Business Process Management: Examples, Steps, and Types

We are living in an era where everyone wants to start a business of their own. From college students to middle aged bankers, individuals are breaking chain rule, starting their startups and bringing a wave of entrepreneurship in the world.

 

Business, whether small or large, requires management and attention to reach heights. Managing a business despite its size and shape is a challenging task. If you haven’t invested well in business management, all your investment in business is a waste.

 

In this blog, we will study Business Process Management. Here’s the guide for business management for all kinds of businesses. See the effect of automation in business management and development programs.

 

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What is Business Process Management?

 

Business process management is defined as an organizational discipline. It helps the company to build itself in all levels. Business management analyzes the current scenarios and identifies the area that needs immediate attention and improvement. Thus, it helps in creating a more efficient and effective organization.

 

Business process management helps the organizations to take a step back and looks at all their processes individually and totally. It is basically defined as a technique by which a company creates, edits, and analyzes the predictable process that makes up the core of its procedure.

 

In a business, each department is responsible for some process. While some take raw material to form finished goods, others are responsible for something else. Each department has some responsibilities. There is a list of core processes that is handled by a department.

 

In other words, BPM or business process management is a subject in which individuals use several methods to discover, model, measure, improve, optimize, analyze, and automate business procedures. BPM includes any technique or methodology that is employed by the business owners to enhance his business growth and manage any process related to it.

 

Sometimes, readers confuse business management with program management. Though, the two terms are quite different from each other. Program management refers to the process of managing inter-dependent projects. Program management is applied to improve the outcome of the project.

 

While managing business is a variable of process management. The key difference between process management and project management includes repeatability and predictability. For project management the sequence matters a lot, while for process management sequences vary from instance to instance. It depends on gateways and business rules.

 

BPM is an important asset for an organization. It must be understood, managed, and developed to announce and deliver quality services and products to the clients. The process is more or less similar to total quality management and is governed by ISO 9000 rules. The main aim of BPM is customer satisfaction and to meet customer requirements.

 

In recent days, BPM is governed by enabled technologies and approaches such as automation. It automates the tasks by recording repetitive activities thus helping the organizations to maximize their businesses.

 

Also Read | Business Process Analysis

 

 

Common characteristics of a Business Process Management Tool

 

A common and useful business process management tool has the following characteristics and features.

 

1. It should possess a diagramming tool.

 

2. It should have some visual processing tools.

 

3.  It should own a role-based access control.

 

4. The tool has mobile support.

 

5. The tool must own powerful administrator features.

 

6. The design should be drop and drag format.

 

7. There must be a single sign on option.

 

8. The system must integrate with the existing software system.

 

9. The system should serve reports and analytics.

 

10. It should have a process performance metrics.

 

11. There must be a performance calculator for large user bases.

 

 

Why is Business Process Management essential for businesses?

 

Business process management or BPM is important for all kinds of business as it serves the different needs of businesses. Incorporating business process management is essential for the business for the following reasons.

 

1. It helps in maintaining chaotic and unwieldy processes.

 

2. It helps in understanding the needs of the organization.

 

3. BPM helps the businesses to analyze from the start process to the end step.

 

4. BPM adapts business processes to market trends and industry requirements.

 

5. BPM helps in continuous improvement of businesses and processes.

 

6. It helps in creating, mapping, analyzing, and improving business processes.

 

7. BPM helps in running everyday operations more efficiently.

 

8. Business process management realizes the bigger organizational goals.

 

9. Business process management helps the businesses to move towards digital transformation.

 

10. BPM helps in improving and optimizing tangled operation.

 

11. BPM closely tracks the individual items as they move through a workflow system.

 

Business process management helps in reducing waste, spotting errors, and generating better products and services.

 

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What are the steps involved in Business Process Management?

 

Before reading about the types of BPM, let us consider the steps involved in business process management. There are basically four steps involved in business process management.

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Business process management

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1. Design

 

The first task for business process management is to collect data. Before forming a process, the data is collected and processed into a workflow. It helps the organization to build its identity, form and task.

 

2. Model

 

Now you have to structure the idea you planned. Model helps in representing the process in a visual layout. It also fixes the details like deadlines and conditions. Model gives a clear idea of the sequence of events and flow of data that is involved in the process.

 

3. Execute

 

Now the third step of business process management is to execute the process. Live testing of the plan is conducted. At first a small sample group is considered and further all users are considered. While executing the plan make sure that you restrict access to all sensitive information.

