What is Business Process Management (BPM)?

Business process management, or BPM for short, is proving to be a powerful way for companies to enhance their process efficiency through a systematic approach to analysis, optimization, and automation. Used right, BPM reduces costs and minimizes errors. The result?  Business processes that empower you to flexibly respond to market changes, efficiently deploy resources and stay competitive for the long haul.

Keep reading to find out what BPM looks like, why it’s important and which software you need to implement and optimize processes.

Definition: What is business process management, or BPM?

BPM is essentially about structuring and optimizing an organization’s workflows in order to achieve better outcomes. In simple terms, BPM helps you improve your business processes.

Given that a single organization will encompass many different types of processes, BPM addresses three main areas in which you can optimize processes along your value chain:

  • Human-centric BPM: Here, the focus is on processes that are heavily dependent on human decision-making and interaction — such as approving workflows or delivering customer care
  • Integration-centric BPM: Looks at automated processes that integrate IT systems and software — such as data exchange between applications or automated system updates
  • Document-centric BPM: Focuses on document management processes — creating, verifying, releasing, and archiving invoices, etc.

The objectives of BPM

At a practical level, BPM measures are designed to make workflows streamlined and more effective — all in pursuit of the overriding goal of enhanced value creation. This is achieved through a set of subordinate goals:

  • Enhance efficiency with faster processes, cost savings, and way fewer errors
  • Increase quality by creating standardized processes and improving customer satisfaction
  • Improve flexibility to agilely respond to new challenges and flexibly adapt processes
  • Create transparency for better decision-making
  • Reduce dependencies through no-code or low-code solutions that simplify process design
  • Ensure compliance with both regulatory and in-house requirements

How does BPM work?

BPM employs workflow analytics, identifies pain points and sheds light on action areas, all in the name of optimizing your business processes. It blends strategic planning approaches with technical implementation techniques. As a result, it involves a large number of roles:

  • Chief process officer: Has overarching responsibility for BPM, develops the BPM strategy, and monitors execution
  • Process owner: Develops, monitors, and optimizes specific processes
  • Process manager: Plans, manages, and documents processes in the company
  • Advisor: Assists with rolling out and optimizing BPM methods in the company
  • Coach: Trains and mentors employees and teams during process implementation
  • Process participant: Uses processes in day-to-day work and strictly complies with requirements
  • Process controller: Monitors the efficiency and efficacy of implemented processes and identifies pain points
  • Process auditor: Checks that processes meet internal and external requirements, and that the company acts compliantly and legally

BPM in 5 steps

What is the life cycle of the BPM process?

1. Design: It all starts with mapping out your process. What’s working, what’s not — and what the ideal version should look like. Define the key steps, roles, and resources needed to make it happen.

2. Model: Next, bring your process to life visually. Use BPM software to create models or diagrams that show how tasks and interactions flow from start to finish.

3. Execute: Time to put your plan into action. Integrate your new process models into your existing systems — and make sure your team is properly trained before rolling anything out.

4. Monitor: Keep a close eye on how things are running. Track KPIs, use dashboards, and spot any issues early so you can act before they become bigger problems.

5. Optimize: Take what you’ve learned and make it better. Use the data and insights you’ve gathered to fine-tune your processes and keep improving over time.

Good to know: The BPM life cycle is continuous. In modern-day workplaces, processes must continually adapt to new technologies and requirements — meaning BPM itself is also on an infinite loop.

Use cases for business process management

Services

BPM helps create a better customer experience. By automating and standardizing routine processes, your team has more time to focus on what matters most — supporting customers. With a BPM system, you can manage inbound tickets more efficiently, respond to inquiries faster and keep satisfaction levels high.

Accounting

Automate your invoice processing, payment processes and other finance processes with BPM. Automate the invoice workflow or generate automatic reports. Automation minimizes errors and increases compliance.

Human resource management

Hiring, onboarding, training, reviewing — all prime examples of optimizable processes. Standardized, digital workflows make it easier to manage employee data and reduce manual admin tasks. The resulting shorter lines of communication are key to strengthening employee retention.

Supply chain management

In logistics, BPM works by streamlining order, production, and shipping processes for maximum efficiency. Lean management empowers companies to manage their inventories with just-in-time deliveries and under optimal conditions.

