What is BPM?
Jun 25, 2024
Business Process Management helps you improve your company’s efficiency and boost your employees’ morale.
BPM: A Definition
Business Process Management (BPM) analyzes a company’s processes in a holistic way. As an organizational discipline, it enables businesses to view all processes from a bird’s-eye perspective and adapt them when needed.
A software solution supports this by digitally capturing and modeling processes to see how they would work in various scenarios. This makes it possible to identify weaknesses and implement measures to optimize them.
The software’s monitoring function then helps to continuously refine these processes. Because processes are recorded digitally, no information is lost. Different stakeholders can jointly use and edit them. If changes occur in the workplace, necessary measures can be introduced in real time.
What Is a Business Process Management?
Before we delve into why BPM is so important, it’s crucial to understand what a business process actually is. A business process is a series of structured steps or tasks that allow teams to reach their goals. Typically, processes are designed by multiple stakeholders to ensure that all steps are realistically mapped.
Key Components of a Business Process:
Tasks: Which tasks need to be completed?
Roles: Which people are responsible for which tasks, and what roles do they have?
Time: How much time does a process need to be completed?
Approvals: Who authorizes the tasks within the process?
A business process therefore creates transparency throughout the entire company. All employees know which tasks need to be completed, by whom, and by when. Management can also track how effectively the processes help the company achieve its goals. To ensure this is successful, Business Process Management is indispensable.
Why Is Targeted Business Process Management Important?
Ongoing digital transformation makes it necessary to keep a close eye on business processes. After all, a sequence of tasks and activities helps achieve specific company goals. However, if processes are no longer up to date, they may become ineffective or inefficient. This can increase costs—perhaps because errors creep in or tasks take longer to complete.
With Business Process Management, you can identify and leverage potential for improvement. For example, you can automate manual tasks, adjust project goals, or reduce errors. As a result, processes become more effective, taking less time to complete. Additionally, your company remains flexible and better able to respond to changes. This can help you improve your products or services.
What Advantages Does BPM Offer Your Company?
A focused Business Process Management approach can have a positive impact on various aspects of your organization:
Improved Collaboration: Digitizing processes with BPM helps break down barriers between departments and remote employees. Even if your employees work in different locations, everyone knows exactly what their tasks are and the current status of each process. Because all processes are managed in one place, you can avoid long email chains.
Reduced Costs: Business Process Management helps increase productivity. At the same time, thanks to its cloud-based solution, it can help reduce the costs of expensive on-site systems. This gives companies more flexibility without incurring high costs.
Enhanced Administration: With the rise of remote work, it’s critical for companies to track tasks and workflows digitally. BPM ensures that all stakeholders remain on the same page—regardless of location.
Boosted Motivation: Greater transparency, increased flexibility, and trust in each employee’s abilities can, in the long run, help improve motivation and morale.
What Types of Business Process Management Are There?
The goal of BPM is to improve processes. Every company has numerous, varied business processes that may require different BPM approaches. Having an overview will help you choose the right type of Business Process Management for your processes.
Human-centric Business Process Management
As the name suggests, Human-centric BPM focuses on people and their abilities. The idea is to make employees’ work as easy as possible. Processes are laid out in the simplest, most comprehensible way, and real-time support is provided when needed. Examples of these processes include hiring new employees or creative work—both of which cannot be fully automated.
Document-centric Business Process Management
This type of BPM is suitable for optimizing workflows and is designed for the approval of specific documents. These could be website content, legal documents, or other written materials that require a legal review.
Integration-centric Business Process Management
Integration-centric BPM focuses on connecting various applications and tools, creating a central source of information. Employees thus have to toggle between fewer different programs in their daily work. Information becomes more accessible, ensuring a seamless flow of data. One example of this type of BPM is integrating marketing and sales tools with CRM and marketing automation platforms.
Implementing Business Process Management: Step by Step
At first glance, BPM may appear complicated. However, in just a few steps, you can manage business processes simply and effectively.
Map and Model the Process: First, design an ideal process and create a visual model. Define the tasks and roles involved. You can assign tasks to entire teams so you don’t need to specify a single person to complete each task.
Execute and Test the Process: As soon as the process becomes active, it becomes a dynamic workflow. In this phase, test how effective it is. If you find that tasks or stakeholders are missing, you can add them here. It’s best to test the process before rolling it out across an entire department.
Monitor and Optimize the Process: Process requirements can change over time, so regular monitoring is essential. This allows you and your team to work more effectively and productively. If you notice that workflows get stuck at certain points, the process must be optimized. Often, automating business processes and minimizing manual tasks can help. This ensures you use your employees’ resources optimally.
What Is BPM Software?
Precisely managing processes can be challenging. Companies often grapple with cumbersome processes because they lack the time or resources to standardize them. This results in inefficient workflows that waste time and resources. A Business Process Management software solution helps you keep track of it all.
This type of tool allows you to map and record business processes. You can then automate or optimize existing processes because all steps are traceable and can be continually adjusted. A BPM software solution also offers the option to recognize optimization potential in advance.
Automate Your Business Processes with FireStart
You can optimize your company’s processes in just a few steps. FireStart’s BPM software helps you manage and automate your business processes—enabling effective Business Process Management. Book a demo to see in real time how FireStart can digitize your company’s process ecosystem in just a few minutes.
