Business Process Management in 2023

Business Process Management (BPM) is one of the most critical components of any business strategy. According to Gartner, BPM can improve project success by 70%. It helps you achieve a competitive advantage by making the right decisions at the right time, reducing costs, and increasing revenue. Further, BPM is a strategic approach encompassing all aspects of your organization’s processes, from planning and designing to execution and implementation. Continue reading to learn more about  this critical subject in detail.

BPM Definition

BPM is a strategy that helps organizations improve their business processes. BPM is used to improve efficiency and effectiveness, reduce cost, manage risk, and minimize waste by systematically enhancing business processes. It involves analyzing, designing, implementing, and managing business processes across the organization. BPM can also be called business process engineering (BPE).

BPE aims to align your people with organizational goals through well-defined roles within an IT-enabled system that supports continuous improvement activities such as new product development or customer service delivery.

Different types of BPM

BPM is a broad term for automating business processes. With the rise of AI and machine learning, BPM is growing in popularity because it allows companies to leverage their existing data better, identify possible problems before they occur, and make more informed decisions. 

BPM has three main categories: 

• Integration
• Human
• Documenting processes

Integration business process management is concerned with the structured combination of a company’s processes, while human and document BPM is concerned with the practical aspects of business processes. 

Integration BPM also transforms data from one system to another using a processing hub that mediates between multiple applications. In contrast, human BPM uses workflow software to help employees perform tasks more efficiently, and document BPM helps users make sense of market research before making investment decisions.

BPM vs. BPA

BPM and BPA are not the same. BPM is a process management methodology, while BPA is an automation tool that can be used to manage business processes. The main difference is that BPM focuses on improving an existing process, while BPA automates existing manual processes and makes them more efficient.

BPM tools include things like workflow management systems or task management software, which help you organize your company’s workflow to make it more efficient and streamlined. 

For example: If you have multiple people working on one project at once (say, two designers working together), then using a tool like Trello will allow both designers to see what each other has been working on so far without having any problems with communication; this prevents any unnecessary delays in the project’s completion time because everyone knows exactly what needs doing next.

BPM vs. Project Management

Business process management (BPM) is a strategic approach to managing processes that aim for long-term value. Project management, on the other hand, is more tactical and short-term in nature.

BPM involves a holistic view of an organization’s workflows from end-to-end–and often across multiple departments or divisions–while project management focuses on individual tasks within one particular area of focus within an organization’s broader workflow. 

For instance: If you’re working on improving customer service at your company, your BPM strategy would consider all aspects of how customers interact with your company–from initial contact through delivery or aftercare services–while your project would be focused specifically on improving call center agents’ performance during customer interactions.

BPMN Methodology

Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is a standard for modeling business processes. It defines the syntax for creating process models, representing how an organization’s work gets done.

BPMN uses nodes and connector lines to represent activities, decisions, and subprocesses. Nodes can also be used to describe groups of related tasks or events. Each node represents an activity or event that has been completed by someone in your organization–for example: “approve expense report,” “call customer,” or “create an invoice.” 

Connector lines connect different activities into a sequence of steps that must be executed for the overall process to be completed successfully–to illustrate: “verify information on form” connects directly with “review application form” because there must always be some verification step before reviewing something else.

Why BPM?

Business process management (BPM) is a way of structuring your business activities so that you can achieve your goals, improve performance and increase the value of your organization.

BPM helps reduce costs by reducing manual work, automating repetitive tasks, and reducing errors. 

It also helps minimize the risk by providing a framework for testing new processes before implementation. BPM can help increase customer satisfaction by making it easier for customers to transact with you or making their experience more enjoyable when they do transact with you.

It’s important to note that BPM isn’t just about computers–it’s about people too. 

BPM requires an understanding of what different stakeholders want from their interactions with an organization so that those stakeholders can get what they need without having any barriers standing between them and achieving success (or failure) in whatever task they’re trying to accomplish at any given time within the context of whatever situation may arise during those interactions.

How does BPM help with digital transformation? 

Business process management (BPM) is a core component of digital transformation. It helps you to:

• Create repeatable, standardized processes that can be applied across multiple applications and platforms. For instance, suppose you have a customer service process that works well in one application or platform. As a result, it also works well on other applications and platforms–including those that are new or still being developed. This means there’s no need for IT teams to reinvent the wheel when they want to create new services or products; they can use existing processes as the basis for creating new ones.
• Ensure that all people involved in delivering service are following the same steps every time they interact with customers or partners (and this is particularly important for compliance purposes).

