Business process management (BPM) is a structured, layered approach to optimizing how work within an organization gets done. An incredibly broad discipline, BPM encompasses everything from process discovery, analysis, modeling, redesign, change management, and continuous improvement after implementation.
While successful applications of BPM are certainly enabled by technology, the term refers to a set of principles or benchmarks that help organizations structure, codify, optimize, and continuously improve operations or processes. In other words, reorganize processes so that they are more efficient, agile and aligned with business strategy.
One of the more nebulous terms in the lexicon of business jargon, BPM can mean different things to different organizations depending on its size, IT maturity, and strategic goals. For example, BPM can be applied across an entire company to enable large-scale business transformation. Alternatively, BPM can be used to document and optimize a single process.
Overall though, BPM methodologies aim to do the same thing: continuously redesign, automate and optimize business processes to increase operational efficiency, reduce overhead and improve user experience.
Additionally, the 5 stages or stages of the BPM life cycle are generally recognized as:
- Design. Analyze existing processes to understand how they can be improved
- Model. Use this information to model and test new, redesigned processes
- Implement. Leverage automation, run new optimized processes
- Monitor. Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) and track performance
- To optimise. Continue to track and continually improve performance
To complicate matters further, Business Process Management Software (BPMS), also known as Business Process Management Platforms (BPMP), is an enterprise-level software solution that enables and centralizes automation , process monitoring and management.
BPM systems optimize and speed up processes, thereby increasing efficiency. By ensuring that work is managed consistently and tasks are delivered to the right users at the right time, business process automation allows staff to focus on higher value work and exceptional cases.
Intelligent Business Process Management (iBPMS) suites go one step further by combining BPMS with business intelligence, AI, cloud computing and process mining. This allows iBPMS to process complex events, provide real-time analytics, and support mobile platforms. Many iBPMs also allow users to extract and leverage data from external sources such as IoT devices and social media.
Hyperautomation represents the next frontier of business process automation. The term connotes two main things:
- By combining traditional automation tools such as RPA and workflow automation with machine learning, hyperautomation enables the automation of any repetitive task, even those that are undocumented and data-driven. unstructured.
- The goal is not only to automate as much as possible, but also to create an automation ecosystem that perpetuates and repairs itself. In other words, it’s a smart, holistic approach to advanced automation.
Similar to BPM, the term “hyperautomation” does not describe any singular technology or methodology, but rather an advanced approach to business automation and a toolkit of enabling technologies (i.e. process mining , RPA, AI, iPaaS, etc.). So, one organization’s approach to hyperautomation will undoubtedly vary from another depending on its culture, digital maturity, and business goals.
In fact, one could say that hyperautomation is a natural extension of business process management or that hyperautomation is an enabling strategy within a larger BMP framework.
Effective business process management is at the heart of not only the success of hyperautomation, but also of any type of digital transformation or process automation project, whether large or small scale. In fact, you could say that BPM is critical to overall business success.
By ensuring that end-to-end processes are documented and optimized, BPM enables organizations to not only scale automation, AI, and other cutting-edge technologies, but also improve and integrate these investments on a permanent basis. In fact, iBPMS technology suites are one of the key enabling technologies in the hyperautomation toolkit.