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Business processes provide a structure over the activities that are performed in an organisation. Now, to understand what a business process is, it helps to conceive the organisation as a complex system that is made up of a number of organisational functions, whereby a function is a logical grouping of activities. For example, a very common function within organisations is accounts payable, that collects all activities that have to deal with payments. So, for example, receiving an invoice, approving an invoice, making the payment. This is what the wholesaler would do with respect to invoices that are received by the suppliers. Another typical function is accounts receivable, that collects activity that has to deal with getting money out of customers. So, coming back again to the example of the wholesaler, this would be all those activities that deal with the payment being received by the retailers. For example, issuing an invoice, receiving a payment, matching an incoming payment to an invoice, following up on an unpaid invoice. Other typical functions within a wholesaler are inbound and outbound logistics. The former, inbound logistics, deals with receiving goods into the distribution centre, whereas the latter, outbound logistics, deals with shipping goods to retailers. So, in an organisation we also have to consider the partners and the suppliers that provide assets and resources for the organisation to operate – financial resources provided by the capital market, human resources provided by the labour market, technology and materials. And we have, on the other hand, customers. We need to generate value for our customers, and this is where business processes kick in. Business processes take input from partners and suppliers, they utilise the assets that are within and outside the company, to provide value to customers by chaining a number of activities originating from different organisational functions. So, for example, in order to provide value to a retailer, in the case of a wholesaler, we need to fulfil a purchase order, and that means executing a number of activities that originate from sales, like all activities dealing with the selling of goods to the retailers. With the logistics – all activities that have to deal with shipping the goods to the retailer, and accounts payable – all activities that have to do with the collection of the payment from the customer. So, coming back to our distribution centre, we can identify two main business processes executed within. One is about dealing with their retailers. We receive a purchase order from the retailer, and once we receive the purchase order, we perform a number a number of activities in order to fulfil that order, such as checking and confirming the purchase order, packaging the goods, loading the truck, notifying the shipment, issuing invoices, and finally matching the payment we receive. So, once the payment has been made and matched, then this process completes. The dual of this process is between the wholesaler and a supplier. It starts when a purchase order is issued by the wholesaler, and it completes once the goods have arrived in a distribution centre, involving activities such as obtaining purchase order confirmation, scheduling the delivery, unloading trucks, etc.