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Shahid runs a business that manufactures electronic goods and ships them all over the country. Of late, several customer complaints have been coming in about delayed or wrong shipments. Other clients have complained about the inefficient returns and a lengthy exchange process. As a result, the organization’s sales have been dropping.
Shahid realizes it’s time to closely examine each process to identify what’s going wrong. In other words, Shahid’s business process management needs an urgent assessment, followed by an efficient strategy for transformation that can be swiftly implemented.
Soon after applying a targeted improvement plan for process management, Shahid’s team manages to turn the business’s fortunes around. They shorten the shipment processing time by 20%, grow shipping accuracy by 15% owing to improved courier partnering, and boost inventory accuracy by 80% across locations.
A closer examination of his business process management methods helped Shahid put his business back on track. Hence, understanding what business process management is and how it works will be crucial for the success of any enterprise or brand. Let’s take a look.
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What Is Business Process Management?
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Types Of Business Process Management
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Process Management Vs Project Management
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Business Process Management Examples
What Is Business Process Management?
Before we delve into what business process management (BPM)—also known as process management—is, let’s understand what a business process is. In the simplest terms, it is a sequence of steps needed to reach a business goal. This sequence of steps must be carried out by the organization on a regular basis. In Shahid’s case, a key business process was to ship electronic products to clients. When the shipping process suffered, so did his business. The steps he took to reverse the downslide are efficient business process management examples.
Business process management or process management is the way an enterprise handles and improves its business processes. It’s the long-term practice or strategy of bettering an existing business process from start to finish. This is done by studying the business process, analyzing how it works in varying situations, making necessary changes, keeping an eye on the newly improved process and continually optimizing it.
Process management could involve a range of things. It could mean simple restructuring, such as including or eliminating an extra step. It could also mean a complete, end-to-end redesigning of a business process. Either way, process management is the best route for getting the best out of one’s enterprise.
There are several types of business process management. These require closer examination than what one might get by just googling the words ‘BPM business process management’. But before we get into what these types of business process management are, let’s look at the benefits of well-thought-out business processes, made possible only by intelligent process management. Why should business processes be improved?
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It Boosts Productivity
Process management ensures that existing business processes cut out all redundant steps, thus freeing up more time for employees to spend on the most important tasks. In working smartly, employees become more efficient and their output grows.
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It Reduces Expenses
A key outcome of all effective types of business process management is cost reduction. Improving business processes helps business owners pinpoint where the money is going, thereby identifying wastage of resources. This can help them save costs or redistribute expenditure toward prioritizing other tasks.
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Tracking Changes Becomes Easier
By improving and optimizing existing processes, business process management makes it easier for team members and their leaders to measure their productivity and track their output. They can keep tabs on the time it takes to complete a core task or the volume of work done within a stipulated period. Having this data makes it easier for businesses to identify and improve on weaknesses.
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It Encourages Transparency And Alignment
Process management helps business owners to better organize their business processes. This gives them a clearer idea of whether they’re following industry regulations. Ensuring a business complies with existing laws and operating procedures makes everyone’s job easier, be it employees or inspection officials.
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It Increases Employee Contentment
An efficient process management plan will ensure all steps of a business process are clearly outlined. This is helpful for employees, who are spared the agony of redundant tasks. With their work being free from complications or bureaucratic delays, employees can carry out tasks with more energy, resulting in more productivity and job satisfaction.
Now that the importance of business process management is clear, let’s look at its various types.
Types Of Business Process Management
All business process workflows are made up of both human and system elements. These require different types of business process management. Here are some of the main types:
- Systems-Centric BPM This process management type is centered on business processes that use a business-integrated system with minimal human participation. This is common in businesses that have done away with manual data entry and opted for automated workflows. For instance, enterprises that use customer relationship management technology to nurture their relationships with their clients will opt for a systems-centric BPM.
- Human-Centric BPM This type of process management is popular for business processes that are directly handled by people. For instance, many organizations are reluctant to fully automate the recruitment process. This is because they still believe that a human being is better than a system at assessing who’d be the right fit for a job. The creation of user-friendly interfaces, language translation and image design are some tasks that are best tackled by a human-centric BPM.
- Document-Centric BPM Businesses for which documentation plays a pivotal role usually opt for this type of process management, which can optimize workflows by understanding the kind of document flow humans use. Thus, a document-centric BPM works for contract management organizations, law firms and medical testing centers.
Now that we’ve explored the different types of business process management, it’s important to take a look at a few business process management examples. Before that, business owners must address the confusion arising from the process management vs project management debate. What are these confusions?
Process Management Vs Project Management
It’s important to remember that process management and project management are two different things, although they’re often mistaken for each other. Search engine results for BPM business process management might yield some helpful results, but an in-depth understanding is crucial especially for new enterprise owners.
The process management vs project management argument is best understood keeping in mind the following distinction. Project management involves using the organization’s resources in the best way to tackle a particular task or problem. Once that task ends, resources may need to be deployed differently for the next project or problem. Process management is a more ongoing practice. It involves creating an optimized, always-improving method for dealing with all kinds of problems.
A freelance artist will need to have great project management skills because the projects they work on may be vastly different, requiring them to adopt flexible approaches. An accountant working at a firm will need to be great at process management, as they’ll need to adopt a standardized way for checking all the organization’s accounts.
A clear idea about this distinction is key to understanding different business process management examples, which we’ll now take a look at.
Business Process Management Examples
Process management is applied across departments within an organization to meet business goals. Here are some key examples of areas in which business process management can be used by different departments.
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Human Resource
An efficient, structured process for employee onboarding can make the induction of new people faster and hassle-free for the organization and the new employees. However, many HR departments still have complicated employee onboarding processes. If such HR processes are automated end-to-end, it can reduce time and energy wastage as well as expenses. Doing away with paper forms for candidates and approving timesheets more quickly are two business process management examples to be used in such cases.
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Sales And Accounts
In organizations where sales personnel have to liaise extensively with the accounts teams, it often takes very long to get approval for sales invoices. The smallest error in an invoice slows the process down for the sales team. Business process management is crucial here for automating the process for invoice approval. This does away with the risk of man-made errors and minimizes the tug of war between accounts and sales.
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Contracts
Ensuring contract compliance on a manual basis is an expensive, lengthy process and often ridden with mistakes. Creating an automated workflow for building a contract—including a template provided by the organization’s legal department—can really simplify the process of getting new vendors. It also helps with drawing up new contracts with clients and existing vendors.
Business process management is crucial for an organization’s success. Harappa’s Rise In An Organization pathway is designed to help ambitious professionals rise fast, get noticed and help their organizations thrive. They will have access to a stellar faculty and 17 in-depth lessons on being empathetic and dependable, building commercial acumen, adapting instinctively and managing projects expertly. With the help of frameworks and techniques like The Flywheel Effect, The BLAST Framework and The Trust Equation, learners will be taught how to think logically and take charge on tough days, be consistent, cultivate a strong work ethic, and foster trust-based partnerships. They will also have access to FAQs and other learners’ feedback. The Rise In An Organization pathway is the gateway to becoming an inspirational, influential and reliable team player!
