Business Process Management
Business Process Management (BPM) enables businesses to think about day to day business operations with a process centric mindset rather than a purely functional one. This is a critical shift as processes can span the internal boundaries of an organization, including multiple departments, or even external boundaries; BPM concerns the people, processes and information of partners, suppliers and customers as well. In order to manage this shift effectively, enterprises must leverage technology to automate and optimize processes and connections.
“Business Process Management (BPM) is a management discipline that treats business processes as assets to be valued, designed and exploited in their own right. It aims to improve agility and operational performance…. BPM requires technologies with which managers can control and modify their processes. Specifically it requires technologies that make process explicit; that is, clearly expressed and readily changed.” (Gartner, 2006)
For example, imagine the employee on-boarding process faced by all companies. This is a complex process that must be orchestrated across people, systems and organizations. The business process encompasses stages performed by people in HR (initiate paperwork, gather signatures, payroll, etc.) and IT (enter the employee into the company directory, assign logon accounts, etc.) and impacts new employees and managers. This process also reaches outside the organization to share information with partners such as an insurance provider. If the orchestration is onerous it can take HR an extended period of time to provide a new employee with the permissions needed to begin productive work (like network and building access). If the process halts without warning the employee is at risk due to lack of adequate coverage or not getting paid.
This scenario exists in almost every company, yet the process of employee on-boarding varies. BPM does not suggest a single process for every company. Rather, that the process is defined and made visible to all of the stake holders. In the case of employee on-boarding that includes HR, IT and the hiring manager. Additionally, key performance indicators (KPI’s) are exposed though rich, at-a-glance dashboards. By clearly defining the process and providing visibility into performance information workers can be warned about bottlenecks in the current process and revise the process over time. BPM inspires process owners to begin a lifecycle of improvement to the business operations.
Automation
The first stage of BPM enables organizations to automate basic human and system workflows. For example document management approval with integration to existing legacy applications such as ERP systems is a common first stage project. Success is often found through a measurable reduction of cycle times for daily operational processes. Productivity gains reveal the opportunity to automate more processes in or near the workgroup and extend the benefits of basic automation even further.
Optimization
With basic processes defined and automated the mandate morphs to documenting the daily business operation in a process centric form. Specifically, modeling processes can lead to greater familiarity for process stakeholders and business unit owners. Monitoring processes can lead to a greater understanding of existing bottlenecks and inefficiencies. Deeper process visibility, through the use of executive dashboards, can enable process improvement and raise the concept of holistic process lifecycle to the forefront. At this stage, some companies initiate a process center of excellence to document and inspire best practices throughout the organization.
Leveraging BPM to Grow Your Business
With numerous processes optimized both internally and across the boundaries of partners, suppliers and customers, there is an opportunity to use BPM as a growth lever. Greater process awareness leads to new ideas for products and services. High impact employees use Process Business Intelligence to drive innovation into the business by implementing micro-strategies to take advantage of trends in near real time.
From basic connectivity needs through all stages of process maturity capabilities, the Microsoft BPM solution enables businesses to gain value through higher visibility and understanding of their operational processes.