The first step in any digital transformation is understanding the current state of your business and identifying which processes are critical and how they could be improved. You can do this by looking at existing systems such as ERP or CRM, but it’s also critical to get out into the field and talk directly with customers and employees who interact with those systems every day.

Another benefit of BPM is it offers a scalable approach to digital transformation. 

You can start with a small project and then scale it up if it’s working well. This means that you don’t have to create new technology infrastructure or system integration for your business processes to be compatible with each other–you can use the same process across multiple applications and platforms.

BPM life cycle

The BPM life cycle has five phases: 

• Initiation
• Analysis
• Design
• Development
• Deployment

The first three phases focus on understanding what’s required in your organization to address business problems or opportunities. In these stages, you’ll identify potential process improvement opportunities and then analyze them based on their feasibility before moving on to the next phase.

The fourth phase involves creating a detailed plan for implementing your chosen solution(s). This includes writing out specifications for each process being redesigned so that developers know exactly what needs doing when building new software applications or systems that support these processes later on down the line (i.e., during deployment).

Finally comes deployment – this is where you put all your plans into action by installing your new technologies into production environments.

BPM Strategy

Before getting started with BPM, it’s essential to define any bottlenecks you have correctly. 

When defining your goals, make sure you’re ambitious but realistic about what can be achieved in 1-3 months (or if it’s longer than three months, break it up into smaller tasks). It helps if there are tangible ways of measuring success so that everyone involved knows when they’ve reached their target or still need to meet it.

As well as setting personal fitness goals like these two examples above, some businesses also use BPM software because they want employees at all levels within an organization to work together towards common goals like customer satisfaction or sales targets.

BPM Benefits

BPM can help you achieve the following goals:

• Increase revenue and improve customer satisfaction. BPM can help you identify and eliminate inefficiencies in your business process, leading to a more streamlined workflow and more satisfied customers. In addition, if you’re looking to take advantage of digital technologies like AI and automation, BPM can help you implement these tools and integrate them into existing processes.
• Reduce costs by improving organizational productivity through more intelligent decision-making based on real-time data analysis (or “real-time intelligence”). Processes that have been automated through BPM tend to be faster than manual ones because they rely less on human input–and those savings get passed along directly to customers in the form of lower prices or greater value-added services (like personalized recommendations).

BPM Best Practices

BPM Best Practices are a set of guidelines and recommendations for implementing BPM. They define how to implement BPM consistently and effectively, and through a set of standards.

BPM Best Practices guide the following:

• Process modeling, including the use of standard notation and standards such as Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), Unified Modeling Language (UML), Web Services Flow Language (WSFL), and others.
• Process execution, including process automation technologies like workflow engines or rules engines.
• Business intelligence reporting on process performance metrics such as cycle time or cost per unit produced.

BPM Use Cases

You can utilize BPM use cases to improve the performance of your business processes and increase the efficiency of your organization. BPM use cases are a critical component in any BPM strategy. They help you achieve a competitive advantage by improving margins, reducing costs, and improving customer satisfaction.

Some examples of BPM use cases include:

• Automating manual tasks that are currently being performed by employees (or contractors) who need training on how to perform specific functions with limited knowledge about what needs to doing or why it needs to be done
• Analyzing current processes, so you know where there’s room for improvement

As another example, BPM is a powerful tool to help HR teams manage employee transitions, onboarding, and offboarding processes. With BPM, HR managers have visibility into each step of the hiring process, from beginning to end. This lets them see where improvements can meet objectives and keep employees happy.

In addition, BPM is a broad discipline that you can use to improve all aspects of business, and finance is no exception. BPM allows finance organizations to significantly reduce the time it takes to execute day-to-day tasks, such as account reconciliations while maximizing the accuracy of financial reports. More efficient processes also minimize the risk during the reconciliation process.

Also, BPM can help the sales department by providing a way to organize and simplify the customer journey. This means the sales team can focus on customer service, improving the sales funnel, and driving revenue with fewer resources than before.

Achieve a competitive advantage with BPM

BPM is a critical component in any business strategy. It helps you achieve a competitive advantage by enabling you to respond faster and more efficiently than your competitors, who may have yet to invest in BPM technologies.

Nonetheless, BPM is not just about automating processes; it’s about improving business outcomes. 

BPM tools are designed to help organizations manage change and the change process, allowing them to improve efficiency, reduce costs and mitigate risks associated with new technologies or regulatory changes that impact their operations.

To summarize

We hope that the information in this article has been helpful. As we’ve seen here, there are many different aspects of BPM you can implement to improve your organization and make it run more efficiently–and we have only scratched the surface.