Chapter Two
A Complete Guide to Business Process Management

What is Business Process Management (BPM)?

Okay, now that you’ve passed your vocabulary lesson from Chapter 1, let’s dive into our next section… What is BPM?

According to Gartner, business process management (BPM) is “a discipline that improves enterprise performance by driving operational excellence and business agility.” It involves continuously reviewing processes, identifying gaps and weaknesses, and improving them to ensure processes continue to work smoothly, efficiently, and drive desirable outputs or outcomes.

Here’s a good way to think about BPM:

You get into and drive your car every day, or maybe a few times per week. You rely on your car as part of your daily or weekly process for getting to and from places.

Your car is essentially a machine, and it needs a “tune up” every once in a while to ensure it continues to operate efficiently. This could include ensuring the tires are properly inflated, the spark plugs are functional, and that your engine is firing on all cylinders (literally).

BPM is a lot like this.

What BPM Is…

BPM is the process of continuously measuring, analyzing, and optimizing existing end-to-end processes and functions to ensure they continue to drive desired results, outcomes, and remain relevant. BPM is very iterative and requires ongoing monitoring, maintenance, and re-engineering.

What BPM Isn’t…

BPM is NOT an operations manual.

Business Process Management vs. Business Process Automation

Now that you understand what BPM is, what is Business Process Automation, or BPA? Isn’t it the same thing? As you will discover, BPM and BPA are different—and here are the core differences:

  • BPA focuses on automating business processes, particularly with the use of technology.
  • BPM focuses on managing these processes – with or without technology and automation.

In short, BPM can include identifying processes that can be streamlined or improved with automation, but it isn’t a requirement of BPM. On the other hand, BPA can be considered a close family member of BPM.

BPM and BPM have similarities, are interrelated, and both work toward the same organizational goals, which include:

  • increase efficiency
  • improve productivity
  • reduce errors
  • reduce overhead costs
  • increase ROI

Which Types of Business Processes Are Good Candidates for BPM?

Processes don’t necessarily require specific criteria to benefit from BPM; it really comes down to which process you need to implement, improve, or optimize. As mentioned above, any business—regardless of industry, organization type, size, and scope—can benefit from BPM.

BPM Types Image
Figure 1: Business Process Management Candidates

With that being said, if you are unsure of which process(es) that are within your organization that could stand to use a little BPM TLC, we recommend beginning with the following:

  • Your Customers

    Any process that directly contacts, interacts with, or impacts customers is a great candidate for BPM. After all, the customer experience should always be a top priority for businesses. In fact, customers “rate” their experience and overall value with a particular company, brand, or product by the quality of the process, and whether that process meets their needs, solves a problem, or delivers something of value. Therefore, well-thought-out and efficient processes should delight customers and exceed their expectations.

  • Your Team

    If you or your team members are stressed out, overwhelmed, and overworked, then this is a sure-fire sign that it’s time to look at your existing processes. By reviewing internal processes and listening to team member feedback, you can identify processes to optimize, improve, and streamline to reduce the workload and burden.

After all, happier team members mean happier customers and better business.

In fact, in an effort to accommodate a fully remote workforce, more and more companies are now looking to automate their company’s entire ecosystem by digitally transforming their business workflows. It is possible to tackle both of these with BPM.

What is Process Management?

Doesn’t BPM and process management mean the same thing, with two different names?

Not quite.

Essentially, process management involves managing or overseeing existing processes, particularly focusing on who is responsible for executing each process as well as the end outcome, and what activities are involved.

On the other hand, business process management involves optimizing and improving those processes to reach a common end goal, such as improving efficiency, productivity, or reducing production or overhead costs.

Benefits of Business Process Management

Here are some benefits of BPM:

  • Measure performance and outputs of existing processes, delivery, and outputs
  • Increased agility (specifically adjusting and iterating on existing processes)
  • Increased adaptability to respond to and adjust to weaknesses or gaps in existing processes
  • Increased opportunities for continuous improvement (CI)
  • Increased visibility
  • Ensure compliance

Business Process Management vs. Process Management: Which One is Better for My Business?

When considering BPM and process management, you might wonder which one might benefit and yield the highest return for your business.

But here’s the kicker. This is a trick question… The answer is both.

As mentioned above, both BPM and process management are interrelated. And when combined perfectly, they can help any business in any industry achieve operational excellence.

Above all, process management and BPM are both crucial. At a high level, both help businesses operate more accurately, efficiently, and competitively by “fine-tuning” performance.

(Remember that car example?)

Chapter Summary

Okay, let’s sum up. Here are some key takeaways from this chapter:

  • Process management is managing or overseeing existing processes, particularly focusing on who is responsible for executing each process as well as the end outcome, and what activities are involved.
  • Business process management involves optimizing and improving those processes to reach a common end goal
  • BPA focuses on automating business processes, particularly with the use of technology.
  • BPM focuses on managing these processes – with or without technology and automation.
  • Any business—regardless of industry, organization type, size, and scope—can benefit from BPM.