Emerging challenges and trends in the business process management

Business process management (BPM) ensures the ability to extend clean execution and delivery for all organizational outcomes. With more clearly defined and precise processes in place across the board, businesses are given tighter control over all value-added internal and external activities. When processes are streamlined and a company has solid management over them, it creates an opportunity to implement technology and make certain that all business methods are tech-enabled and strategically aligned to the respective marketplace.

BPM also lends itself to the speed of the business. In the past, big companies had a major leg up over small businesses and could easily gobble them up entirely due to size and reach alone. However, in today’s fast and dynamic business landscape, it’s the quick and nimble organizations that beat out companies that are slow-moving and inept to change, regardless of bandwidth.

Business process management is a catalyst that drives swift organizational shifts and acts as an architectural runway that allows the necessary agility it takes to stay with and ahead of fast-paced industry-wide changes. The companies that can deliver value-added service through the most flexible and expedited methods are the ones that will excel and grow, the ones that don’t will stagnate or eventually die off.

Architectural Differences Between RPA and BPM

BPM and robotic process automation (RPA) are very complimentary of one another. That said, without a strategic BPM and foundational roadmap in place, it’s difficult to properly apply automation and expect optimal organizational results. It’s important to streamline processes first and then apply RPA to a very methodical practice to avoid making a subpar technique faster via automation.

BPM is the holistic look at how all business practices flow within the company so when RPA is applied in tandem to high-level procedures that are aligned with overall business objectives, it can be beneficial in speeding up execution, removing the need for additional decision-making and free up manpower to make other vital business decisions. Automation is a necessary step to help businesses fire at all cylinders but it can also be detrimental if you apply it to a process that isn’t in a position to achieve the best possible results.

All in all, BPM and RPA show up in different ways but business processes should come before the automation or at least in conjunction. If you have an optimal and mature business process in place, it’s simple to add an automated process to help expedite.

The Future of BPM

BPM models are becoming even more tech enabled through machine learning and artificial intelligence and will continue to do so. Machine learning enables data-informed decision-making across processes without a need for human intervention and when you add artificial intelligence to the equation, practical and informed conclusions can be made based on historical outcomes. Applying ML and AI to a solid business process will enable speed and allows the experts to focus on more value-added decision-making needs for the organization.

Enterprises can prepare for the future of BPM by allocating investments towards the practice. The organizations that excel in this area, focus on maximum business outcomes, best practices and more, at a leadership level. Leadership teams should routinely examine how business practices play into their overall strategic company DNA to ensure everything runs optimally and in tandem, to achieve the best possible value-added results for the organization and its customer-base.

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Monty Staggs serves as vCIO -- director of digital transformation, at Synoptek. As an ITIL v3, Scrum, and SAFe certified professional with over 20 years in IT Leadership, Staggs has extensive experience in strategic planning, coaching, mentoring, leadership, and development across a variety of diverse organizations throughout his career. Staggs has deep-rooted knowledge across business alignment, project and product management, DevOps, infrastructure, storage, process improvement, IT operations and database management. He is responsible for providing collaborative metric-driven strategic planning and technology transformations founded in evidence-based decisions to drive business value for clients.