10 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Business with BPM Right Now

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By Jeffrey D. Mills

There are few things more satisfying in business than resolving a "high visibility" problem within a short timeframe and being able to demonstrate clear value and/or hard savings as a result. If you seek this kind of recurring dose of high job satisfaction, you don't need to change companies to find it. Your organization is probably already full of process-related "pain points" and thus, ripe with opportunities for make meaningful improvements to the business. Ask any C-level executive how many issues they're facing tied to "Can't see it," "Can't control it," "Can't track it," "Can't take cost out of it" and "Can't standardize it."

In this article I'm going to describe 10 things that business process management (BPM) software can help you with. From this perspective, I believe you will be in a better position to identify places where BPM technology can have an immediate impact on your business.

The Forms of BPM Software Business process management (BPM) technology comprises five forms. Business Process Modeling Software This technology lets you design, model and often simulate a process. These tools are effective at documenting a process, but they won't manage and track a process. Companies that produce this type of software include iGrafx, MEGA International and Microsoft with Visio. Application-embedded Workflow This technology provides you with the ability to design, track and manage processes within an enterprise application (CRM, ERP, ECM, etc.). These tools bring a process management capability, but they only incorporate people who have a seat license to the triggering application into a process and won't interoperate with third party systems. Companies that produce this type of software include SAP, Microsoft (with Dynamic CRM) and Satuit. Integration-centric BPM Software This technology provides you with an application-independent process management capability that specializes in "lights out" or automated, high-volume data transactions between disparate systems. (The category used to be called enterprise application integration or EAI.) These applications struggle when there are often exceptions or people that have to participate in your process. Companies that produce this type of software include BEA, Microsoft with BizTalk and Vitria. Document-centric BPM Software This technology provides you with an application-independent process management capability that specializes in the routing of, collaboration with and approval of documents. These applications are effective at standardizing document management procedures but struggle when there are steps in a process that don't involve a document or that require large amounts of automation. Companies that produce this type of software include FileNet, Adobe and Global 360. People-centric BPM Software This technology provides you with an application-independent process management capability that specializes in optimizing work done by people (work that for the most part can't be automated). These applications can handle some automation, but struggle with large volumes of data transfer and translation between systems. Companies that produce this type of software include Bluespring Software (the firm I work for), Lombardi Software and Appian. It's important that you understand that while the term "BPM" is thrown around by vendors in all of these categories, their technologies aren't interchangeable. They're different technologies that address different needs. In many cases, they're complementary to each other.

1. Eliminating Mundane Work

Every company has resources tied up in and even dedicated to non-value-added work. Examples include re-keying information from one system to another, pulling information and routing it, populating Excel spreadsheets (rather than spending time manipulating the data or applying judgment to the output) and babysitting the progress of a highly-manual process. BPM software can automate mundane work through the application of business rules. This means that while some employees will get more work done, others will be freed up completely to work on more value-added work.

Estimated time to return on investment (ROI): 2–4 months
Where ROI comes from: resource cost reduction

2. Sustaining Compliance

These days, companies have pretty solid documentation around their compliance-regulated processes. But documentation often only shows what people are supposed to be doing; it doesn't necessarily track what people are actually doing. And while enterprise applications have embedded workflow capabilities, once that process leaves that application, there's no tracking mechanism. BPM software provides an internal control framework that spans all of the people and systems that participate in a compliance-affected process.

Bear in mind that compliance can mean more than SOX and HIPAA; it also means adherence to internal policies and procedures, as well. The sweet spot for BPM technology is any process that involves more than a single system and a heavy dose of manual activity.

Estimated time to ROI: 2-12 months
Where ROI comes from: less costly audits, risk mitigation, less "rogue" activity, less costly and more timely remediation

3. Extending Out Enterprise Applications

Customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and enterprise content management (ECM) software all trigger processes that involve people who don't have the triggering application on their desktop. The only people who can participate in a process triggered by the enterprise application are those with a seat license to the software.

