The Case for Transforming to a Process Managed Organization

A recent global strategic business report makes the assertion that the global business process management market is projected to exceed $5.0 billion by the year 2017.

This is good news for the Information Technology community, considering the advent of cloud computing, mobile and other technologies, but what does it mean for businesses, non-government organizations, and organizations and agencies of different levels of governments?

We can start with some definitions.

What is Business Process Management?

Business Process Management (BPM) can be viewed as a different organizational model than the typical organization chart, which doesn’t generally reflect how work actually gets done and more often than not shows a chain of command and functional responsibility.

Unlike typical models, BPM encourages staff to reflect on the needs of their individual customers, both internal and external. BPM is about taking control of complete processes all the way to and from the customer; involves people, processes, systems and strategy; and, is primarily about business design.

Why transform to BPM?

The BPM philosophy has been around for about a decade—but what exactly is driving more and more businesses and organizations to want to adopt BPM functionality?

Well for starters, the recent global recession has been one catalyst for organizations to improve efficacy, efficiency and strategic value of their critical business processes in various scenarios. You may recall that I made the case in two earlier blogs for organizations doing their own scenario planning - SCENARIO PLANNING: Create a Context and Scenario Planning: Crystal Balling or Smart Business?

As well, if one or more of the following questions rings true, the time may be ripe for you to consider transforming to a BPM organization:

• How do you deal with continuous change—new competitors, new business models, new innovations—that changes the rules of your industry?
• How do you cut costs and improve margins simultaneously?
• How do you keep your most productive people content when the market environment pushes them to exhaustion?
• How do you organize yourself to deliver unique value to your customers now that traditional methods of building loyalty are under siege?
• How do you keep your company from becoming commoditised—undifferentiated—swimming in the sea of sameness?
• How do you make your processes more responsive and your structure more efficient?

What does BPM do differently than current business processes?

The reality of current business process design reinforces the idea of working in silos, of many hand-offs that lead to backlogs and delays, and of processes and organizations that are designed to deal with a single task or action.

BPM provides an approach that addresses the issues of strategy, people, processes, and systems. It involves understanding, designing, executing and optimisation of enterprise-wide business activities to deliver the unique business vision specific to your organization.

BPM starts with defining and shaping the process project – the first of a ten-stage interactive approach. This is followed by:

• gathering data for process mapping and analysis;
• gathering data on stakeholders, sponsors and clients;
• subjecting the data gathered to examination and analysis;
• re-designing processes;
• getting consensus and selling the change;
• implementing the accepted proposals;
• measuring and setting process standards;
• monitoring the effectiveness of new systems or procedures;
• and, finally, ensuring that the redesigned processes, systems and procedures are to a standard sufficient to achieve the defined objectives.

In conclusion

If you cannot identify yourself as a BPM organization, you might want to consider taking the necessary steps to move in that direction.

BPM embraces business methodologies and technologies developed in the last decade. It is an evolution in thinking and practice that allows organizations to develop and internalize ongoing performance improvement.

If you have implemented BPM, I would be interested in knowing your experience.

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