It creates a picture of a business or business unit's functions to which managers and staff can continually return to confirm that their improvement efforts are focused on the right things. The map itself is a specialised form of flowchart, with boxes for all your customers and suppliers showing your relationship to them. Before attempting to draw the map, there are some critical concepts to be understood. Because process improvement activity depends for success on, the relationship between the business and its customers the relationship between the business and its suppliers Second, change for the better only comes about when people change their behaviour, and apart from you, the only other players are either customers or suppliers. This makes it important to identify these relationships clearly.
Customers are the whole reason for continuously improving processes.
It is they who decide whether your product or service offers the best value for money when they make their purchase decisions, and their purchase decisions determine whether your business will be a success or not. While the importance of this relationship is obvious, there are a number of factors which complicate it. In fact, such intermediaries are often in a better position than you to know how the ultimate customer feels about your product or service. Your 'business unit' may also be part of a larger organisation which means there are even more layers between what you and your staff do and the ultimate customer. What all this means is that a customer for you is anyone to whom you provide products or services, whether directly or indirectly.