Is process a way to manage people or do people manage processes?

With all of the technology that dealerships have at their disposal one would think that there would be a perfect process that is duplicable, transferable and easy to manage. In my experience I did not find that to be the case. The automotive vendors that I used had very rudimentary training for using their applications. Sure they were easy to use but the implementation was a nightmare.

It was mostly due to a lack of time. Perfect world there would have been cookie cutter processes in place that could be adapted and managed to maximize ROI. I would cringe when I would get the call from the ILM vendor to know why I did not have the work flows set up beyond a certain time period. They were worried about losing the account, but did not make it easy for people to get started with their product. (No I am not going to name them)

Granted I was in a situation where there was no established processes in place. Had I had some benchmarks to work from it would have been better. While at the same time it would of been impossible to work under an unchangeable process for me.

When I first started in the business in 1990 the process was mandated to the point of being authoritarian and inflexible with no deviation. In today's world where I feel that is an outdated management style, as that encourages the high turnover the industry has. However I see where consultants still preach this management style. Does this still work?

Back to the main question though.

Do you use process as an inflexible management tool or are people allowed to take ownership of a process to manage it and adapt it to help acheive the goal of moving more product?