Given the fact that today the market is globalized, organizations need to be able to successfully compete on several fronts: operational efficiency, high customer satisfaction, innovative products and services. Gaining success starts from optimized processes that imply low costs, high quality, increased incomes, motivated employees and, least but not last, satisfied customers. The path to success will obviously be crossed by obstacles and this is the reason why controlling internal processes is so important. 

A worldwide asserted method of controlling business processes are BPM software tools. Business Process Management is popular these days, but the main question business owners ask themselves is: “where do I start with implementing a BPM solution?”. Implementing BPM products into your workflow involves ensuring the priority of the following functions: identifying problems, documenting on them, monitoring their changes and, most importantly, a constant improvement of the business processes in a company.

Where should the implementing start?

• The most important role in BPM is the process owner. This role should be assigned to each identified business process. Its responsibility is to define the objectives and identify the way the process will be carried out. In addition, it should be able to manage the necessary resources to achieve these goals. The process owner needs to continuously improve the automation of the processes, making it more efficient each time it is possible.

• Depending on the size and structure complexity of the targeted company or organization, it may be helpful to address roles to each and every team member using BPM methods and tools. This way, you are ensuring their consistent implementation in the active workflow.

• After identifying the main business processes, there should be a permanent activity of documentation and tracking regarding them. On the one hand, this kind of documentation can be done schematically using specific process mapping methods (e.g. flowcharts). BPM facilitates the understanding and transparency of every process. This visibility leads to a continuous data analysis and improvements.

What advantages BPM software tools can bring?

The main benefits of BPM software tools are:

• Eliminating the waste during the completion of business processes or activities
• Reducing the occurrence of mistakes
• Automating processes
• Optimizing the use of resources (including human resources, material resources and financial resources)
• High performance at low costs

Implementing it is important because:

• It monitors every processes – each business process will be assigned at least one performance indicator and target value, aligned with the company’s goals and desires. Tracking these indicators will enable process owners and managements to make quick and competent decisions based on the automated process performance.

Vendors and products

• bpm’online

This BPM software vendor offers process automation products that can help you deal with the problems your company brings. Bpm’online is allowing its BPM software users to properly handle and monitor their activities and outcomes with the help of a well-built database. Besides this, any user can track their opportunities and make the necessary changes towards obtaining the best results with real-time information. With bpm’online products users also have access to forecasting tools which can come in extremely handy for future perspectives.

• Nintex 

Nintex offers efficient workflow automation software that can be easily implemented and assures a facile collaboration between employees. The storage is cloud-based to users won’t have to think about offline security issues, there is a SharePoint available for uploading projects and process data without effort and it can also be linked to the whole Office 365 package.

• MetaTask

MetaTask is one of the software products that offer templates for defining processes instead of complex flowcharts or diagrams. It is much easier for a user to get used to templates rather than creating things from scratch. With its BPM solutions managers can get a transparent view on all the on-going processes and activities, in one single unitary place.

Things to consider

The implementation of BPM solutions is, above all, an initiative related to people and the way they perceive work. Even if the implementation steps can be quite easy to understand for the management of the company, the buy-in of all the sectors must be achieved. Each employee has a role in at least one of the active processes and must be informed about the new procedural approach. Selecting BPM roles and functions at a company level is essential. Managing this change should highlight the benefits for each employee, short and long term, without concealing the need for their involvement and support to ensure the success of BPM products implementation.

At first glance, it may be difficult to quantify the return on ROI, but the experience of BPM solutions in such projects and the results of many global companies that use it,shows that positive results will not cease to appear. These will materialize quantitatively into lower costs, flexibility and agility of activities and decisions, employee and customer satisfaction.