Business Process Management

Service-based organizations particularly those centering around knowledge workers, are discovering that business process improvement (BPI) is an imperative in the effort to reduce costs.

During my recent visit to Philippines (Manila, Laguna) - it is heartening to notice popular philosophies such as Lean Six Sigma and the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). They are catching up in countries like Philippines and Vietnam, but BPI projects are only as good as data available.

Business Process Management (BPM) software makes it possible to collect real-time data that can shed significant light on the issue and aid the task of decision-makers. It's all about transperancy - how do we calculate efficiency, how do we measure progress and how do we provide maximum customer satisfaction?

A number of terms have cropped up to refer to various elements of BPM that can be confusing...

BPI: simply means improving or optimizing processes in some measurable way, oftentimes in one-off capacity.
BPA: Business process automation means using integrated software applications for greater efficiency by eliminating waste and reducing labor costs.
BPO: Business Process optimization tools are enterprise software suites that facilitate process measurement and evaluation.

Let's not get tangled up in the terminology but practically speaking all of these terms refer to one and only one imperative:

that efficient business processes require careful, ongoing evaluation and continous efforts at improvement.