Business Process Management (BPM) software are those applications which can be used to measure, optimize and automate business processes. BPM tools are a combination of workflow and collaboration suites which help provide tangible results to the management team.
Need for BPM
Your organization works because many processes are being executed in serial or parallel manner. You need these processes to work quickly and efficiently without errors. For example, the ordering process is a series of checks done by finance for credit worthiness of the customer, by warehouse to check on availability of material, by manufacturing on the time taken to complete production etc. Within each of these departments, there are many other sub-processes that are happening as well. The more efficient and quicker these processes are, the faster you are able to respond to customer demands.
As per Gartner, “BPM brings attention to the highest-value processes — the ones that are most aligned with the business goals and strategy — for the best return on investment.”
What does the organization gain by implementing BPM?
- Agile Response – The rapid rate of changes happening in the world warrants a system that can adapt and respond quickly. A BPM software helps us tweak our internal processes to reflect the changes faster. Agility is one of the key benefits of implementing a BPM solution.
- Efficiency – Increased efficiency is almost immediately noticed once a BPM is implemented. Cooperation between departments and exchange of information is faster and much more transparent with the use of a BPM solution. These efficiencies across the organization has a direct impact on the company profitability and balance sheet.
- IT & Business teams work together – With the implementation of a no-code BPM solution, the IT team is able to directly impact the business objectives. IT no longer remains a department no one in the organization understands but a partner in achieving the business goals.
- Analytics – The work done using BPM solution gives rise to invaluable information that can be reported and analyzed to identify process bottlenecks. Additional resources can be deployed at particular points to smoothen out bottlenecks and make the processes more efficient.
Deployment methods
- Cloud – Software as a Service (SaaS)
With many organizations adopting a Cloud-First policy, deployment of BPM software on cloud is becoming increasingly common. The users get to access the software through a web browser hosted on the servers of the vendor or 3rd party hosting services. Some of the main benefits of Cloud deployment are BPM are –
- Availability & Up-time – the hosting provider takes care of the backups and disaster recovery services.
- Costs – reduced initial costs of deployment and implementation
- Security – these software are hosted in professional data centers with top level security.
- On-premise deployment – deployment on client data center or in-house servers.
The more traditional approach to deploying software has always been deploying on the organization’s own infrastructure. There are many benefits to this mode of deployment –
- Customization – software deployed on site is open to more customization than cloud software.
- Integration – on premise software can also be easily integrated with other business applications like ERP, CRM etc.
- Costs – After the high initial costs, the subsequent maintenance contracts are relatively cheaper.
Few options to consider
The market has several different BPM softwares to choose from. While selecting the BPM solution, you must make sure that it fits your needs.
- Nintex – one of the most popular BPM softwares in the market on business process management. Its software has been implemented in organizations across the world. Nintex has been commended by many of its customers for its ease of implementation and use. Lately, Nintex as an organization has been moving towards the next step of BPM called Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) which involves concepts of BPM and Machine Learning.
- Tibco BPM – It coordinates a digital business’ processes, people, context, and actions for better business outcomes. It takes businesses to their digital destinations by interconnecting everything in real time and providing augmented intelligence for everyone. It is a all-in-one platform that provides end-to-end business visibility and resource management, so that businesses will stay in control of their operations, detect inefficiencies and useful trends, and improve the quality of their decisions
- Zoho Creator – Zoho has always been known as the champion in creating a product for Small & Medium (SME) enterprises. So, it comes as no surprise that Zoho Creator, Zoho’s BPM software also makes our list for a simple to use and effective BPM. Zoho Creator is a cloud based solution. It enables non-technical users to quickly create custom applications and automate specific business processes. It provides an intuitive drag-and-drop interface to create your own custom applications.
- Custom BPM – It may so happen that after your analysis, you do not find any of the present softwares in the market a good fit for your organization and processes. In cases like this, you can always go in for a custom BPM solution which fits the needs of your organization. A custom BPM will give you the flexibility to create a solution which is best suited for your needs.
BPM software in recent years have made themselves indispensable tools in our continuous efforts to extract process efficiencies in different domains. With the advent of leaps in technology like machine learning, artificial intelligence etc, we only see them moving forward, becoming better and providing more value.