Quality management

BPM is used in quality management to safeguard compliance with quality standards in business processes. The outcome: better processes for monitoring products or services. Errors and bottlenecks are detected faster than ever.

Compliance

Transparent compliance with regulatory requirements is easy with BPM. The system generates audit trails, documents changes in document processes, provides users with early risk warnings, and much more.

Why business process management?

Business process management (BPM) takes digital transformation to the next level. Today’s businesses must adapt quickly and processes need to follow. Sticking to outdated ways slows everything down.

Modern BPM tools are built to be simple, fast and flexible so they can handle any task or challenge.

With Doxis BPM, you unlock more than efficiency. You gain automation, speed and the space for your teams to focus on real innovation.

Ready to see what’s possible?

What is the role of an ECM system in BPM?

Good process optimization starts with solid data. It’s what reveals bottlenecks, highlights untapped potential, and — most importantly — makes efficiency measurable. Without that insight, it’s hard to steer your business in the right direction.

Enter enterprise content management system (ECM system). This is essential tech; an integrated document management system (DMS) that goes beyond storage — it integrates the life cycle and associated processes of your documents.

Essentially, an ECM system provides data as the basis for making ongoing process optimizations, meaning your BPM initiatives are based on reliable and up-to-date information. The outcome? You can build efficient processes and make smarter decisions.

Advantages of an ECM system for BPM

  • An ECM system such as Doxis offers many advantages for process optimization. Here’s a quick summary:
  • Manage routine, highly structured processes as well as unstructured, derived processes
  • Integrate standardized and knowledge-based processes
  • Quickly respond to ad hoc process changes
  • Manage complex, information-centric workflows
  • Efficiently structure tasks requiring extensive processing times and multiple team members
  • Plan and optimize processes over the long term

End-to-end process optimization with Doxis as a BPM solution

With Doxis as your BPM software, you can automate and manage wide-ranging business processes, from the digital inbox to purchase-to-pay to case management, supported by AI. Doxis organizes all of the digital tasks that make up your processes. It also looks at information in its overall context, enabling you to see how projects are progressing at all times. Typically, you will model your processes in Doxis exactly how you need them — for instance, by adding verification steps to your standardized invoice process.

The core functions of Doxis:

  • Centrally managed business processes: Dashboards display information to employees on their own tasks and current activities. Reports and other colleagues’ activities can also be accessed from here.
  • Instant workflow overview: Visualized workflows show next steps at a glance and help with decision-making.
  • Flexible task planning: Use task lists to plan ad hoc workflows in Doxis, and stay productive and adaptable in any situation.
  • Always up to date: The activity feed displays the newest activities in the workflow. Employees see who created, viewed, edited, opened, approved, or commented on which content and when.
  • Maintain agility: While standardized processes are vital for optimizing processes long term, it’s equally as important to stay agile. Adaptive case management enables you to adapt standardized business processes to ensure you flexibly fulfill requirements while maintaining compliance throughout.

Rely on BPM for scalable, flexible and efficient business processes

BPM gives you the structure to coordinate processes transparently, stay compliant and remain flexible as things change. Over time, it helps you create a setup where your processes don’t just run, they add real value, without losing sight of your customers’ needs.

With BPM tools like Doxis, you’re set up for long-term success and ready to handle whatever comes next — with processes that are smart, agile, and built to evolve.

Want to see how it works in action? Get in touch for a demo.

Customized ECM for tailor-made workflows

Meet Doxis, the next-generation enterprise content management system. Build workflows that fit your business, connect seamlessly with your existing systems and add new capabilities as you grow. With best practices built in, you can shape processes that truly work for your team.

Want to see how it works? Request your personal live demo today.

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FAQs on BPM

What does BPM stand for?
BPM stands for business process management, or the way organizations manage their processes. It covers all activities geared towards achieving efficient processes — i.e. analyzing, modeling, implementing, monitoring, and optimizing workflows.
What is the role of automation in BPM?
Automated workflows are resource-efficient, making automation a central element of BPM. Automation accelerates processes, minimizes errors, and allows machines to take over repetitive sequences.
Why is BPM important?
BPM helps companies to improve their workflows, make efficient use of their resources, and flexibly adapt to changes in the market. This reduces costs, enhances quality, and gives companies a competitive edge that they can continue to build on.

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