This uncovers two problems. First, it's not cost effective to purchase seat licenses for everyone who has to participate in the process. Second, many people won't use the application because it wasn't designed for them. (When was the last time you saw a salesperson eager to use the company's ERP system?). BPM software hooks into enterprise applications and delivers an enterprise-wide process capability that lets people plug into the process using software they already have and already know how to use (such as Microsoft Office, email, Internet Explorer, etc.). Buy seat licenses for those for whom it makes sense; don't waste your money on everyone else.

Estimated time to ROI: 3-9 months
Where ROI comes from: reduced seat license costs, reduced training and support costs

4. Simplifying People's Jobs

Learning new software isn't fun. It also delays the ramp time needed to achieve an acceptable level of productivity. Even when they get there, employees find their effectiveness forever hindered because they're being asked to work how the software wants them to work. So if Jill were hired for her experience and judgment surrounding risk assessment, why are you forcing her to spend three weeks learning the company's proprietary, legacy system?

BPM software can take data out of existing systems and repurpose it into the format the user is most comfortable with. How much happier would Jill be if she never had to access that antiquated program -- and could simply receive the data she needs pre-populated in an Excel spreadsheet template that she designed? The same process may require input from the legal department, and they often prefer to work in Word and Adobe PDFs. In all cases, this approach requires nothing new to install and nothing new to learn. BPM software can present the right information to the right people at the right time in the right format to put your employees in the best position to add value to your business.

Estimated time to ROI: 2-4 months
Where ROI comes from: error reduction, reduced training and support costs

5. Reducing Risk

Just making people's jobs less complicated and enforcing existing policies will reduce the risk of mistakes being made. Beyond that, however, there are two other types of risk that BPM software alleviates.

First is the elimination of the "I never saw that coming" problems that every company faces. BPM software yields full, enterprise-wide visibility into every step (manual or automated) of a business process so that you can track things going awry and step in to "course correct" before a permanent, negative impact happens. Business rules offer automatic escalations in the case of non-responsiveness. How many times have your processes been slowed down because someone was on vacation and everything was being held up in his or her inbox? In other words, "balls will no longer be dropped."

The second involves reducing the risk your company has with respect to human capital. Every organization has that one process that only "Bob" knows how to do. Well, what happens if "Bob" is out of the picture? BPM software lets you alleviate that risk by building Bob's "know how" into the process.

Estimated time to ROI: 6-9 months
Where ROI comes from: error prevention, faster cycle times

6. Knocking Out Process-Related "Pain Points" or Nits

Every company has "workarounds" because existing systems have gaps in their ability to meet all of its needs and/or they're too cumbersome to use; thus people avoid using them.

I was recently at a Fortune 500 manufacturing company that requires its salespeople to use an ERP application to submit their expenses. As you can imagine, this is going over about as well as taking people's morning coffee away. As a result, people circumvent the process -- thereby creating more work for other people along the way.

Why not let salespeople use Excel and email to complete their expenses? BPM can manage the approval process and then feed the data into the ERP system for them. A Midwest-based healthcare firm has struggled to standardize its month-end close accounting process that involves dozens of locations. Why not standardize around a single Excel template and let BPM handle the data consolidation and manage the process? Most companies I know have many nits that can be addressed pretty quickly with BPM software.

Estimated time to ROI: 1-4 months
Where ROI comes from: resource cost reduction, reduced seat license costs

7. Establishing Full Visibility into How Your Business Operates

Within the context of an enterprise-wide process, visibility and control gaps exist in what I like to call the "white space." The white space is the work that's done by people in between the enterprise systems where visibility does exist.

White space typically makes up more than 30% of an enterprise-wide process, and this is where blindness occurs. Take the complex sales process, for example. Any time a customer requests a custom price, product, term and/or condition to the contract, it can't be entirely managed inside a CRM application. Finance has to "run the numbers" to make sure it's a good deal, legal has to "drum up" new contract language and in some cases (depending on the type of company), solutions engineers have to design a new solution. BPM software "connects the dots" among all of the people and systems that play a key role in an enterprise-wide process, rendering much greater visibility where spotty visibility currently exists. It's the difference between telling people what they're supposed to be doing and tracking what people are actually doing.

