Business Process Management: Gain Efficiency in 5 Easy Steps

Growth does not happen without change.

Companies operating with outdated processes cannot keep pace with the dynamic and competitive market. Unmanaged processes create chaos in multiple ways, including wasted resources, time, and talent.

People working at different levels of a business model often struggle to see the processes as a whole. But by practicing business process management, organizations can fight inefficiency and improve day-to-day operations.

What is Business Process Management?

Business process management (BPM) is the analysis and improvement of business processes. It is an ongoing activity that identifies areas for improvement and makes changes to the existing strategy by reducing bottlenecks, automating manual tasks and improving overall efficiency.

Companies that use business process management software often apply process mining to gain insight into existing processes and workflows. This visibility allows supervisors to identify process vulnerabilities and fix them with data-driven solutions.

BPM is not a one-dimensional practice or technology. It includes several layers of actions aimed at studying, identifying and fine-tuning processes to ensure that daily operations run smoothly and improve over time.

Why is business process management important?

Processes are everywhere. All of your company's day-to-day business activities occur as processes. When you start taking processes seriously, they become tools that help you achieve your business goals.

Process management has a positive impact on many teams and employees. The underlying benefit of BPM is that it improves organizational efficiency. The work gets done quickly, which speeds up the process of improving your business.

For example, when an employee onboarding process is made effective, there are three positive impacts on the organization.

A better onboarding experience because the HR department is clear on the onboarding steps. Clarity of responsibilities for other departments involved in the integration (such as IT and finance), which facilitates their work. An improved onboarding experience will make the new employee comfortable with the new workplace and reduce their adjustment time to a new team. Types of business process management

BPM works in many forms; some processes can be fully automated, while others require human intervention to make decisions. So every organization needs all three types of BPM in different amounts.

1. Document-centric BPM

In a document-centric process, the entire process is built with a document at its core. The purpose of the process is to send the document through various stages of an approval workflow and have it authorized. Document-centric BPM reduces the need to email documents. You can avoid losing the document in the viewer, among many other files.

Document-centric BPM example

A budget approval process is a document-centric BPM. The initiator fills out a form with all the budget request details and sends it to the next person in the workflow. The approval process is assigned to the designated authority based on the requested amount, budget items or any other condition.

2. Human-centric BPM

In a human-centric process, most of the heavy lifting is done by humans. Humans decide what happens after each step of the process. The automation of the steps is limited here.

A human-centric BPM system is designed to be user-friendly. It has a visual interface to help employees understand the process and manage it easily. You need to focus on human-centric processes because they have a direct impact on employees and customers.

Human-Centered BPM Example

The best example of a human-centric process is the recruitment process in your company. A team leader realizes he needs an extra employee and asks his superior for one. The manager studies the request and forwards it to the HR department. A human resources manager publishes the job offer and begins to screen candidates based on selection criteria.

3. Integration-centric BPM

In an integration-centric process, the focus is on creating a smooth flow of data between a network of...