 

4. Monitor

 

After executing the layout plan, the process is run and watched. Right metrics are employed to measure efficiency and to identify the process and bottlenecks.

 

5. Optimize

 

Optimize is the general step of business process management. It basically focuses on management and improvement. It helps you to analyze and notice the required changes. These changes help make your workflow and management more efficient.

 

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Categories of BPM Systems

 

Depending upon the kind of purpose they serve and the kind of organizations. Business process management is classified into the following three categories.

 

1. Integration centric BPM

 

As the name suggests, integration centric BPM originally works on the processes that primarily fluctuate between the existing systems such as HRMS, CRM and ERP. The process works without human involvement. Integration centric business process management involves extensive connectors and API access.

 

2. Human centric BPM

 

Human centric BPM is the process that is executed by humans and not machines. It includes plenty of approvals and tasks performed by the individuals. These tasks assist in friendly user interface, quick tracking and easy notification delivery.

 

3. Document centric BPM

 

Documents play an important role in business management. This category of BPM is required when the whole focus of business depends on the documentation and papers. Document centric BPM enables routing, formatting, verifying and getting the document signed as per the workflow needs.

 

Almost each business employs all of this strategy, but few businesses use only one with specialty to serve the specific needs of their organizations.

 

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Practical Examples of Business Process Management

 

BPM applications are applied to the many departments within an organization. Some major applications of business process management are as follows:

 

1. Human Resources

 

BPM tools are employed to make HR departments more efficient. It can help in simplifying the review of timesheets, to onboard new hires, to automate the new tasks, to cut the use of paper forms, to improve the speed of the existing process.

 

2. Finance

 

A BPM tool is also employed in the finance department. It is used for a variety of documentation for different system centric and human centric processes. It is used to manage large volume emails and paper forms related to a company. It is used to manage the internal and external financial processes of the organizations. It also assists the streamline purchasing processes.

 

3. Sales

 

Sales teams have to deal with a mix of human and systemic centric processes. That’s why, sales team also appoints a business process management tool. BPM helps the sales team to coordinate the exchange of sales quotes and invoices. It ultimately shortens the sales cycle workflows.

 

4. Publishing

 

Publishing is hectic, especially when you own a publishing company. But a right business management tool can definitely make it right for you. A BPM helps in a well-structured publishing process.

 

5. Content Distribution

 

Different media firms employ BPM for the automated content preparation and delivery. From content creation to content distribution, a business process management helps in the automation and process management system. It helps the designer to interact with the content management, content traffic management and rights reserved.

 

6. Customer Services

 

Customer service representatives also use BPM tools for handling customers, traffic, and to alleviate the team to handle high volume of service. A BPM tool transcripts data from the call centers and chatbots to automate and personalize processes.

 

7. Banking

 

Banking teams also employ business process management for better management. It helps to evaluate applicants for the potential credit risks. The process involves collecting information from multiple resources, employers and credit rating agencies. BPM also helps in reducing the errors in the documentation.

 

8. Ecommerce Store

 

Ecommerce stores and firms help in improving the operational efficiency of order fulfillment systems. The BPM tool helps in managing special offers, order fulfillment, delivery, and order capture. Business process management shifts the thought process towards a customer-centric order management. It delivers a greater business value.

 

 

Common BPM Tools

 

Here is the list of some common business process management tools:

 

1. KissFlow

 

KissFlow is a first-class BPM software that is used by the business organization to reinvent things and optimize the business process digitally. The software is developed with or without the use of codes.

 

2. ProcessMaker

 

ProcessMaker is a famous workflow management solution. It helps you to design, automate, and deploy the business processes and workflows. The open-source option and the cloud option helps the organization, corporation, and education organizations to manage and serve their business needs.

 

3. Zoho Creator

 

It is a low-code development platform. It is created as a mobile and tablet application. Though paid in nature, Zoho is a popular choice for business beginners.

 

4. Nintex

 

Nintex is an automation tool. It is designed to assist easy digital transformation and to enterprise the organizations.

 

5. Bizagi

 

Bizagi enables enterprise grade automation. It has a cloud option. The Bizagi BPM is useful only for the users who have a previous or past experience of it.

 

Also Read | Business Process Discovery

 

Business process management is an essential part of business improvement and development. It offers a suite of tools and functions to serve the business needs for mapping and modeling the processes. And, it is essential for an organization to choose the right BPM tool for the purpose.