What is Business Process Management?

BPM vs. Project Management

What exactly is the difference between business process management and project management? With such similar names they are often used interchangeably, but they are quite different.

Check out this definition of BPM from The Association for Intelligent Information Management:

“BPM is a way of looking at and then controlling the processes that are present in an organization. It is an effective methodology to use in times of crisis to make certain that the processes are efficient and effective, as this will result in a better and more cost-efficient organization.

The term business process management covers how we study, identify, change, and monitor business processes to ensure they run smoothly and can be improved over time. Often framed in terms of the daily flow of work – and yes, “workflow” generally does fit under the process improvement umbrella – it is an important piece of the access and use puzzle since no or poor process really degrades your ability to get at and leverage information.

BPM is best thought of as a business practice, encompassing techniques, and structured methods. It is not a technology, though there are technologies on the market that carry the descriptor because of what they enable: namely, identifying and modifying existing processes, so they align with a desired, presumably improved, future state of affairs. It is about formalizing and institutionalizing better ways for work to get done.”

Project management, on the other hand, takes care of the higher-level components of a business. This includes knowing who needs help, which tasks can possibly be delayed, who is assigned to certain tasks, what the priorities are, and so on. The punchline of project management is: what needs to be completed to get to where we need to be.

Business process management is all about the journey, whereas with project management it is about the destination in which you are trying to reach.

BPM controls the basic operational procedures that take place in your business. It involves a combination of execution, automation, measurement, optimization, and control of the activity flow in a business. Customer onboarding is a prime example of this. This process would look like this:

1. The customer will sign a document
2. They are added to the internal records or CRM system
3. The customer receives a follow-up email

And this process continues onward. Business process management looks at the current state of this process and then makes decisions to improve the setup and make the organization more effective and efficient. This is neither task management (which zooms in on individual tasks) or project management (which takes care of unpredictable flows).

If this process is not managed well, then it can hurt the business by:

• Time being wasted
• A loss of important data
• An increase in errors

Employing a simple BPM solution that can control this process would bring the stakeholders peace knowing that it’s almost impossible for costly mistakes to occur.

DAS has a decorated history of being one of the top BPM providers available with over 30 years of experience in the industry. We have only lasted this long at the top because of our proprietary methodologies and tools that we use to make the entire BPM process more efficient, powered by the BPM capabilities within IBM FileNet.

Types of BPM

There are three main types of business process management that are categorized by their purpose:

Integration-Centric BPM - This practice of business process management takes care of the connections between your existing systems. It doesn’t require a lot of human involvement. These systems have API access and can create processes that move very quickly with extensive connectors.

Check out this snippet below from one of our case studies:

• “A large health insurance provider was looking for ways to run its business more efficiently. Previously, the company was processing returned mail from the post office by manually researching member addresses and then either resending or destroying the mail. Not only was this process time consuming, it was also prone to error. Thus, to reduce costs and improve customer service, the customer sought a digital content management and capture platform. Since this client's problem was a perfect fit for a BPM software, we knew to turn to IBM FileNet’s out-of-the-box capabilities of Business Process Manager for a solution. We were able to integrate all of their current applications into a beautiful network of productivity, allowing them to increase staff productivity, reduce operating costs, and maximize client facing efficiency.”
• This project outcome provided a robust set of tools to author, test, and deploy business processes, as well as full visibility and insight for our customer to better manage those business processes. The components of this software provide a unified BPM repository to manage the business processes and their associated artifacts, tools for authors, administrators, users, and a runtime platform. It was the perfect fit paired with DAS’s 30 years of experience in this industry.

Human-Centric BPM - This is where the process is executed only by humans. They are often made up of a lot of tasks and approvals that are done by individuals. These platforms usually do well with a user friendly interface, quick tracking, and notifications.

• An example of this would be adjusting standard operating procedures to improve the handoff of client specific information between your team members.

Document-Centric BPM - This business process option is necessary when a major document is involved (this may be a contact of some sort). It helps to enable formatting, verifying, routing and signing of the document to keep it going in the workflow line.

Advantages of Business Process Management

There are many advantages when it comes to business process management. To be organized and have everything laid out throughout this process would be ideal. Having a documented process is much more efficient than trying to wing it every time a new customer is brought on. This documented process would be something that you stick by, and over time would alter to best cater to the customer.

