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Save The Children Use IBM BWL to Map the Organisation, Processes, Procedures, Policies, and Systems

Operating in more than 100 countries, Save the Children is an international non-governmental organisation with a complex operational structure.

As a federated movement, the organisation needed a clearer understanding of how processes, procedures, policies and systems connect across different entities.

Using IBM Blueworks Live, Save the Children’s Business Architecture and Business Analysis teams established a collaborative approach to process mapping, supporting greater organisational visibility and future improvement initiatives.

The challenge: Understanding a complex global organisation

To maintain operational effectiveness, Save the Children must continually adapt to changing economic, political and technological conditions.

The organisation takes a systems-thinking approach, recognising that its different entities, functions and processes are interconnected.

However, understanding these relationships across a global organisation requires a consistent way to visualise document and define business processes.

Save the Children needed a tool that could support this work while making process mapping accessible to stakeholders beyond specialist business analysis teams.

The solution: IBM Blueworks Live

Save the Children’s Business Architecture and Business Analysis teams, alongside relevant stakeholders, used IBM Blueworks Live to map the organisations’s structure and connect processes with their supporting procedures, polices and systems.

The platform has been used extensively to model both as-is and to-be business processes, establishing a foundation for future standardisation and automation projects.

IBM Blueworks Live’s accessible interface and built-in Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) capabilities also enabled non-process specialists to contribute to process documentation and collaborate with stakeholders.

Key Benefits

Improved process visibility: A clearer view of the relationship between processes, policies, resources and procedures
Stakeholder collaboration: An accessible environment for process specialists and other business stakeholders to contribute
Consistent process modelling: Built-in BPMN capabilities support a structured approach to documenting workflows
Foundation for future improvement: As-is and to-be process models provide a starting point for standardisation and automation initiatives

Building a foundation for process improvement

Save the Children’s experience demonstrates how business process mapping can help organisations understand complex operations before introducing change.

By documenting existing workflows and defining future processes, organisations can identify opportunities for improvement and make more informed decisions about where standardisation or automation may deliver value.

Find out how Save the Children utilise IBM Blueworks Live to map the organisation’s structure, linking processes, procedures, polices, and systems for acute oversight.

Click here to learn more about Save the Children.

Download the full Save the Children Case Study