are to be undertaken.
Symptoms of a fragmented process landscape Media discontinuities, shadow IT, duplicate data maintenance
A non-harmonized process landscape rarely manifests itself in the form of a system-wide failure, but rather shows up as small, recurring points of friction in your organization’s day-to-day operations.
While these may seem insignificant when viewed individually, taken together they lead to rising costs, wasted time, and a decline in your workforce’s confidence in the stability of your processes.
However, with the right approach, each of these symptoms can be directly translated into a concrete solution and resolved:
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Establishing Clear Responsibilities
Due to unclear accountability for end-to-end processes, decisions get bogged down at the interfaces. A defined process governance framework with clearly designated process owners creates accountability and speeds up decision-making.
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Eliminate media breaks and duplicate data entry
When data has to be maintained manually and in multiple places, errors and a lack of transparency result. A standardized data model with synchronized interfaces and master data harmonization provides a solution. With this approach, data is entered once and is then automatically available in all systems.
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Harmonize standards across locations
Legacy siloed solutions and shadow IT make comparability and scalability difficult. An end-to-end process map highlights differences, enables informed decision-making, and serves as the basis for targeted system consolidation.
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Preserving Process Knowledge for the Long Term
If knowledge of workflows and processes resides solely in the minds of individual employees, every personnel change becomes a potential risk to your organization (brain drain). By creating documented process models, we therefore transform tacit knowledge into robust, transferable structures, making it accessible to the entire organization.
Each of these symptoms can affect your production to varying degrees—regardless of the size of your company. That’s why it’s not essential to standardize everything at once, but rather to start exactly where the friction is greatest!
Florian Christoph
Director Digital Solutions, Ingenics Consulting
What's at stake:
Process Costs, Data Quality, and Scalability
As long as your company’s process and system landscape remains fragmented, the amount of manual work will continue to grow. Rising process costs and quality issues are the immediately noticeable consequences—caused by manual rework, duplication of effort, and a lack of transparency.
In the medium term, this leads to competitive disadvantages and scalability issues:
If your company’s growth and international expansion are to remain sustainable in the long term, you need a unified process and data foundation. Similarly, digitalization and AI projects are more likely to deliver on their business case when they are built on harmonized processes. After all, even the best technology can only reinforce the structures that already exist.
Harmonized processes, consistent data, and clear responsibilities are therefore the most important multiplier for any automation effort. They are the prerequisite for ensuring that subsequent investments can realize their full value.
Bottom-up and top-down:
Harmonized End-to-End Process Chains with Ingenics Consulting
What sets our approach apart from pure process consulting firms and tool providers is our ability to work in both directions:
- We address operational process activities from the bottom up, all the way to the top level of your organization.
- In contrast, we derive requirements for end-to-end process chains and systems from the top down, based on your company’s core capabilities and strategy.
Only this integration ensures that the target vision is not only strategically aligned but also functions effectively in the day-to-day operations of your production and logistics.
We therefore always evaluate processes in the context of system flows, applications, and use cases, thereby modeling an ideal system and application landscape, including the associated data model. With over 45 years of experience in harmonizing end-to-end process chains for manufacturing companies, we bring a broad foundation of industry-benchmark processes to the table.
Measurable benefits:
Here's How Process Harmonization Pays Off for Your Company
When implemented correctly, process and system harmonization delivers tangible results even in the early stages. Scalable processes with measurable added value not only improve KPIs but also enable shorter process cycles, optimized resource utilization, and reduced waste.
Our process optimization consulting offers our clients a range of key benefits:
- Documented end-to-end process map and defined process models
- Defined IT target architecture for the system and application landscape, with a robust data model and data governance
- Established process governance and a measurable process KPI framework
- Mapped use cases and capabilities across a consolidated system landscape
- Concrete roadmap and action plans—as well as implemented, trained processes that are put into practice on a daily basis
Our Approach
From the process map to the target state to implementation
Harmonizing your process and system landscape becomes a manageable task when you follow a clear path. We’ll guide you through the process and serve as your expert partner in each of the following phases:
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1. Analysis: Process Map and Process Maturity Level
In the first step, we assess the existing process and system landscape, create an end-to-end process map, and determine what data is required for each process step, along with its quality and level of detail.
Maturity models and quick-check tools make it possible to measure process maturity and provide a reliable assessment of the current state in a short amount of time—supported by data-driven process mining and established process mining tools such as Celonis, SAP Signavio, or ARIS.
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2. Target State: Process Governance, Process KPIs, and Data Models
For each end-to-end process, we work together to determine which workflow, system, and data model best support the target organization—including the operating model, process governance, and measurable process KPIs. This results in a target vision that defines the appropriate level of standardization for each context and, where appropriate, deliberately preserves local autonomy.
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3. Process and System Mapping
System mapping lays the foundation for targeted system consolidation. To this end, we systematically map the target processes within a clear process architecture and illustrate how processes flow through systems and organizational units. We then use this information to derive the process-driven requirements for the future target IT architecture as well as the application and system landscape.
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4. System Selection, Implementation, and Change Management
We select the appropriate systems in a vendor-neutral manner, based on the previously defined requirements. We support you throughout the rollout and implementation process until system consolidation is successfully completed and delivers measurable added value to your organization.
The transition itself takes place in phases and is supported by change management, during which we empower your employees to navigate the new process landscape. In this way, we ensure that the new processes are not only defined but also put into practice in your company’s day-to-day operations.
This structured approach transforms a complex, chaotic starting point into a predictable path with clearly defined milestones. How quickly it yields results depends largely on a thorough assessment of the current situation at the outset.
