Business Process Management (BPM) Is About Managing the Way Work Is Done
Consider a restaurant. Every restaurant designs recipes, menus, buys food, prepares food, cooks, serves, cleans, markets, sells, etc. Some will focus on the high-end, others in the fast food markets. The winners are the ones with consistently delivered processes aligned to their target market, such as those with Michelin rosettes at the high-end and McDonald’s at another. By keeping your target customers in mind and continuously improving your processes then the return on investment (ROI) will include:
- Increased market share
- Increase revenues and profits
- Reduced waste and costs
The Return on Investment (ROI) benefits come from implementation of the improved processes such that they guide day-to-day processing at the individual level. No longer do members of staff have to worry about what their next activity is in a process, what they need to do, how they do it, when they do it, and or where it is performed. These processes make it difficult for staff to skip activities, do them in the wrong order, or too late or too early. The benefits are increased efficiencies, improved quality, increased output, fewer errors, and improved compliance all leading to better customer outcomes. One of the most important impacts of BPM on an organization is ‘consistency’ in output. Business Process Management as a discipline starts by identifying the existing processes in an organisation. These are sets of activities each with inputs and output that helps an organisation create value for its customers. They can include Operational, Maintenance, Supporting, Marketing, Supply, and Sales Processes and more. They need to define what a customer is in the context of them and include.
