5 Trends in Business Process Management

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The importance of business process management (BPM) for the future growth of organizations has been escalating due to greater levels of awareness. Initially, companies had used enterprise resource planning (ERP) initiatives to optimize operations management and customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives for service excellence. Later on however, the need for process and workflow efficiency as well as integration between automated and manual processes marked the need for process reengineering. Processes were analyzed to map out the relationships between the various elements within. Redundant areas were identified and automation was introduced into the equation. The ultimate goal was to integrate automation with the human factor to develop efficient processes.

The concept of BPM grew out of the need to address the lack of reinforcement or continuous improvement adopted for these reengineering efforts. Through BPM, the effectiveness of a process and its relationship with other processes is constantly monitored. Applications have been developed to assist users in analysis and process optimization tasks. Performance measurements are implemented to identify variances between actual performance and key performance indicators. This ensures that business processes are continuously optimized. Apart from that, BPM also supports the need to reevaluate or redesign processes in order to adapt to organizational changes, such as during an introduction of a new product or service.

In this sense, by keeping consistent tabs on performance, the BPM concept seems to have successfully addressed the changing needs of corporations.

What then lies ahead for BPM initiatives? How will BPM core practices be improved upon or redefined to cater to the changing needs of the business environment?

Trend #1. BPM will be evaluated from a business perspective, as opposed to a systems perspective.

One of the early characteristics of BPM is its tendency to be viewed from a systems perspective. However, the core driver of business excellence lies in the hands of the business people. Although BPM initiatives take the human element into consideration within its practices, the nature of its usage still pretty much confines it to the responsibility of the IT department.

With BPM applications developed for use by non-technical staff, it's clear that control on processes is reverting to people in business management. Part and parcel of business monitoring functions is visual monitoring with holistic process monitoring and reporting functions. Business units are ultimately the ones that need to have ease of control over their own processes, eliminating the need to generate special requests to the IT department.

Nevertheless, the role of the IT department is not to be sidelined. Its importance lies in its ability to collaborate with business users to identify requirements during the early stages of deployment and to assist in evaluation of potential applications to help with the automation.

Trend #2. We'll see easier integration with external applications.

Although the core of BPM lies in processes, applications have evolved to harness greater flexibility in the aspects of integration with other systems within the company. This reflects a changing need for BPM applications to be able to adapt to a dynamic business environment. One of these needs would be the integration of BPM with business intelligence, an aspect that is increasingly recognized as one of the key success factor for business performance excellence today.

In this sense, many BPM application vendors have begun integrating business intelligence aspects into their BPM modules. Instead of being process-driven, the trend for future BPM application products is towards execution-based structure, for the purpose of easier integration work.

Trend #3. BPM will play an increasingly important role in regulatory compliance.

The recent focus on regulatory compliance such as Sarbanes-Oxley and Basel II has driven the need for corporations to access their existing business processes for greater visibility. Indeed, many companies have realized the benefits of using BPM for this purpose. BPM applications are upgraded to address this need, with an aim to provide enterprise-wide visibility on processes, in addition to greater functional control.

Thus, adherence to corporate governance requirements will become the underlying stimulant for the development in BPM now and in the future. In fact, even as the BPM market had reached a market size of $550 million in 2004, there are strong sentiments that this market will continue to enjoy strong growth over the next five years, driven by corporate mandates on compliance.

Trend #4. BPM will enjoy increased flexibility through service oriented architecture.

Survival in the business world lies partially in the ability for organizations to be agile. The utilization of the service oriented architecture (SOA) in a BPM context is a step up in meeting this need. Through SOA, process changes and alterations can take place within a shorter span of time. Activities such as mergers and acquisitions will see the integration of common applications into larger components with less interruption to business operations.

Trend #5. Business rules management will become ever more important.

The concept of business rules management (BRM) highlights another possible change coming for BPM. In the quest of optimizing business processes for greater productivity, the need to automate repeated processes to achieve faster processing speeds has surfaced. For instance, processes such as filing for an insurance claim or opening a bank account involve variable outcomes and decision processes based on inputs. In this sense, BRM aims to automate decisions for routine processes that had been structured with BPM methods.

Among the improvements realized for BRM initiatives is the ability to shorten processing time from a few days to just a few hours. Furthermore, online processes such as the instant approval of a credit application or setting up a new account for home Internet access also stand to benefit from BRM.

In conclusion, with the myriad of developments poised for BPM in line with the increasing recognition of its relevance in business excellence, there is no doubt that the BPM market will continue to grow. More and more companies have begun to identify uses for the concepts of BPM within various business functions. Indeed, the ability for BPM to adapt to the changing environment is a factor for its sustainability. This is why organizations remain loyal to the use of BPM or its extended versions in their quest to stay ahead of the competition.