Maturity Model and Quick Check:
How to Determine Your Process Maturity Level in a Short Amount of Time
Before you invest in system consolidation, you need a clear understanding of your company’s current state. To determine this, we use maturity models and quick-check tools that make your process maturity measurable and comparable—from initial documented standards through transparency and process automation (e.g., via Robotic Process Automation (RPA))—all the way to predictive, self-driving process chains. If needed, this analysis is supported by process mining.
The benefits are twofold:
The analysis fosters a common language among management, business units, and IT, and enables clear prioritization of action areas by highlighting where the gap between the current and target states is greatest. Our Quick Check thus provides a robust foundation for your roadmap in a short amount of time.
The methodological basis:
Business Process Management (BPM)
The methodological foundation of process and system harmonization is Business Process Management (BPM)—that is, process-oriented business management, which captures, designs, measures, controls, and optimizes business processes. Process and system harmonization consistently builds on this approach, with a stronger focus on the system component and on end-to-end optimization across organizational boundaries.
Both the maturity model and the actual methodology of process and system harmonization are based on this foundation. They translate the principle of business process management into concrete harmonization, ranging from process modeling in BPMN to ongoing control.
For more detailed information on the BPM definition, the BPM lifecycle, and the four-level maturity model, please visit the Business Process Management performance page.
Process and System Harmonization Within Your Operations Strategy
The direction your company must take to achieve a harmonized process and system landscape is dictated by your overarching operations strategy. It defines, from the top down, the core service and strategically relevant capabilities, thereby establishing the criteria according to which end-to-end processes must be consistently aligned with customer value.
Process and system harmonization translates this strategic framework into a viable operational reality. Efficient, harmonized processes and systems—based on a clear data model and defined data governance—are thus a key enabler of digital transformation and a prerequisite for scaling.
Common Misconceptions About Process Harmonization
Why AI alone isn't the solution
There are several common assumptions surrounding process harmonization that unnecessarily complicate projects. We encounter four of them particularly often:
- “Process harmonization means that all locations operate in the same way.”
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The goal is not uniformity, but rather the appropriate process standard for each context. While core processes require uniform structures, local characteristics can remain in place where they add value.
- “Process compliance is the responsibility of the departments.”
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Process governance is a leadership responsibility and must be established as a management function so that the agreed-upon standards are upheld in day-to-day operations.
- “Our data is already good and reliable.”
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A critical review of your data quality is essential and an integral part of any reputable analysis. Only such a review reveals which data objects are reliable and where targeted optimization is needed.
- “Let's start right away with AI.”
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Artificial intelligence requires a solid foundation in processes, systems, and data. Those who embark on digital transformation with AI without this foundation will amplify existing weaknesses rather than build on their strengths.
Additional services related to system consolidation:
Strategy & Digital Transformation
Sets the digital direction and determines which processes and systems should be harmonized as a priority.
IT Architecture and Application Landscape
Transforms harmonized processes into a sustainable target IT architecture with end-to-end interfaces and data flows.
Software & MVP-Development
Translates the requirements derived from harmonization into an appropriate system solution.
Operational Excellence
Embedding harmonized processes into day-to-day operations and translating them into lasting gains in efficiency and quality.
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions About Process and System Harmonization
When is the right time to harmonize processes and systems?
The best time to do this is before making major investments in digitization and AI initiatives: If you harmonize your systems before digitization, you’ll prevent inefficiencies from being carried over into the new system and exacerbated. Rising process costs, poor quality, and manual rework are further clear signs that system harmonization is needed.
After harmonization, do all locations have to operate identically?
No, on the contrary: Instead of imposing the same process on every location, the appropriate standard and level of standardization must be determined based on the specific context. Specifically, consistency is sought where it adds value. This ensures that core processes spanning multiple locations share common structures, data objects, and interfaces. Local specifics, such as regulatory requirements or market differences, should, however, continue to be taken into account. It is crucial that any deviations be documented. This way, your locations gain transparency and comparability without losing their ability to act.
How do you integrate processes and systems after a merger?
In a merger or acquisition, two established process landscapes come together as part of a post-merger integration (PMI). To ensure a successful integration, we proceed in three stages:
- Transparency: Both process landscapes are documented, mapped onto a process map, and reconciled with one another. We also determine what data is required at each process step and to what standard.
- Target State: We define the target state and determine, for each end-to-end process, which system and data model best supports the target organization—including governance and process KPIs.
- Migration and Implementation: The final transition takes place in stages and is supported by change management. This ensures that system harmonization is effectively integrated into your day-to-day operations.
What does process harmonization have to do with an SAP transformation?
An SAP S/4HANA transformation is the ideal opportunity to review your own processes: Which workflows will be carried over? Which data will be transferred to which structure? If these questions are answered in a process-driven manner before the system transformation, the new system will have harmonized, scalable end-to-end process chains—a key component of any ERP harmonization. Harmonization must therefore be carried out before or in parallel with the transformation: first the process map, target state, and data model (including master data harmonization), then system selection and implementation.
Why Do Digitalization and AI Projects Fail Due to a Lack of Process Foundations?
Digitalization and artificial intelligence amplify the processes and structures they encounter. If processes and responsibilities are not clearly and consistently defined, if data is duplicated, and if data quality is inadequate, the technology will amplify these weaknesses. The result: automation efforts fail, AI models operate on contradictory data, and the effort required for individual projects exceeds the initial estimates. To avoid this, you must establish a consistent system landscape with harmonized processes before introducing AI tools.