Why is business process management (BPM) a big deal ...

…and why should small and medium companies be looking at this practice? The answer is simple – dollars, dollars, dollars. Over the last decade we have seen the wax and wane of the big IT project throughout the enterprise – ERP, CRM, intranet, ecommerce etc. Time and again these projects failed to meet expectations, ran over budget, implementations rolled on endlessly and no-one talked ROI at the end of the day the way they did at the start. I think most would agree that the one big technological innovation that has boomed for everyone (indeed now becoming a victim of its own success) is email – and it crept up on us bit by bit to a point where now perhaps we can’t function without it. Email has automated the business process of interpersonal communications.

The problem with email from a procedural viewpoint is it is unstructured, fluid, uncontained and virtually unauditable. Let’s face it, when you want to get someone to do something in this day and age, even though they are only down the corridor, you bash out a quick email and hit the send button. Unfortunately the intent or expectation of your message is not always correctly digested or enacted by the recipient.

A request along the lines of “please do a credit check on A.N. Company” may be merrily replied to with a “done” but, have the tasks that were required and expected by the sender been performed by the recipient? Did all three credit checks with existing suppliers of longer than 3 years, a trading history scorecard from a credit reference agency, and a verification of the company registration number all get “done” with the results recorded in the files – or not? That is the mystery and the danger of email. And remember – this is the realm of email because few of the mid-tier financial or ERP systems incorporate a workflow or automation framework outside of the transactional lifecycle. Adding a new debtor to the ERP system generally starts at the data capture screen [you know the drill, New record, Code = , Name = , Address = ……..] – but hang on – what about all those prior steps involved in capturing all the data and assessing and approving the debtor for trading purposes in the first place? Those business processes fall through the cracks of your average FMS/ERP because they are about communication – not transaction.

Business process management is the structured execution of tasks based on pre-defined policies and procedures. So when the credit check is performed, the person engaged must follow through the approved set of tasks and actions and record the results as they go before being able to reply “done”. If they don’t do it and record that they have done it, then they can’t set it “done”. The process may start and end with an email as before but the correct steps were taken in between – every time. Simple, consistent, foolproof and money-saving – every time.

In every company across the planet there are myriad processes demanding structure when you think about how to improve and control your business communications and operations. Drive down costs, drive down risks, drive down errors – dollars, dollars, dollars.