It's been talked about a lot, but not well explained. It is sold as a simple solution, but confuses many people from the first word forward. It is called the "latest and greatest" but its evangelists (and commissioned salespeople) have a hard time getting business owners to visualize its benefits. Introduction into the business vocabulary has been tough for Business Process Management (BPM) systems, software and solutions, and many business owners and managers still do not consider it relevant. It's time to look at BPM from the user's viewpoint and explain BPM in layman's terms. What, exactly, is it? Why is it so hard to explain - and understand? BPM, implemented in software but requiring other procedures to "join the effort," is supposed to streamline company operations, reduce redundancies and complexity, and improve a firm's processes, thus bumping up productivity and performance. Because some of the same terms get used - "bandied about" would be a more accurate way of saying it - some people confuse BPM with "process mapping software." They are not the same thing and serve different purposes. Process maps are documents that show procedures and activities as they are, quite often in all their complicated glory. BPM software is meant to reduce complexity, improve processes, streamline operations and improve business performance - admittedly a tall order. Immediate resistance Some businesspeople just don't (or won't) see how any sort of BPM software can help their situations. "Our processes are too complicated," they say. "There is no simple trail that we can blaze through them. We need simplicity, not more complicated solutions." For many businesses, it is important to see past the implementation of such a solution as BPM and see "what will really happen," not read about promises and possibilities. A BPM professional would counter by saying that running simulations and having a "walkthrough capability" is SOP, a Standard Operating Practice, for the good BPM software packages. It is crucial that a business team and its stakeholders see how processes will perform in the real world before committing to them. This allows time for fixing design problems, testing the process performance and understanding what will happen when that process is actually put into play. Only those people that work on a process, day in and day out, can really be trusted to test it, and BPM professionals know that the best software makes this possible. From bottlenecks to opportunities With BPM software - correctly implemented and used, and results properly analyzed; businesspeople can peer into every process and identify both bottlenecks and opportunities. Instead of poring over reams of data, a robust BPM solution will crunch the numbers and use the results to paint a picture, in realist style not impressionist, of what was going on, what changed and what is now going on. In fact, spotting bottlenecks and defining opportunities for improvement occur at two critical stages with BPM software. When process are first described, BPM software lets you do a dry run with test data, derived from historical records if you like, to spot initial bottlenecks and operational imperfections. Once seen, they can be corrected. Then, after a process is initiated into daily schedules and workflows, the software monitors and annotates performance, focusing on the unforeseen bottlenecks and unintended consequences that always (always!) emerge in real-world situations. Some BPM software is even capable of suggesting process improvements in real time, automatically or with manual interventions. Collaboration is key Some early opponents and naysayers opined that BPM software undermined team approaches and empowered discrete, disconnected strategies. Rather than doing so, good BPM software actually supports collaboration in important ways. Needless to say, the best processes are designed through team interactions, reflected in the way that BPM software allows capturing process information from electronic white boards. Combined with walkthrough and simulation capabilities, which bring the new ideas to life, BPM helps teams working in the same room, around the same table, to envision, design and deploy new business processes. Among BPM's great contributions to business was its ability to increase productivity and bring sense and order to the "process improvement cycle." Done right, BPM software solutions can equip management with the tools it needs to go from concept to context (or design to deployment, or idea to implementation), with timeframes reduced from months to weeks, even days. When management can design and test process models, create and distribute browser-based tools, and do so with new, legacy and/or third party components, something is definitely going right. Now that businesses can think about, and visualize, a complete "life cycle" of evolving processes, BPM has shown that is has real - not imaginary or vaporware-based - business value. That's something every business owner and manager can understand.
Article Source: http://www.articlecontentprovider.com/articlesubmit
It's been talked about a lot, but not well explained. It is sold as a simple solution, but confuses many people from the first word forward. It is called the "latest and greatest" but its evangelists (and commissioned salespeople) have a hard time getting...
As the business process management (BPM) trailblazer, Savvion.com moves enterprises beyond ordinary BPM with groundbreaking business-critical software, solutions, and services that make them more competitive, agile and cost-efficient in today’s tough economic times. Visit online today.
Please Rate this Article
5 out of 5 4 out of 5 3 out of 5 2 out of 5 1 out of 5
