The Case For Continuous Improvement: Efficiency Benefits Of BPM
In just five years, the business process management (BPM) market will be worth more than $13 billion according to recent Markets and Markets research. The driving force behind all this growth? Continuous improvement — companies need better ways to manage process automation, workflow and organization to increase total efficiency. Here's a look at five key benefits of BPM investment.
Break Bottlenecks
What happens when a single process slows or crashes? If it's brought up again quickly, the damage may seem minimal — but there's often a bigger problem under the surface: Other processes dependent on or influenced by the original may also be impacted. Much like a bottleneck in freeway traffic, all it takes is a single car slowing down at the wrong time or making an illegal lane change to cause chaos.
BPM solutions can help solve this problem with the use of real-time, ad-hoc analytics and reporting. Once you know the underlying cause of process slowdown or failure, you can address the root rather than the symptom and break bottlenecks at the source.
Improve Collaboration
Many employees work better together. However, many software products and legacy solutions make it difficult for workers to complete tasks in unison or receive real-time updates on work in progress. This in turn increases the time it takes to address incidents, resolve cases and improve business workflow. With the BPM tools in place, however, you can automatically assign incidents and notifications; in addition to providing a common space for workers to collaborate, update and report.
Enhance Visibility
Many business environments are now so complex it's impossible to get a clear picture of who's doing what, when and why. This creates a significant challenge when it comes to tracking down internal fraud or meeting compliance obligations. If digital trails go cold, your company is left with the responsibility — and cost — of cleaning the mess. The right business process management tools provide end-to-end observation of critical processes, document access and other actions that may be necessary to build a case or satisfy regulatory compliance.
Increase Agility
In a market now dominated by mobile devices and cloud computing, the most agile business wins. If you're unable to modify processes on the fly or quickly adopt new technology, other companies will take your place. As noted by Quality Magazine, one key efficiency benefit of BPM is the ability to pause business practices, implement changes and re-execute — without losing the tasks and documents already present.
Handle Change
The only constant is change. As companies find their footing in an evolving market and look for ways to manage new resources such as big data, organizational shifts and restructuring are inevitable. With these structural shifts come necessary efficiency losses as personnel and processes are moved. According to CIO Insight, 49 percent of businesses asked said that the addition of BPM investment was necessary to meet these demands and improve their ability to handle ongoing change.
Want better efficiency? Think BMP to break bottlenecks, improve collaboration, visibility and agility, and handle business change.
Brian Thoman is Senior Proposals Manager at Column Technologies, a global technology solutions provider that specializes in business service and case management. Thoman is an ITIL certified procurement specialist with over six years of proposal writing and management experience.
Brian
