Business Process Management, or BPM, uses various methodologies and tools to model, design, implement, execute, monitor, and optimize business processes.
A business process is a collection of related and structured tasks that are performed in a specific sequence to achieve a business objective (e.g., the creation of a product, sales of service, etc.) A business process involved different people’s behaviors, hardware, systems, information, and other business elements that perform a business strategy to produce specific business outcomes.
The objective of Business Process Management is to make business processes more effective and efficient, including by introducing automation to replace repetitive tasks that are otherwise not cost-effective or risk-free when performed by humans. If you Implement Business Process Management properly, you can reduce the business’s operational cost by optimizing the business processes in general.
It’s important to note that Business Process Management is not a software or marketing solution. Instead, it is a business discipline, while products like Aproove, for example, can help businesses document their Business Process Management in a workflow format while also implementing automation, task management, and giving the users the right tools to do the required job.
Business Process Management is not project management. Project management is about structuring and managing only a specific project, a set of activities limited by factors like timeline, budget, client preferences, and more. On the other hand, Business Process Management focused more on managing processes that can get repeated and follow a predictable pattern.
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Why Do You Need to Implement Business Process Management?
When a business’s processes are unmanaged and unstructured, it can lead to poor business processes execution, which can damage the organization as a whole. Most people in the organization can only see one part or some part of a process, and very few will see the full overview of the business process from start to end.
In turn, unmanaged business processes can lead to:
- Waste of resources and time
- Errors in execution
- Lack of data gathered during the process
- Demoralized employees
Business Process Management Frameworks
While we can use various methodologies in implementing Business Process Management (BPM), they can be boiled down into just three main categories:
- Vertical: the BPM framework is explicitly designed for a specific ‘vertical’, specific industry, or just a specific type of process. Characterized by focusing on coordinating and sequencing the tasks of the business process. Might still cover processes across multiple team members, departments, and locations.
- Horizontal: unlike vertical frameworks, this approach allows the application of the BPM that supports different verticals or industries. It focuses more on BPM design, modeling, and development instead of structuring and sequencing tasks.
- Full-service: this framework combines both the vertical and horizontal approaches, so this BPM can cover multiple industries while also covering each vertical’s depth. It would cover various details like business rules, workflows, design and modeling, simulation, and testing.
Business Process Management Software
Business Process Management, as discussed, is a discipline that covers many different methodologies. In practice, however, implementing BPM would require the help of a Business Process Management Software.
Aproove, for example, is a Business Process Management software that supports the full-service BPM framework.
BPM software is an advanced system to create workflows that visualize the business processes in detail, and also monitor these business processes to see how they can be optimized.
In short, BPM software helps a business design/model, manages, executes, and evaluates time-consuming, repetitive business processes, and workflows to improve the business’s efficiency.
A BPM software can help you design and analyze the following processes (non-exhaustive):
- Project management
- Account management
- Customer requests
- Employee onboarding
- Compliance management
- Invoice management
- Expense reporting
And more.
What Should You Consider When Choosing a BPM System?
While there are various BPM software vendors available in the market, here are the primary considerations you should have when choosing between different solutions:
- Your objective: what do you want to achieve with your BPM software? Figure out your objectives and goals, whether reducing cost, improving efficiency, or eliminating errors. Knowing your objective would significantly help when you compare between different features on offer.
- Your budget: consider the upper and lower limit of your budget. You might also need the other associated (and hidden) costs besides the software solution’s initial cost, like discovery, training, and configuration, etc.
- Potential ROI: calculate the investments’ possible ROI, especially if you are considering investing in an expensive solution.
- User-interface: whether the UX is modern and easy to use and well-designed. This will significantly help when we are training new employees or clients to use the solution. The best solutions tend to offer a dashboard design where only that user’s relevant information is displayed, allowing them to monitor everything from a single place easily.
- Support: some companies offer 24/7 tech support. Also, consider whether the company provides tutorials and training (and the cost, if any).
- Features and Functionality: pretty self-explanatory, the more features offered, the better. However, make sure that the number of features doesn’t make the solution too complicated/difficult to use, or the software is configurable only to show what the user needs.
- Visual workflow design: can we easily design and edit visual workflow processes? Intuitive visual builders with a drag-and-drop approach are preferred
- Automation: whether the solution offers a built-in automation solution. Also, check whether necessary permissions and pathways would allow automation with minimal administrative supervision
- Integration: Integration with your existing ecosystem and support for your essential filetypes. If the solution offers open API integrations, then it’s a huge plus.
- Value for Money: By considering all of the above, how appropriate is the price for the solution when compared to the features offered, overall capabilities, and your specific use case. Would the cost be justified according to the ROI?
- Future Scalability: To get maximum potential ROI, you might want to consider a solution that can ‘follow’ your business as it grows. That is, it’s easy enough (and cost-effective) to implement the solution to new departments, locations, and even new companies as required.
End Words
As the name suggests, Business Process Management (BPM) is about managing processes to improve its effectiveness to maximize its performance and improve its profitability.
It’s important to note that Business Process Management is not always about implementing automation, but rather about any systematic approach to improving the business process’s efficiency (although automation often plays a significant role in achieving this objective).
Having the right solution to help you implement, monitor, and automate Business Process Management can be an excellent investment that may lead to a more productive team, resulting in happier customers and higher revenues.
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