Best Business Process Management (BPM) Software

What is Business Process Management Software?

Business process management software is a high-level software solution for automating repetitive operations, managing basic processing, and handling logic. BPM systems improve efficiency by optimizing and speeding up processes.

BPM (Business Process Management) is a method of managing and optimizing the flow of business processes to accomplish business goals. It is a technique that helps organizations to be more effective, more efficient, and more capable of adapting to changes in their business according to the ever-changing environment. BPM is not an activity but a set of various activities that need to be done to improve the business that involves any combination of the following:

• Design: Identifying existing processes and designing "to-be" processes.

• Modeling: The introduction of combinations of variables to the theoretical design.

• Automation: Work done in advance to ensure the smooth execution of the process instances.

• Execution: Execution of process instances.

• Control: Make sure that the process follows the designed course.

• Measurement: Quantitatively determining how well the process is working in terms of serving customers' needs.

• Optimization: Removing the potential or actual bottlenecks and improving the process.

• Re-engineering: Re-engineering the entire process cycle when optimization is not fetching the desired output.

Open-source business process management software is nothing but a tool that helps in BPM. There are many BPM Tools and software available in the market that organizations are using to streamline their activities and achieve business goals more effectively and efficiently. Some popular BPM tools include – Appian, C2M Workflow, Process Street, Quick Base, Priority Matrix, ProcessGene BPM suite, Deltek Costpoint, Zoho Creator, Timereaction, etc.

Some are cloud-based, and others are on-premise. Some are priced per user, others are a one-time fee. Some require consultants, others are do-it-yourself.

What are the Benefits of Business Process Management Software?

Business process management aligns an organization's business process with customer needs and helps executives design, direct, monitor, and measure the organization's resources. It reduces costs, increases operational efficiency, and reduces risks. In addition to this, BPM software has many other benefits. Some of them are as follows:

1. Flexibility

   In a modern competitive business era, organizations must quickly change the process according to the new regulations, market demands, etc. BPM software facilitates flexible design processes. A process can easily be customized with minimal costs.

2. Productivity

   Business process management software facilitates the automation of repetitive processes within regular workflows, removes potential or actual bottlenecks, and improves processes. This improvement allows workers to spend more time on other activities. This leads to increased productivity and reduced waste.

3. Cost Efficiency

   BPM tools help an organization reduce costs by streamlining business operations and collaboration, automating repetitive tasks, improving product quality, and reducing corporate risks.

4. Employee Satisfaction

   BPM eliminates unnecessary repetitive work and makes information access easier than allowing workers to focus on their work. Hence, team members report better job satisfaction; managers have real-time visibility into what’s happening.

5. Customer Focus

   BPM provides more time to focus on the customer, allowing more time to respond to the customers and build faster solutions. The business process can easily be customized using BPM software according to a customer's needs.

6. Technology Integration

   BPM bridges the gap between IT and business users. But it focuses on the process, not on the application.

What are the Key Features of Business Process Management Tools?

Despite some very important common features, BPM software also comes with different specific features. One can choose according to their need. Some of the common features of BPM software are as follows:

1. Process

   Every organization has activities called processes conducted regularly to achieve business objectives.  These activities can be simple or complex, short-term or ongoing, function-specific or industry-specific, in a single department, within or beyond the enterprise boundaries. BPM software helps to improve operational efficiency, reduces risks, derives more growth, and improves customer and employee engagement.

2. Knowledge Management

   BPM software has the ability to pull all data on any specific topic across all enterprise systems in a single place. This reduces the ambiguity in decision making and decision-makers can take the most appropriate action in any situation.

3. Business Rules

   Business rules are specific rules of an organization that provides the structure for a consistent, automated process.  Business process management software typically has a dynamic business rules engine to automate the simple constant processes at different times and other complex processes with many variables.

4. Social Collaboration

   Social collaboration is a method of sharing information across the organization and interacting to achieve a common business goal. It is different from conventional collaboration in a way that you do not need to be added to the email chain or asked for your opinion in a meeting or phone call; it drives awareness of any circumstances while adding to an organization’s knowledge base. Hence no idea or information goes unnoticed.

5. Mobility

   BPM software can be used on a mobile device like a desktop computer without any functionality, usability, or impact degradation.

6. Security

   While driving the core processes of an organization, keeping the data and operations safe from hackers, disasters, or other threats, must be a prime consideration. BPM software is continually monitored and security-tested.

7. Enablement

   BPM software lets you combine programs, tools, and people to complete your complex business management process successfully.

What Should You Keep in Mind While Purchasing Business Process Management Software?

While using business process management software, you need to keep in mind the following things:

1. Choose a BPM platform according to your need.

2. Choose a process with little to manage and where the risks are lower to test first.

3. Identify the Process Owner.

4. Set enterprise goals for the process.

5. Draw a flowchart of the workflow.

6. Involve Technical admins as well as functional or business owners.

7. Test your BPM workflow.

8. Change the workflow if needed.

9. Train your employees.

10. Measure and adjust the process.

BPM software is a must technology for organizations of all sizes and types to remain competitive today. BPM tools increase the efficiency and productivity of the organization, remove all the bottlenecks of the business process and align the organization's business process to the customer needs.

Related Research Article:

• How the Advent of BPM Software Revolutionized Business Management