One of the major benefits to this process would be to become completely automated. This will help to decrease the workload and ensure that the customer is on-boarded successfully. Some automation softwares can send onboarding emails to customers so that you can get in touch with them and improve their experience. After time, automation will become more natural and the process will be easier. Since the workload will be less, you and your team can then take your time and focus on more important interactions and projects that require you to deal with customers.

Some more benefits would be:

• Having more control over a very large and arduous process
• Improving the analysis, organization and business process as a whole
• Normal operations will run more smoothly
• Setting goals to be more organized in a larger sense
• Tracking individual aspects of work as they move through the process

Top BPM Software Platform

In the business process management method, technology should be at the forefront. DAS partnered with FileNet in 1994 for this very reason, to enable organizations to enforce the process, demonstrate the workflow, and serve as a great tool to organize information across the enterprise. It is also a great way to monitor and track the performance of the process. IBM FileNet’s BPM engine helps to push a process that needs to occur, and then shows whether the policy or process was truly performed. By adding automation to the business process, less time will be needed as well as less of a cost. Errors will be reduced and the complex process for people will be simplified as the system can take over the load.

Good news: throughout DAS’s 30 year history, we have come to count on IBM FileNet’s out-of-the-box BPM capabilities to deliver continued value to our customers. IBM, industry leader and tech giant, is hyper-focused on providing software that is versatile enough to help anyone but robust enough to solve the most complex problems for the world’s largest and most respected organizations.

Here’s some even better news: DAS is an IBM Gold Business Partner, meaning we know almost everything there is to know about FileNet and the best practices when putting it to use. (Note: If your organization is in need of any assistance from a BPM perspective, look no further. Click here to learn more about FileNet or schedule a free consultation to see how we can address your specific needs.)

How Teams Are Using BPM to Scale

There are some rules that are involved in business process management that should be followed to ensure that it can work successfully for a business at scale.

• Having a good process is much better than having a bad one - It's very important to have a good understanding of the quality of process design in order to receive the performance that you set out for, just like having the right software and consulting partner.
• The work done is process work - Whether it be creative, developmental or transactional, it will all be beneficial to the process
• One process version is better than many - having a breakdown of different departments displays variation in the process. Priority should be set on having a process that will give a seamless experience to your customers.
• Any process is better than no process - When you don't have a defined process, you can't expect the results to be repeatable, it is heavily relied on individuals who have a level of experience or motivation that impact the performance
• A good process can always be made better - any process can always improve, and Process managers should be finding opportunities to improve this journey, whether it be with technology or not
• A good process can eventually turn into a bad process: with the changing business world you never know when what will happen next. From advancements in technology to competition changes, there will always be a need to adapt and adjust to new methods

How to Introduce BPM in Your Organization

If you are thinking about implementing business process management in your business, you now have a good overview of how this system works. There is a business process management life cycle to describe the process from start to finish. These are the steps that can be followed to start this process in your own business. From designing to optimization, this cycle has been used to help make this entire setup efficient.

1. Discovery & Design - This is the first step in this life cycle, where you list the current state of the process, and where you would like to end. It should go over who will handle certain tasks throughout the workflow. In this aspect, there are diagrams built to show notifications, service-level agreements, the task flow, and how each task will be handed off.
2. Model - This is where diagrams are analyzed and viewed in a visual layout. Deadlines are determined and rules are laid out on how to clearly reach each event throughout the sequence. The flow and the steps are reviewed while offering alternatives on how to go about the process. It can be looked at as the instructions for what’s to come in the process.
3. Execution - Next is execution, where there are improvements and also changes made to the process. This is a live event where it will be tested on a small group of people before opening it to everyone. Monitoring is followed after the process is implemented to see how it performs. This is done by using BPMS tools to better understand the process performance through measurements. This tracks averages, KPI’s, and volumes. It is very important in this step to restrict any sensitive information from being accessed.
4. Optimization is the last step in this process, and can be looked to as a type of philosophy that is embedded into the business culture. Here, an analysis is done and changes are made to form your workflow and help finalize the process in a way to make it the most efficient.

This is not a one time process, but instead, one that is ongoing and continues after one cycle.

Have any more questions about BPM or how DAS can use their solutions to completely optimize your organization? Click this link to sign up for a free consultation.