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Business Processes are a group of activities which are recurring in nature and contribute significantly to the growth and development of the business. Managing these activities efficiently so that maximum business benefit can be captured is better known as Business Process Management. If you think that Business Process Management deals with mundane tasks, you are very far from the truth. Large organizations with good business process management skills have even managed to put an abstract activity such as Innovation as part of their process management cycle. Even thinking or strategizing for the future is part of a Business Process. Thus the first step in understanding Business Process Management is to understand the range of activities which qualify as Business Process and only then can they be documented and subsequently managed.

The first step when implementing Business Processes in any organization is to understand the lifecycle of a business process. Key questions which need to be answered are ‘when does the process get triggered?', ‘which business activity does it impact?', ‘what are the steps in business process?', ‘What the key parameters against which they can be measured?' and so on.

Once these key questions are answered and documented, you can put see the outline of a defined business process. All business activities are made up of multiple business processes and business process management is to make sure that these processes are working together for the greater benefit of the organizations. Some of the key points to consider when setting up business processes are discussed in the rest of this article.

Keep in mind that these processes will be managed by people. A business process should not be very rigid; neither should it be too open ended. There should be some room for innovation within the process as well as that is the business process can be improved over a period of time. Many management gurus consider successful organizations those which have captured the DNA of a business process within their working framework.

Simple documentation and automation also makes business process automation work in the long run. If you are using software to automate your business process, it should be made sure that people have been suitably trained on it and rather than change the way of working of the company, the software conforms to the process that you already follow. The automation should be complimentary to business and not anti-productive. It is imperative to remember that Business Process Management is suppose to save time and resources in an organization and should be approached with that principle in mind.

Adherence to Business Process throughout the organization is a must for any organization to gets it full impact. Developing or outlining a business process without true permeation with the company, is like giving a bird wings but asking it not to fly. It is successful implementation and following of a set business process which will save time and money in the organization and bring about greater efficiencies. Following business processes also helps in getting the most out of the people employed in the company without going back to the drawing board each time a familiar situation comes up.

The term Management in Business Process Management makes this activity an ongoing one. One a business process has been set and put in automated or semi-automated motion, it is critical that the process is reviewed at regular intervals to evaluate the affectivity of the process. A facility to maintain feedback from users of the process much be implemented and periodical review of the process and feedback from users will help in implementing changes and improving the process on an ongoing basis. A mature organization is one which has managed to implement the Business Process of Managing Business Processes effectively.The Business Process Management process has been an established business activity for quite some time. If you are keen to ensure that you harness the complete benefits of Business Process Management in your organization, you can bench mark it against some of the leading standards such as ISO 9001:2000, SEI CMM and Six Sigma. Some industries have industry specific business process management certifications. Benchmarking allows you to go full throttle in business process management as well as provide you excellent ammunition to increase the value of your organization in front of customers, suppliers and employees.

And Business Process Management

What is Business Process Management'To stay competitive in the marketplace a business needs to be cost effective. This is largely accomplished by streamlining the operations of the business and making sure the processes are running at peak efficiency. All businesses run via processes and Business Process Management (BMP) is a technology developed to give businesses the framework in which to manage more effectively the processes that make them tick. BMP technology is able to automate the managing of processes in your business, but allows for human intervention wherever necessary.

Most business processes involve more than one department and even different organizations. These processes rely heavily on the information from and participation of multiple systems. BPM technology is designed to facilitate these processes by integrating the various components into one streamlined system that runs smoothly and efficiently on a partially or completely automated flow of steps.

BPM automates the flow of a process and it automates the extraction of information needed to ensure that the process is completed properly. When human intervention is needed, each person is notified at the appropriate time to implement the step or steps that must be provided.BPM is also able to provide tracking of results and allows a business to measure the success of operations. The flexibility is in place to allow for changes to be made within the process so that the improvements in the operations will create a better outcome.

What to Look for in a BPM Technology

BPM technology for your business should include at least the following components:

• Design tools and user interfaces

• API/framework layer

• Data transformation

• Process automation, workflow, and rules engine

• Connectivity services

• Activity management for your business

One of the main problems that businesses run into when they begin to consider BPM technology is they find out that they do not fully understand the current processes they have in place. There is a large amount of preparation involved when integrating a BPM solution into your existing business process framework and many businesses do not understand their processes well enough to model them in the new BPM solution. If the business processes are not well understood, then incorporating BPM technology into the framework of the business’ processes may only create more confusion. However, if the processes of the business are defined properly during preparation for the BPM technology, then not only will the processes be fully understood, but weaknesses in the systems may be uncovered that can be rectified trough the use of BPM.

A business must determine its needs first and then look at the available options for BPM technologies that exist. It is also important that, from the business end, there is executive-level sponsorship of the BPM implementation plan and that there is user buy-in. A business will also need a project team to follow through on the integration of BPM into the existing framework of their company and they will need a full understanding of all deployment considerations. Lastly, the business must have a realistic view of the milestones along the way. It will take time to implement the entire BPM solution.In your business case for implementing the BPM, you of course need to consider your Return on Investment (ROI) and in evaluating the success of the BPM technology for your business, it will be important to compare the actual results against the ROI predicted in the planning stage.

In addition to this, there are other ways to gauge the success of your BPM implementation. By calculating your total cost of ownership, you will be able to make a baseline comparison between your before and after results based on the total cost of running your business. Determining the operational efficiency will reveal the cycle time, the total amount of time needed to run a process, and the required resources, the total number of people and systems needed to support the process. The greater the cycle time and required resources, the less cost efficient the process. Unit cost reduction is another way to gauge the success of the BPM implementation. This allows you to determine the actual cost savings for the business, which affects the bottom line.

Summary

The implementation of BPM technology can be an effective way for a business to streamline the processes that make them tick, which can greatly affect their bottom line. By integrating BPM technology into the process infrastructure of your business, you will be able to automate many of the steps needed to see a process through to completion. During the preparation stage of BPM deployment, a full understanding of the processes may lead to knowledge of how to make things work better.BPM technology makes sense for any business that runs on complicated processes. These businesses include, but are not limited to, financial services, insurance, government, healthcare, and manufacturing. BPM makes sense in a business world where the bottom line means everything.

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Peter Peterka has sinced written about articles on various topics from Six Sigma, Leadership and Six Sigma. Peter Peterka is President of Six Sigmaus. For additional information on Si. Peter Peterka's top article generates over 12100 views. Bookmark Peter Peterka to your Favourites.

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