BPM Technology: Overview, Benefits, & Examples
Key takeaways
- Business process management technology may be defined as the technology that enables business agility through process automation and optimization.
- BPM technology automates tasks, eliminates redundancies, provides process visibility, and improves business efficiency and agility.
- The four main capabilities of BPM technology are process modeling, application generation, performance monitoring, and enterprise application integration (service-oriented architecture).
- BPM technology can be implemented through process management, rules engine, processes and workflow modelers, business activity monitoring (BAM), and business process management suites (BPMS).
- According to Grandview research, the global Business Process Management market was poised to grow at a CAGR of 19.9% from 2023 to 2030.
Business process management is a strategic approach that optimizes organizational performance by systematically analyzing, improving, and automating processes. Effective BPM initiatives leverage structured processes, innovative technologies, and collaborative team environments.
Table of Contents
While BPM shares similarities with project and task management, its scope is much broader. While task management focuses on individual activities, BPM focuses on the end-to-end process. Project management, on the other hand, focuses on dealing with time-bound endeavors while BPM targets repetitive tasks for continuous improvement. Some of the established methodologies such as Six Sigma and Lean are examples of standardized BPM.
What is BPM Technology?
Business process management technology may be defined as the technology that enables business agility through process automation and optimization.
What is the meaning of BPM technology?
All those technological improvements to a business process for continuous improvement may be categorized as BPM technology. Business process management technology encompasses management tools, methods, and techniques, that aim at monitoring and controlling the development, progress, and conclusion of processes.
BPM in Information Technology
BPM in information technology provides a sophisticated level of automation that combines the logic within business models along with rules and data linked to each activity of the process. Business process management technology can be considered a new generation of business applications that offer unprecedented workflow management and seamless flow-status reporting. The tools and techniques in BPM technology allow a business to manage a people process technology through activities, people, machines, and software, and help in cutting cost, time, and resource consumption.
BPM technology is basically an improvement method that involves innovation, flexibility, and integration with technology. These technologies can be considered as a wide approach that covers technologies and implementation of techniques that install, control, and improve business processes.
The end results of implementing BPM technologies are better reliability, reduction in costs, and better adaptability and flexibility to clients’ requests. Irrespective of the scope and size of organizational goals, BPM technology enables organizations to achieve them through improvements, management, and control of methods, techniques, and tools.
BPM tools are used to analyze, model, publish, optimize, and oversee processes that involve human resources, documents, applications, and information sources. Specific BPM technologies can be used to simulate various scenarios proposed based on the analysis of client requirements, and then generate metrics of efficiency.
Capabilities of BPM Technology
Business process management technology may be considered as an integration of BPM tools, solutions, and techniques, operating with the sole aim of facilitating effective business process modeling, impactful process change, and comprehensive BPM-based process management. Enterprises can achieve business agility, visibility, and efficiency by implementing BPM technologies like automation, optimization, and management.
There are 4 main capabilities of BPM technology, as listed below –
1. Process modeling
The designing, mapping, and modeling of a business process or workflow, which is carried out at the beginning of business process management efforts are referred to as process modelling. Process mapping helps users understand the process better and design new processes that are devoid of the inherent redundancies of current processes. The main aim of process modelling is to aid the design of new processes or redesign existing processes for better business outcomes.
2. Application generation
This is where workflow automation comes into the picture. Based on the findings of the process model, automation technology is introduced to achieve configuration, data management, and development of an end-user tasks list for a seamless business process transformation.
3. Performance monitoring
The workflow automation tool provides management solutions like project management dashboards, reporting tools, and analytics for continuous monitoring and improvement of business processes.
4. Enterprise application integration (Service Oriented Architecture)
BPM technology integrates multiple BPM tools, platforms, and technology solutions with legacy systems. This way any system downtime is prevented and upgrading processes and systems becomes easy.
BPM technology brings insight and innovation into business processes and presents businesses with a major opportunity to adopt the latest tools and solutions to achieve process excellence and stay ahead of the competition. The main intent of BPM technologies is continuous improvement through the automation of business processes. This is achieved by combining BPM methodologies with the latest technology so that business goals are always met.
BPM Methodology vs BPM Technology
BPM methodology and technology – are they the same? We could safely say that BPM technology exists due to BPM methodologies. Business process management (BPM) is not a technology, rather it is a practice performed by people. Business process management technology on the other hand is the technology that enables the implementation of BPM technologies.
