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What is Business Process Management (BPM)?
Business processes are methods, steps and activities we perform to do our jobs. For example, in most companies filling a customer order involves several business processes from processing the order to shipping the product. Some companies have strong business process cultures; others have varying degrees of business process discipline.
A lot of attention has been focused on business processes in recent years because the downturn in the global economy has forced companies to improve their processes to maintain profitability. Recent corporate scandals have caused regulatory changes that involve auditing of financial business processes.
BPM is about:
- Organizing the business around processes and focusing on customer satisfaction
- Clarifying and documenting processes
- Monitoring process performance and compliance
- Continuously identifying opportunities for improvement and deploying them
Depending on company priorities, these four facets of BPM can be implemented individually or in specific processes or on all processes. However the implementation of all four facets will have the most significant impact on business throughput.
Software makes it easier
Managing the full scale of a process lifecycle requires a software solution. Because business processes aren’t restricted by departmental boundaries, it is important for companies to document, communicate and assign accountability for their processes. In recent years, BPM software has emerged into the mainstream of enterprise software. Today there are products that help you design and map your processes. These products can store all kinds of process content linked to the process maps and provide the ability to communicate process knowledge to everyone via the web.
But BPM is more than managing process knowledge. It is a critical and necessary step to achieving fact- based management of business results and specific process performance. Process performance monitoring and process automation are two components that companies use to achieve greater performance in their processes.
Taken alone, performance monitoring supported by dashboard tools presents the latest information on performance status and trends to decision makers at all levels. This permits a much more proactive approach to changing business conditions, enhancing the company's agility. It also clearly shows process performance as it relates to business goals.
In some cases, there is significant value to automating a business process and collecting key process data and content during execution. Processes can be automated using a workflow engine; today’s products can monitor and measure process performance and provide feedback for improvement. Automated processes can deliver critical performance data faster allowing corrective actions to be taken earlier.
Finally, all of the knowledge collected during the process lifecycle must be made available to all stakeholders of a process no matter where they are located in order to accelerate profitable decision making.
Why have BPM?
In short, BPM helps companies:
- Become more accountable,
- Enhance clarity,
- Improve visibility,
- Save money,
- React quicker to competition.
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