Business Process Management, a new tool or technique of Management which helps to curtail the gap between the booming business
and irresistible IT – Information Technology. In this article I will give a glimpse about the utility of Business Process Management.
This is an era of competition, stiff indeed. No duopoly but a complete full phased oligopoly where the mantra is “survival of the fittest”.
Organizations across the world are desperately seeking for skills, more flexibility and above all productivity.
The ever rising software industry is sought for better, durable and adaptable software applications. The omnipresence of the above will only help this IT to reach into the zenith. BPM vis-à-vis Business Process Management has come out as a messiah and helping this industry to attain those above mentioned attributes.
BPM, therefore, may be defined as a tool and practice of enhancing the efficiency, effectiveness, and operational dexterity of an
Organization by automating, optimizing, and managing its business process. It further enables business processes to be planned and designed independently of any solitary application and then leveraged as shared business logic.
Before going for further explanation, let us give a light about Business Process.
Business Process
Before knowing about the Business Process Management, first of all we have to have a little bit of knowledge about Business Process.
According to Wikipedia a “Business Process is a collection of interrelated tasks, which solve a particular issue”.
A Business Process can be further decomposed into various sub processes, which possesses their own merits. The analysis of Business Process typically includes the mapping of processes and sub-processes down to activity level.
Davenport (1993) in this regard defines a (business) process as:
“a structured, measured set of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market. It implies a strong emphasis on how work is done within an organization, in contrast to a product focus’s emphasis on what. A process is thus a specific ordering of work activities across time and space, with a beginning and an end, and clearly defined inputs and outputs: a structure for action. ... Taking a process approach implies adopting the customer’s point of view. Processes are the structure by which an organization does what is necessary to produce value for its customers.”
Above all Business Process is one that helps us to define, automate, implement, manage and smoothen business process in an organization.
What exactly Business Process Management is ?
Wikipedia says BPM “is a field of knowledge at the intersection between management and information technology, encompassing methods, techniques and tools to design, enact, control, and analyze operational business processes involving humans, organizations, applications, documents and other sources of information”.
In nut-shell Business Process Management is nothing but a management model that helps the organizations to manage their processes as any other assests and enhance and further manage them over the period of time. In every medium and large scale organizations, a competent Business Process Management System enables business to accommodate day to day activities and changes in business processes because of immensely competitive, regulatory or market challenges in business processes.
Moreover Business Process Management provides goverenance of a business’s process atmosphere to improve agility and operational performance.
The Life-cycle of Business Process Management
The overall activities of BPM can be shortlisted in the following names:
a) Process Design
b) Process Modeling
c) Process Execution
d) Process Monitoring &
e) Process Optimization
Advantages of Business Process Management
BPM has got many attributes. These days it has almost become an utmost for the booming IT vis-à-vis software industry. From BPM the organizations derive multifaceted benefits. This includes:
a) Increased customer retention;
b) Reduced process time;
c) Improved regulatory compliance:
d) Improved efficiencies across organizational boundaries;
e) Create new IT assets and further use of those;
f) More personal productivity and satisfaction;
g) Reduced risk;
h) Increased agility
Challenges associated with BPM
A successful BPM requires both short and perfect long term planning and goal setting. And that has to be properly designed, optimized and executed. Without clear alignment on the goals BPM cannot be successful.
Both the business analyst and the IT developer must ensure that the selected BPM system fits with existing systems and is capable of supporting current business practices. One of the primary goals is to integrate processes across people and systems. Moreover the BPM solution should be flexible enough to ensure that integration efforts can meet across the divide that has traditionally separated business and IT, otherwise it will fumble and the whole process will crumble into pieces.
Conclusion
Above all it is crystal clear that the importance and utility of BPM is unquestionable. And it further acts as a bridge between business and IT. Besides, a competent catalyst between business and IT. The only part needs to be taken care of – is proper planning, designing, modeling, implementation and optimization. If these are ok, success is guaranteed not warranted.