BPM Is Beyond Automation

Enterprises are on a perpetual mission to save money. In this battle to cut costs, IT heads tend to leave out Business Process Management (BPM) from their artillery. Neither does BPM fit into the ‘cost saving initiative’ mould nor does it generate a tangible revenue return - it doesn’t make money directly or quickly. But overcoming all odds, BPM is gradually gaining reverence among IT and business heads. Peter Murchison, VP-Global Websphere Engagement Team Software Group, IBM, in conversation with Biztech2.com, sheds light on why BPM makes sense for the enterprises.

What’s the imperative for BPM?

In the IT industry, we are good at measuring things. But we can only measure things at the level at which we think. Without BPM we are operating at a transactional level. We know how fast our servers are, we know how many transactions we are going through for a certain period of time. But this will lead to measurements of success and planning only at a transactional level.

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BPM raises the bar of evaluating data from various databases in the organisation and helps collate these pieces to make a full picture of work and performance. When you go up the chain logically into BPM, the process really expresses the goals getting accomplished. Hence, the process has business value. Thus, BPM betters IT’s knowledge of the business.

BPM seems to be like automation. How can this view be corrected?

Given what BPM does, i.e. blueprint processes, improve process reliability, flexibility, visibility and control, automation is necessary but not sufficient. By choosing automation what one is essentially choosing is consistency. The system will work consistently if the processes are reinforced. Measuring the influence of such an initiative is the main issue CIOs face. Controlling the entire process and making it better is important. For instance, from the moment the customer purchases a product until when you respond and deliver that to them is a key KPI. By showing the business that you have made this process or a series of processes more effective and transparent would be a key KPI for the BPM initiative.

The CIO has to link the BPM system to the KPIs of other IT projects and maybe, to some business projects to shed light on the fact that BPM is not just automation . BPM is the CIO’s chance to say to the business, ‘Here’s what I know about your business and not just what you know about the response time of my technology to your business.’

How does mobility tie in to BPM?

Mobility is an enabler to help reach out to others to conduct business. There could be BPM on the inside connecting to mobility on the outside and servicing the internal customers or the external customers through various touch points. These seem to be high investment areas for BPM .

A key aspect of an enterprise mobility is integration. When enterprises talk of mobility projects the main point for them to consider is whether and how they tie these initiatives into the larger picture of IT in the enterprise. And, it is here that BPM comes in to save the day: how will you get your entire backhand infrastructure integrated into this project, and not just integrated but seamlessly integrated to aid the business. It is necessary for companies to make sure that marketing and other functions understand what the ability of joining these two forces means.

What’s the way forward for BPM in the enterprises?

Integrating analytics and BPM to improve user experience has to be the way to go. Isolated processes will not talk and the coveted 360 degree view of the customer will be lost. BPM is also undertaken as a solution to the various infrastructure issues that may be faced.