As our world becomes more and more tech-savvy, it’s no wonder that businesses find it necessary to embrace technology to keep up with the competitive environment. In today’s fast-paced business landscape, the ability for a business to be agile is crucial in order to adapt to market changes and embrace emerging opportunities. For this reason, every organization has to develop strategies around mobility. One of these strategies is Business Process Management (BPM), which greatly improves mobility. In this blog, we are going to explore how BPM tools can help businesses stay on their feet and thrive in an ever changing business environment.
What is the Meaning of Business Process Management?
Before we delve deeper into some examples of how Business Process Management (BPM) can help organizations increase mobility, it’s important to understand the fundamental concept of BPM itself.
Gartner describes BPM this way, “Business process management (BPM) is a discipline that uses various methods to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve and optimize business processes.”
At its core, BPM refers to a systematic approach to manage and optimize business processes within an organization. It involves mapping out the steps, activities, inputs, and outputs of various to gain a comprehensive understanding of how work flows through an organization. By managing tasks and optimizing these processes, organizations can drive efficiency, improve quality, reduce costs, and enhance overall performance.
BPM encompasses a range of activities, including process documentation, process analysis, process redesign, automation, and continuous improvement. It provides a framework for organizations to identify inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and areas for improvement within their workflows. By streamlining and automating business processes together, organizations can eliminate manual tasks, reduce errors, enhance collaboration, and in turn achieve greater agility.
Moreover, BPM is not a one-time initiative but an ongoing practice. It emphasizes the importance of proactive and continuous monitoring, measurement, and refinement of processes to adapt to changing business needs and market dynamics. By embracing BPM as a mindset, organizations can foster a culture of process excellence and innovation.
In the context of increasing mobility, BPM becomes even more relevant. It provides a strategic foundation for organizations to leverage BPM technologies and enable employees to work flexibly from any location. By integrating mobility into BPM, organizations can unlock new levels of productivity, collaboration, and responsiveness. Let’s explore how BPM can revolutionize workflows, enabling access to real-time data to drive informed decision-making.
Streamlined Workflows
Efficient workflows are the backbone of any successful organization. BPM enables businesses to analyze and optimize their existing processes. This eliminates both bottlenecks and redundancies. By streamlining processes, automating repetitive tasks and providing real-time visibility into a workflows status, BPM ensures smoother operations. With enhanced mobility, employees can collaborate seamlessly across different locations, boosting productivity and responsiveness.
To illustrate the impact of streamlined workflows, let’s consider a manufacturing company. By implementing BPM, the company can optimize automated workflows across its production line, enabling employees to access and update real-time production data through a digital platform. This empowers managers to make informed decisions, identify bottlenecks, and streamline the entire manufacturing process. With the ability to monitor and adjust operations remotely, the company gains a competitive edge in terms of efficiency and agility.
Quickly Customizable Apps
BPM empowers businesses to rapidly customize and deploy applications. By leveraging BPM’s capabilities, organizations can efficiently design and deploy customized apps that cater to specific business needs.
Now before we go on it should be clear that a BPM application is not the same as a mobile app you find in the apple store or google play store. A BPM app is built with No-code drag-and-drop tools which allow users with no coding experience to visually model and configure processes. Instead of writing complex code, users can leverage pre-built components, templates, and configurable elements to design and customize their BPM apps! Often times this approach empowers business users to take an active role in process management and app development, reducing reliance on IT teams. Traditional software development cycles can be time-consuming and rigid, delaying the implementation of solutions.
With BPM’s quick customization capabilities, businesses can create apps that align perfectly with their existing business processes management and adapt them as needs evolve. The ability to quickly customize apps significantly improves business mobility. It enables employees to access essential information, collaborate, and complete tasks efficiently.
Enabling Real-Time Collaboration and Communication
BPM plays a crucial role in enhancing mobility by enabling real-time collaboration and communication among employees.
With BPM, organizations can leverage collaboration tools and features that allow employees to work together seamlessly. These tools enable real-time messaging, document sharing, and collaborative workspaces. Team members can collaborate on projects, share ideas, and provide feedback. By fostering a collaborative culture, BPM enables organizations to break down silos, enhance teamwork, and facilitate faster decision-making processes.