Estimated time to ROI: 4-8 months
Where ROI comes from: risk mitigation, error prevention and reduction

8. Building an Agile Infrastructure

Typical IT projects take 12-18 months to implement. The problem is that things change between the time they're captured in the requirements gathering phase to the time they're rolled out into production. That leaves you with an expensive system that does about three-quarters of what you were hoping it would do and that turns out to be "painful" to make changes to.

The right perspective is that your business will always change because business is fluid. BPM software is built for iterative change, especially those that feature "zero code" implementations. Building out a "process infrastructure" on BPM software means that you're not just solving today's problem; you're incorporating sustainable agility and responsiveness into your organization's DNA so that your business can keep up with imminent change. Updates to the process can be made in hours and days, not weeks and months. This is a "game changing" competitive advantage to most businesses.

Estimated time to ROI: 1-6 months
Where ROI comes from: resource cost reduction, technology cost reduction

9. Reducing the Burden on IT

IT continues to have more on its plate than it has the capacity to deliver. So what if business people could implement their own solutions and run their own projects? BPM software lets business people "own" their processes (modeling, deploying and updating). The updating piece is really the most critical at reducing the burden on IT. Change requests over-burden IT more than requests for new technology. Not only does BPM software make changes easier (see point 8, building an agile infrastructure), but also they can be performed by business people. They can make their own changes and free up IT resources to work on other back office initiatives.

Estimated time to ROI: 1-3 months
Where ROI comes from: resource cost reduction, heightened responsiveness

10. Building a Process Infrastructure

Thought leading IT departments have already realized that BPM software can provide an attractive alternative to "rip and replace" when it comes to updating a company's IT infrastructure. By deploying a process layer that sits on top of existing IT systems, IT departments can put in place a faster-to-deploy, cheaper to roll out, easier-to-manage and more user-friendly IT infrastructure. Existing systems are integrated via Web services. People are plugged into the process via email, Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. BPM software provides a scalable platform that can span the automated and manual activities that makes up your business.

Estimated time to ROI: 6-18 months
Where ROI comes from: resource cost reduction, heightened responsiveness, reduced seat license costs, technology, risk mitigation, error prevention and reduction, faster cycle times, reduced training and support costs, less costly audits, less "rogue" activity, less costly and more timely remediation

So, there you have it -- 10 concrete ways that people-centric BPM software can have an immediate and positive impact on your business. I challenge you to find a more versatile piece of technology with the potential to deliver positive short term value to your business -- over and over and over again.

Useful Links

Read Jeffrey D. Mill's blog entries on BPMEnterprise.com here:
http://www.bpmenterprise.com/blog/index.asp?ui=Jeffrey%20Mills&s=bloggers

Adobe
http://www.adobe.com/

Appian
http://www.appian.com/

BEA
http://www.bea.com/framework.jsp?CNT=homepage_main.jsp&FP=/content

Bluespring Software
http://www.bluespringsoftware.com/

Global 360
http://www.global360.com/

IBM FileNet
http://www.filenet.com/

iGrafx
http://www.igrafx.com/

Lombardi Software
http://www.lombardisoftware.com/

MEGA International
http://www.mega.com/

Microsoft BizTalk Server
http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/default.mspx

Microsoft Dynamics CRM
http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/default.mspx

Microsoft Visio
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/visio/default.aspx

SAP
http://www.sap.com/usa/index.epx

Satuit Technologies
http://www.satuit.com/

Vitria
http://www.vitria.com/Home/index2.php

About the Author:

Jeffrey D. Mills is vice president of Channel Development and Marketing for Bluespring Software, a people-centric BPM software company. A frequent speaker, author and blogger on BPM technology, Jeff's 12-year career encompasses product development and management, channel and business development and all facets of tactical marketing and strategic brand development. He has held numerous leadership positions at 3M Corporation and Net Perceptions prior to joining Bluespring. Jeff and his family currently reside in Cincinnati, Ohio. Contact Jeffrey D. Mills at Jeffrey.Mills (at) bluespringsoftware.com or visit http://www.bluespringsoftware.com/.

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