There’s a term trending on Twitter at the moment that makes me shake my head and smile a little. Why didn’t I see that coming? It’s ‘Big Process’  (#bigprocess) and I find the tweets by Clay Richardson really interesting.

Now, I had no clue what this could mean, so my mind was running in all the directions. What could this possibly mean? It only seemed reasonable that if we have ‘Big Data’, there must be a ‘BIG Process’. But really what makes a process big?

Does it mean a very long running process that runs for months or years, like an immigration case or legal case? Or does it mean a process with a very large number of steps? I was reminded of a scary, huge process diagram I had rare privilege to witness. The process the customer showed me, when printed at 100% size, covered 10ft by 20ft wall! Yes, I know, not a best practice, process purists will say.

Does ‘BIG process’ refer to organizing a large number of participants for a social and collaborative event such as ‘American Idol’ or something similar?

As I was pondering these possibilities I read follow-up tweets that went on to list the tenets of big process:

Tenet #1: “Transform, Don’t just improve”

Tenet #2: “Give the customer control.”

Tenet #3: “Globalize, standardize and humanize.

Tenet #4: “Embrace Big Data.”

Tenet #5: “Move Beyond Process”

Armed with this new information I asked my colleagues for their thoughts. Kelly Koelliker remarked that a part of BIG process could also be to look at the entire relationship between an organization and an individual as one BIG process, made up of individual processes, or interactions. She noted that when a person is not yet a customer, but a prospect, they are at the beginning of the BIG Process. They do research and may make a purchase as next step in the BIG Process. The customer then advances to the ‘new customer’ step of the BIG process. At this point they will probably have initial setup and troubleshooting needs that process needs to resolve. The BIG process will continue to have steps for advanced users, up-sell opportunities, upgrades, renewals, etc.

This make sense and, for those of us in the business of customer service experience management, BIG Process is another name for “Customer Journey” or “Customer Experience”, which is composed of several other processes. BIG Process can be the sum of processes or steps that span pre-sale, purchase and post-sale activities and throughout the lifecycle of a customer. There is lot of data generated in direct and social networks (Big Data) that needs to be collected and analyzed. Customers are empowered to research, compare, evaluate, collaborate and purchase the product. They have all the information they need to make an intelligent decision. And it is not just efficient processes that they care about; they care about the overall experience.

We’ll see how the concept of BIG process develops in coming days and months and I’ll be watching with it great interest. Maybe the next one for process will be ‘Nano Process’ – I’ve not thought through what it means but name has a nice ring to it. Wait a minute, I just Googled it and these bio-technology guys are already all over it! There goes my shot to fame for coining a process term…

Ajay Khanna is Senior Director, Product Marketing. KANA

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