All businesses have processes. Let it be a loan processing bank, a credit card issuer, a super market, or a healthcare provider, all businesses follow a process. When the size of the business is small, just people and minimal software support alone can help implement the process. But as the business grows, the complexity scales up exponentially.
As the business grows, we lose sight of things. We tend to
lose track of what’s happening and fetching the metrics we need becomes highly
complex.
When we hand-off things between departments, we make mistakes,
we tend to duplicate one another’s efforts.
This is where BPM comes to our help. BPM is a methodology
that follows a set of steps that helps us to take a look the process and make
it better. It also formalizes the process by defining ways we should do it
specific to a business’s needs. It also gives us tools to analyse and take a
look at the bottle necks, inefficiencies and streamline the ways we should do
things and by that certainly improves the process.
Some popular BPM methodologies used globally are LEAN or
Six Sigma. Most of the businesses do use a more generic method that suits their
needs.
Apart from being a methodology, BPM is also a technology.
The BPMS is a software system that enforces the process formalized by the BPM
by the way of various policies. It also provides a greater visibility and
generate important metrics at various levels which is very important for decision
making.