BPM methodology is the practice of modeling, analyzing, and optimizing end-to-end business processes to help meet strategic business goals. BPM methodology can be applied to tasks and processes that are repeatable, ongoing, or predictable. BPM technology is the tools and techniques that are used to implement BPM methodologies. It integrates BPM solutions, tools, and techniques, to facilitate process modeling, process change, and BPM process management.
Core functionalities of BPM methodologies are – analyze, model, execute, monitor, optimize, and automate. The core functionalities of BPM technology are – process modeling, application generation, performance monitoring, and enterprise application integration.
How Does BPM Technology Improve Process Management?
BPM technology is instrumental in translating data analytics into actionable business insights that are helpful for key decision-makers. Advanced technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning or other solutions that can collect, store, monitor, and analyze large volumes of data accurately are at the core of BPM technology. Implementing such technologies helps establish more sophisticated workflow management and business automation of processes.
There are several ways in which BPM technology helps improve process efficiency. It helps tackle common challenges faced by business processes like – the inability to scale, chaos, and missed deadlines. The inability to scale up to the increasing demands of the business is one of the most common challenges faced by business processes. It is not enough if the process works fine for a single instance, it needs to scale up 10 times or even 100 times for smooth running of the business.
Business process management technology empowers businesses to scale up to expand the scope of operations. BPM technology like automation can help you scale it up as big as needed while collecting data and being more productive. A workflow automation software like Cflow lets you automate your existing business processes without needing human intervention at every turn.
The second challenge faced by business processes is chaotic operations. Manual email approvals, misplaced forms, communication gaps, and process inaccuracies, are just a few of the long list of chaotic incidents that mar process performance. BPM technology takes the chaos and clutter out of business processes by centralizing operations. Handling emails. Calendar schedules and many more admin tasks can be automated and centralized under a single banner. This way, you need not shuffle between dozens of apps to locate data or tasks.
BPM technology lets the team focus on work rather than wasting time locating tasks or data. Workflow automation software like Cflow is not only focused on eliminating chaos from business operations but also helps automate any work that is predictable and repeatable.
With dozens of tasks on their plate, process owners are likely to miss out on tasks. When tasks are missed or delayed, it affects the subsequent tasks in line and the productivity of the business. Tasks that have to be completed but do not contribute to the growth of the business directly, are better off when automated.
BPM technology can pull all of the pressing tasks into a single dashboard so that you can focus on primary work without getting distracted by incoming emails, or text messages. Once the system is set up to carry out repetitive tasks, it will carry on for as long as needed without the need for human intervention.
5 Examples of BPM Technology
BPM technology adds value to a business by eliminating process redundancies and inefficiencies. To understand how BPM technologies add value to your business, let us consider the following examples –
1. Business process management
BPM technology is used for implementing BPM methodologies. BPM in information technology uses various software tools and solutions to align IT and operations with business goals. Automation solutions and tools are used for deploying apps, measuring productivity, monitoring performance, and other processes. Using BPM technology for process management decreases the cycle times and costs associated with redundant or repetitive steps.
2. Process and Workflow Modelers
Before improving the process, it is important to understand the process entirely. Process and workflow modellers are useful for analyzing processes and creating detailed documentation around the opportunities, risks, volume outcomes, and bottlenecks they possess.
BPM technology helps create accurate maps of each business process, which an enterprise can use to identify the activities, tasks, roles, and dependencies that make up the process. Process analysts can use process maps to figure out potential process improvements. Process and workflow modellers help create a new, improved version of the process with all the upgrades being implemented. Based on the proposed improvements derived from process maps, an enterprise simply has to execute and automate the process.
3. Business activity monitoring (BAM)
The main focus of a business activity monitoring (BAM) tool is to provide a comprehensive look at the business operation. Key decision-makers use BAMs to take corrective action against issues that occur in the process to optimize business performance. BPM technologies for business activity monitoring combine all the processes and technologies that enhance situation awareness and enable an analysis of critical business performance indicators based on real-time data.
The simplest form of BAM tools is management dashboards that include graphical elements like cards, gauges, charts, and listings for providing an overview of the entire operation. Dashboards are a focal point where the entire team can concentrate on process KPIs. BAM tools are among the most useful BPM technologies that enable organizations to stay updated on process statuses.
4. Rules Engines
A business must have a clear definition of how a given business process will be executed. All the tasks that make up the process, their dependencies, the sequence of execution, triggers, etc, all of these must be clearly defined. This brings us to the concept of business rules. It is very important to implement and maintain a strict set of business rules around business decisions, operations, legal/regulatory mandates, etc, for the smooth running of business processes.
