BPM: The Intelligent Assembly Line

It would be idealistic to think that organizations can create the perfect process on the first attempt. BPM in general, and information-based BPM in particular, is based on continuous improvement and processes that inevitably move through several iterations. Organizations should analyze a current process and create a process model. Then, using a workflow technology, run the model, enhancing, adjusting and automating it as much as possible before introducing the new process to users. After the process has been implemented, the same tool can be used to monitor the process in action; obtain metrics, history and user experiences; check for bottlenecks; and, integrate other systems. In subsequent iterations, the same steps are repeated and refined. Workflow technologies add value and open new possibilities only when BPM knowledge, methods and criteria are properly applied. Analysts must work with users throughout this process to solicit feedback, adjust roles or eliminate unnecessary steps.

Current BPM State
Organizationally speaking, BPM is neither well understood nor appropriately addressed. In a recent survey, the vast majority of the respondents correctly identified BPM as being more than just technology. Interestingly, in the same survey, only 25% of the respondents identified BPM as well understood and addressed in their organizations. These results clearly indicate that, while there are very knowledgeable and capable individuals who understand BPM and can address its challenges and benefits, most organizations still misunderstand BPM or confuse it with its supporting technologies. This confusion can be attributed in part to previous attempts to position process reengineering and workflow as the means to streamline processes (and reduce personnel). It may also be due to the wide variety of applications that organizations use to perform process mapping, or application-specific specialized workflow. All of these capabilities, while valuable, are limited in scope and application, cannot address the complete spectrum of business processes within an enterprise, and don’t encompass all elements of the BPM discipline.

The Bottom Line:
1. BPM as a concept has existed for decades;
2. It’s a management discipline grounded in changing human behavior;
3. It’s based on interview, observation and analysis techniques and methodologies;
4. Its goal is continuous improvement, applying practical approaches through multiple iterations—rather than looking for perfection in the first pass;
5. It must be organized around desired outcomes, not individual tasks;
6. Technology is an important tool, but it must be used as a means to the desired end, not as an end in itself; and
7. As long as it has been practiced, it’s not well understood or effectively addressed in most organizations.

The Case for Information-Based BPM
Business continues to get tougher, more competitive, and more accelerated in terms of change. The "always-on" connected world facilitated by the Internet collapses both time and distance as the speed of information exchange increases worldwide. As a result, product lifecycles are getting shorter and market differentiation is difficult to sustain. Partners and customers have more information—and more choices—at their fingertips, forcing companies to lower the cost of their products and services. Previously, they simply passed their business costs on to buyers and partners. Now, to remain competitive, they must lower expenses and streamline operations. This change has been triggered by information—available universally, more quickly, more easily, more transparently, more completely, and in more detail. Paradoxically, information is both the challenge and the solution.

A number of factors drive the need for information-based BPM:

• The Internet has enabled the hyper-connected enterprise, with business models that demand highly adaptive processes. As a result, business process revision cycle times are compressing, rendering traditional applications inhibitive to business agility.
• Customers are no longer just recipients of a finished product. They participate in creating it—influencing the process, the timing, the delivery method, even the contributors. Customers can be anywhere and anyone, inside or outside the enterprise.
• Companies struggle to meet strategic goals with diminishing operational and financial resources.
• Business leaders need visibility into operational processes to better leverage scarce IT resources to support their services.
• IT leaders need visibility into operational processes to maximize IT resource efficiency.
• Regulatory and compliance requirements demand greater business visibility, transparency, and accountability.

Information-based BPM delivers benefits by:

• Providing the framework to holistically manage process improvement.
• Addressing the difference between being fast and being effective, designing processes that are agile, flexible and productive.
• Delivering greater process agility for responsive change and enabling creative process innovation.
• Identifying the relative value of key processes before implementing changes; enabling organizations to focus first on processes that offer the highest return on investment.
• Revealing process improvement opportunities by examining handoffs in business processes—phases for which no one is clearly responsible, but can nevertheless seriously affect process outcomes.
• Making process improvements visible, measurable and near-term, delivering prompt business improvements that affect the bottom line.
• Teaching employees to become adaptive and to see process change as a benefit to them, their roles, and their contribution and value to the organization.

Information-based BPM can help organizations achieve a wide variety of goals, from cost reduction and increased efficiency to becoming a true process-driven organization. By managing processes explicitly rather than ad hoc, information-based BPM provides visibility into processes that are crucial to a company’s bottom line.

Better processes lower costs, increase revenue, motivate employees and create happier customers. BPM manages processes as assets that directly contribute to operational excellence and business performance, helping companies identify threats, minimize risks, streamline processes and even transform the business. Information-based BPM builds on these benefits by recognizing that the vast majority of processes today are human-centric and by incorporating and enabling the crucial role of the knowledge worker. Just as Taylorism and the assembly line revolutionized production processes in the Industrial Age, the Information Age will be transformed through information-based BPM and workflow, making knowledge workers more efficient and effective, enterprises more agile and competitive, and improving the bottom line.

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ASG provides software solutions to more than 85% of the world’s largest companies. Through its comprehensive business service management (BSM) solution, Business Service Portfolio, ASG is an established BSM provider with a strong heritage in metadata management, information management, applications management, infrastructure, performance and operations management and service and support technologies. ASG enables clients to reduce costs, improve business-service delivery, and reduce risks. Founded in 1986, ASG is a privately held company based in Naples, Florida, with more than 90 offices worldwide.

For more information, visit www.asg.com or call 800-932-5536.