Empowering Remote Workforce and Flexible Working Models
The rise of remote work and flexible working models has increased the need for mobility in organizations. BPM empowers organizations to embrace and effectively manage remote teams by providing the necessary tools and infrastructure for remote collaboration.
According to a study done by Owl Labs the number of workers choosing to work remotely in 2022 increased 24% since 2021. And those choosing hybrid work went up 16%.
Through mobile BPM applications, remote employees can access and participate in business processes, perform tasks, and provide updates on the go. Whether it’s approving requests, reviewing documents, or participating in virtual meetings, employees can stay connected and engaged from anywhere. BPM ensures that remote workers have the necessary resources and information at their fingertips.
By leveraging the BPM tools to support remote work, organizations can see cost savings, attract and retain top talent, and promote work-life balance.
Implementing a BPM System
Lets talk about implementing a Business Process Management (BPM) system. It is a strategic initiative that requires careful planning, coordination, and commitment from all stakeholders. By following a structured approach, organizations can successfully implement a BPM system to optimize their business processes, and increase mobility. Here are some key steps to consider:
1. Define Goals and Objectives
Start by clearly defining the goals and objectives you aim to achieve with the implementation workflow management of a BPM system. Identify the pain points in your current processes and determine how BPM can address those challenges. Establish specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals that align with your organization’s overall strategy.
2. Assess Current Processes
Conduct a thorough assessment of your existing processes to identify areas for improvement and optimization. Engage stakeholders from different departments and levels of the organization to gather insights and perspectives on improving processes. Document the current state of your processes, including inputs, outputs, activities, and pain points. This analysis will serve as the foundation for designing improved processes within the BPM system.
3. Design Process Models
Utilize process modeling techniques to design optimized process models to optimize existing processes within the BPM system. This involves mapping out the sequence of activities, decision points, roles, and responsibilities. Collaborate with process owners and subject matter experts to ensure that the redesigned processes align with business objectives and meet the needs of stakeholders. The process models should reflect best practices, incorporate efficiency-enhancing features, and facilitate mobility.
4. Select a BPM Software Platform
Choose a BPM software platform that aligns with your organization’s requirements and objectives. Consider factors such as scalability, ease of use, mobile capabilities, integration with existing systems, security features, and vendor support. Evaluate different options, conduct demos, and engage key stakeholders in the selection process. Make sure the chosen BPM platform provides the necessary functionalities for business process management, modeling, automation, monitoring, and analytics.
5. Implement and Configure the BPM System
With the selected BPM platform, proceed to implement and configure the system based on the designed process models. This involves setting up user roles, permissions, and access rights. Configure automation rules to enable efficient, task management and routing and ensure timely process execution. Integrate the BPM system with other relevant systems, such as CRM or ERP, to facilitate data exchange and streamline end-to-end processes.
6. Training and Change Management
Provide comprehensive training to employees who will be using the BPM system. Ensure they understand the system’s functionalities, their roles and responsibilities within the processes. Develop a change management plan to address potential resistance to change and promote adoption of the BPM system. Communicate the benefits, address concerns, and provide ongoing support to facilitate a smooth transition.
7. Monitor, Evaluate, and Improve
Once the BPM system is implemented, establish a process for monitoring and evaluating the system’s performance. Define key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your goals and objectives. Continuously measure and analyze process metrics to identify areas for improvement and optimization. Leverage the data and analytics capabilities of the BPM system to gain insights into business process, efficiency, employee productivity, and customer satisfaction. Use this information to drive further enhancements to your processes.
By following these steps, organizations can successfully implement a BPM system that drives increased mobility. It’s important to approach the implementation process improvement as an ongoing journey, continuously improving and adapting processes to increase business success.
Conclusion
By leveraging BPM to improve efficiency and increase mobility, businesses can unlock new opportunities and stay ahead of the competition. Organizations that embrace a flexible and agile approach are better equipped to adapt to changing market dynamics, meet customer demands, and seize emerging business prospects. BPM empowers employees to collaborate, make informed decisions, and take timely actions.
Are you ready to revolutionize your organization’s processes and unlock new levels of efficiency and productivity? Schedule a demo with Cadynce software the no-code business process improvement platform enhanced by AI helping companies work smarter.