Rules engines are essential for the development, documentation, and effectiveness of business process rules. This BPM technology centralizes the way a business process is run and offers a clear roadmap for process improvement. A formalized rule book and process definitions help process analysts to test, maintain, and develop new business rules, and conduct version control and approval workflows.
5. Business process management suites (BPMS)
A business process management suite is a technological environment that enables modelling, testing, executing, and managing of business processes. BPM technologies generate all the applications needed for executing a business process and combine them under the BPMS.
A business process management suite allows businesses to embrace process improvements rapidly and gain complete control over process execution. Initial optimization of existing processes and continuous improvement is possible with BPMS. The first step is to design the process based on the findings of process analysis. Process analysis helps identify the root cause of problems and bottlenecks.
The second step is modeling the proposed process improvement. This step too derives inputs from the process analysis step where improvement areas are identified. This is the step where you configure the automation solution. If you are using a process automation solution like Cflow, the design step is a breeze with the visual form builder. Process execution is the third step, where you access a list of tasks you are responsible for.
The fourth step is the monitoring step, where process indicators are monitored in real-time. The final step is the generation of a new version of the process, making changes, and optimizing the process. All these steps can be executed easily with a BPMS. The most important capability that a business process management suite brings to business processes is agility.
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Benefits of BPM Technology
Managing business processes with advanced technology solutions improves organizational performance significantly. BPM technology allows managers to respond to and control business processes, and directly apply solutions as issues arise. Among BPM technologies, process automation in particular has a tremendous impact on employee productivity by automating daily manual tasks that are repetitive and time-consuming.
BPM technologies empower businesses to increase productivity and profitability by introducing more agility, visibility, and efficiency into processes. Business agility allows enterprises to adapt quickly and easily to evolving conditions, continue to improve processes, and stay one step ahead of the competition. BPM also brings greater transparency and visibility into processes, enabling enterprises to better monitor and manage their processes.
The Key Advantages of BPM Technologies Listed Below
Accelerates business growth
Armed with the right BPM technology, you can create a single process flow and scale it up as needed. Businesses derive unparalleled automation capabilities that eliminate human intervention from repetitive, mundane tasks within a defined workflow. You can replicate an existing business process and run it 10 times or even 100 times more. Such high levels of efficiency accelerate business growth significantly.
Provides deeper visibility
BPM technology like business activity monitoring process analysis and modeling tools provides deeper visibility into process performance.
The BAM can be used by the management to get real-time updates on the status of tasks. The task statuses and KPIs are displayed on the easy-to-read and understand dashboard so that the team is aware of the progress at all times. Process analysis and modeling tools are extremely useful in mapping out the current process, making it super easy to spot the inefficiencies and bottlenecks. Identifying improvement areas in a process makes it easy and effective to plan improvement efforts.
Provides business agility
When your processes are backed by BPM technology, responses to process issues are proactive rather than reactive. You can respond to issues the moment they arise and apply the right solutions without disrupting business operations. BPM technology also enables you to adapt quickly and effortlessly to fast-evolving market and consumer demands.
Improves process efficiency
The efficiency that BPM technologies bring to business processes is significantly high. Using process automation, teams can automate rote tasks that take away most of their work hours, and focus on important tasks that improve business outcomes. Repetitive tasks like scheduling appointments, approving requests, and responding to inquiries are all tasks that are repetitive and predictable by nature and can be effectively automated.
Accelerates product delivery
BPM technologies can help you deliver better products and provide better client services. Automating customer-facing tasks like responding to customer queries improves response times and ensures that customer queries are addressed quickly and appropriately. This minimizes operational disruptions or delays and allows human resources to focus on more important, value-added tasks. Implementing BPM technologies also streamlines business processes by eliminating redundant steps, and automating the repetitive ones.
Choosing the right BPM technology for your business requires a good amount of research on the nature of your process operations. Automating repetitive tasks in key business processes like HR and Admin, Finance and Accounting, Document management, etc, saves the business a good deal of time and money. Cflow is a business process management suite that covers all the aspects of BPM with a no-code approach that simplifies workflow creation significantly.
Key Takeaways
According to Grandview research, the global Business Process Management market was poised to grow at a CAGR of 19.9% from 2023 to 2030. The importance of BPM technology in improving process efficiency will continue to grow as business leaders work to scale and remain competitive.
To derive maximum value from BPM technologies you need to choose the best business process management suite that caters to the requirements of your business. Cflow fits the bill perfectly! To explore our feature-rich process automation solution, Sign Up for the free trial right away!
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