In times of digital transformation, knowing what BPM is is critical to structuring any business. BPM is primarily responsible for organizing an institution's activities, increasing its efficiency and reducing its costs.
Today, any business looking for its place in the sun needs to invest heavily in automated systems like BPM. In increasingly competitive markets, it is imperative to keep an eye on business processes to keep up with the competition and avoid eating dust from the industry giants.
But after all:
The acronym stands for Business Process Management. One of his best definitions comes from an article by, nominated as the most influential leader in the subject:
“ Business Process Management (BPM) is a discipline that involves any combination of modeling, automation, execution, control, measurement and optimization of business activity flows, in support of company objectives, reach systems, employees, customers and partners below or beyond. beyond company boundaries ”
. This is the meaning of the acronym today, and what matters most when it comes to accelerating the dynamism of any business. Today, companies of all sizes and segments seek to organize their processes using automated tools. It is undeniable how much can raise the standard of a company from the systematization of its activities in processes.
As a computerized system, BPM was developed by BPMI, an organization focused on the standardization of business processes. The first version of the software was released in May 2004.
Since then, numerous versions have been developed. But it was the version released in 2013 that set the international standard governing today's BPM systems: ISO / IEC 19510.
More than just a system, BPM provided a model and standardized specific notation for business processes. It has set a quality standard for processes and has made life easier for countless companies around the world.
This is why it can be considered a real disadvantage not to consider what BPM is and the full power of the tool.
The first thing to note when working without well-defined processes is the disorganization of activities. And it never comes alone: it always brings with it communication failures and late delivery of the company.
And of course, it never stops there. Without proper control of business processes:
Blindly, it is impossible to satisfactorily visualize each step of a process. Without a BPM, it is not clear at which points each process is encountering barriers or bottlenecks.
If you cannot map the problem, you cannot solve it with the appropriate solutions either. Those improvements that would streamline the activities of each process, making it more efficient, will eventually become impossible.
BPM triggers each step of a process to responsible employees, involving everyone with the company's activities. With it, the excuses are over: everyone learns about their responsibilities and how they should be performed.
When there is no definition of processes, they occur "anyway". Each employee will do their part in the way they see fit and all activities will eventually occur outside of a pattern. Well-defined processes ensure that activities will always be performed as outlined, giving the institution's actions greater quality.
Other disadvantages could be cited, but why postpone the good part? Let's go to her:
Knowing what BPM is has its advantages. Nowadays, in order to face the increasingly agile and efficient competition, it is indispensable to invest in the improvement of the company's processes.
First of all, when adopting a BPM, one soon notices the organization that takes care of each activity of the company. In addition, the BPM:
Standardizing processes makes all the operations involved happen more quickly. Company employees also benefit from standardization as they do not need to look for new solutions for recurring tasks.
And the discovery of barriers and bottlenecks that slow down the company's operations. In addition, through process mapping, it is possible to foster a culture of constant improvement of corporate activities.
Direct consequence of standardization, monitoring and constant process improvement is the increased efficiency of the company as a whole. BPM translates into a constant evolution in the way the company performs its activity.
By monitoring all steps of a process, a manager can identify redundant activities, waste and other problems in the production chain. Thanks to this, it is possible to make the process not only faster but also cheaper.
In addition to increasing the quality of processes, BPM favors improving the quality of a company's products or services. This is because, by improving the quality of the processes, it is guaranteed that the production is regular and always delivered the same quality.
And all of these factors contribute significantly to boosting the company's bottom line by accelerating its march toward Digital Transformation.
Now there is a vast amount of BPMs from different companies in the market. This does not mean, however, that all are good and fit the business model of any company.
It is worth mentioning some important requirements to consider when choosing the most appropriate BPM tool:
The right choice is the one that best fits the company's strategy, with the highest earnings and lowest expenses. Given the subjectivity of the issue, it is worth considering the following characteristics that may weigh when using a BPM:
Before buying a management tool, it is important to test it or at least see it in action in a demo. It is very important that it is an intuitive, easy to use tool.
Keep in mind that the people who will use it will not be mostly IT specialists. Therefore, the tool must be designed to be user friendly, meaning anyone can use it without advanced computer skills.
Another very important feature to consider is whether the BPM platform integrates easily with other systems. It must have the ability to integrate with other systems the company already uses.
Conversely, accessing the necessary tools would be more laborious and sharing information from one platform to another would be more complicated. It would be a real headache.
Ideally, the chosen BPM platform could integrate with external databases and other tools such as ECM, CRM, BI, ERP, or come bundled with ECM among other tools.
For many BPM platforms, the user is required to open a help desk ticket whenever they want to create a new process or a new user. This turns out to be a real callus at the foot of the company that hires the system.
It is preferable to look for a BPM that gives the user the freedom to create new processes and dynamic users without the help of IT specialists.
Now that you know what BPM is, it's worth thinking about: How much is the quality of your processes positively or negatively affecting your results?
To stimulate your thinking, download the free Software Guide for Optimizing Management Processes and Increasing Profits:
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