The purpose of business process mapping is to help organizations increase business efficiency. As a result, process maps are created and used for:

• Increasing understanding of the process itself
• They help teams consider business improvement ideas
• They provide insight into what the business process should look like
• Project planning
• Improving communication between colleagues working on the same project
• They provide process documentation

It is easy to identify where and why recurrences or delays come with business process mapping.

Process mapping itself is a planning and management tool, which visually displays all aspects of a process. It can be as simple as sketching a flow chart on a piece of paper. Your map must show the process clearly and easily to follow, so it’s known who is responsible for what and who is doing what.

The goal is to make it easier to spot where a business process improvement can be made with a detailed visual representation to increase productivity. 

The types of process mapping are:

1. Activity process map (represents value-added and non-value-added activity)
2. Detailed process map (provides a clear view of each step in the process)
3. Document folder (inputs – outputs in the process)
4. High-level process map (includes interaction between suppliers, inputs, processes, outputs, and customers)
5. Displayed process map (shows current and/or future process status, provides space for process improvement)
6. Multifunctional map (breaks down subprocess responsibilities into a process)
7. Value-added chain diagram (unrelated frames represents a simplified version of the process, for quick understanding)
8. Value flow map (Lean management technique that analyzes and improves the processes required to create products or provide services)
9. Workflow diagram (the most well-known method for showing business processes)

When it comes to the analysis of process mapping, there are three phases, namely:

• MDC (Method Design Concept) – which is a classification of activities into primary and auxiliary, depending on whether they directly contribute to the performance of operations
• Hodogram – represents the activities arranged horizontally, in an order that is following the direction of the process (in MDC, activities are arranged vertically)
• SIPOC – used to summarize inputs and outputs

As we have already mentioned, business process mapping is an essential part of efficient business, and maps help make a particular process defined and clear (clearly visible).