What is BPM? Business Process Management made simple
What is BPM? When we think about Business Process Management (BPM), we often think of ‘expensive’ or ‘for large companies’. Maybe you can also think that ‘it takes up too much management time’ or ‘we are not ready for that yet’. Is that really what lies behind BPM?
All those perceptions are wrong. In fact, a Small or Medium Enterprise should worry the most about its business processes in order to grow faster. No organization should postpone this issue until it’s too late because the solution might not be as simple.
Companies that want to have a chance in the market should start by managing its business processes. Certainly, maximizing customer satisfaction and internal efficiency are crucial to growth.
Now we will present the BPM discipline in a simple and business-oriented language. Hence, we will list typical problems and worries, showing why this is such an urgent issue. The sooner you start applying BPM solutions, the better your company will operate.
What is Business Process Management
Business Process Management is a discipline (methodologies + technologies) to improve business processes that sustain your operations. This is done in four stages, which are the pillars of BPM:
Model your processes using a diagram to visualize how they work. Usually, the notation used is the worldwide standard BPMN (Business Process Management Notation).
Automate processes using a BPM Suite. There are on-premise and cloud BPM Suites (like Flokzu)
Measure time and quantity of work done using Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), to draw objective conclusions about where and what to improve.
Introduce improvements and repeat stage one.
What is a business process?
A business process is a sequence of activities that take place in your company to achieve any of its objectives. Usually, a business process involves several people who contribute with a particular task. So, to answer “What is BPM?”, first of all, we need to understand what a business process is.
Let’s analyze a real-life example. First of all your company receives a quotation request via email, telephone, website or call center. Similarly, your salesmen could receive requests. In any case, after receiving the request, it is assigned to the sales team. A salesman communicates with customers to understand their needs and build a quotation for them. There are standard proposals, which go directly to the customer via mail. And there are complex proposals that require additional approval of commercial managers. Let’s say that the client can only do three things: buy, reject the proposal or ask for modifications. Finally, if they buy, the process continues through the seller to coordinate delivery.
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