Breakaway BPM

Business process management (BPM) – do you even know what the phrase means? If not, you’re not alone. BPM refers to the ability to define, model, streamline, analyse and improve business processes. Successful BPM usually involves a mix of technology, process definition exercises, and ultimately some degree of operational change within an organisation.

While BPM as a discipline is not new, it has been slow to evolve. As with any new business or technology concept, there has been a period of scepticism, followed by tentative adoption by organisations willing to try something new and the realisation that BPM actually is different – and actually works. It saves money, increases productivity, instils control and repeatability, is easy-to-use and makes an organisation more agile. And the return on investment is clear. Word got out and before we knew it, BPM had hit the mainstream.

As adoption of BPM spread( and in some cases matured) to span an entire enterprise, vendors invested heavily in expanding the scope of BPM to include a full-spectrum of capabilities – process design, automation, analysis, simulation, integration – so that an entire process lifecycle could be addressed.

So while BPM was slow to evolve, it has been quick to take off and the adoption rate continues to accelerate. The time has come to not only know what BPM is – but to understand how to leverage it. Because most likely, others in your industry are already moving beyond basic efficiency gains to leveraging process as a way to gain strategic advantage. Early adopters of BPM are now poised to ‘breakaway’ from the mainstream, using process to drive innovation and profitability. These organisations will be the leaders of the future.

Breakaway BPM has arrived

As more vendors try to stake a claim to the BPM opportunity, a few leaders have emerged to create a new era of BPM. An era defined by solutions that combine flexibility with a full spectrum of process capabilities and vendors partnering with thought-leading organisations to look at processes in terms of their ability to drive organisational growth. The era of breakaway BPM.

Breakaway BPM organisations don’t think in terms of design, automation and control but in terms of how a particular process drives innovation and profitability, and impacts business objectives. Then they figure out what needs to happen to take that process to the next level, leveraging various components of the new service-oriented BPM technology ‘suites’ to improve and optimise these core processes.

Breakaway BPM vendors merge human-centric and system-to-system capabilities into a single solution enabling real-time and forward-looking process visibility and improvement capabilities for roundtrip, complete lifecycle process management. They have the experience to accelerate results with industry and process-specific best practices and templates. They know how to break down perceived barriers, within and across organisations, to help customers unlock the true potential of their unique processes. Breakaway BPM vendors know how to deliver measurable results above and beyond expectations.

On the end-user side, breakaway BPM organisations view process capital as an opportunity to differentiate, gain market share, improve quality, empower people and optimise existing infrastructure to surge ahead of their competitors. Breakaway BPM organisations have realised results from BPM and have embraced it as way of doing business that is no longer optional – but the top priority in their organisation and are gaining market recognition for their innovation and leadership.

Reality bites – too many priorities

So how can you become a breakaway BPM organisation? How can you steer your organisation to invest in BPM and embrace something as nebulous as breakaway BPM – especially when the reality is that you already face too many projects, too many priorities and there is not enough time or money to do it all?

The answer lies in an approach that simply maps out a short list of key business objectives, identifies the processes that influence those objectives, and then rates the degree of impact each process has on directly improving a key objective. This allows you to quickly identify the processes that drive your success and will deliver short and long-term financial and strategic value to the organisation. These processes represent your most valuable process capital and any improvement to them will deliver tangible results.

Once you have used this approach to justify the project, staying focused on these key processes and making them the centrepiece of your breakaway BPM initiative will almost certainly guarantee success.

Breakaway BPM will produce new leaders

Whether you’ve a head start on BPM or are just learning what BPM is, your ability to take advantage of this new way of thinking about business processes is the same. Your current state just determines whether you should extend what you have or skip the basics and leap forward to the latest innovations available.

To quote Antoine de Saint-Exupery, “a plan without a goal is just a wish.” Leaders don’t emerge from wishes, leaders emerge from organisations that seize an opportunity, plan quickly and execute effectively. Breakaway BPM presents a clear opportunity – I encourage you to embrace it.