Business Process Management with a Competitive Edge: Implementing Transparent, Agile, and Consistent

Business Process ManagementJanuary 2008
Business Process Management with
a Competitive Edge
Implementing Transparent, Agile
and Consistent Business Process
Management Business Process Management with a Competitive EdgeImplementing Transparent, Agile and Consistent Business Process Management Page 
Automating business processes is not the current IT trend or marketing buzz in the software industry. Rather, it is a fundamental strategy employed by those who plan to stay in the game in the long run. It is what allows companies to remain competitive by reducing cycle time in business value development, delivery and support.
According to Forrester, "The confluence of several strategic business issues is accelerating the high level of interest in BPMS software." Specifically:
. A growing number of companies are realigning functional managers to become cross-functional process owners, implementing Six Sigma and lean manufacturing quality initiatives to improve business processes and shifting their focus from applications to business processes supported by composite applications.
" Forrester believes the . Compliance mandates such as Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel II, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), where BPMS tools shift from functional provide the framework to ensure required procedures are adhered to.
alignment to business . Advanced BPMS tools empower authorized business users and managers to model and monitor business processes and modify business rules.process ownership will In the pursuit of business process improvement, companies face important increase corporate challenges such as being able to better understand the behavior of their business processes, being able to adapt business processes in a timely fashion, and performance, and the ensure the consistency across the enterprise.
adoption of BPMS will . Total business insight
drive a fundamental . Total business agility
and positive change in . Total business process consistency
The benefits of implementing Business Process Management, or BPM, with IBM the relationship between Enterprise Content Management are significant, quantifiable and reach across the business and IT." entire organization touching on all elements of the business. The reduced cycle times and enhanced visibility into what stage of the process is in play, who is taking - Forrester action, the status of approvals and what hurdles must be overcome result in:
. Reduced operational cost
. Reduced risk in regulatory compliance
. Improved management oversight capabilitiesBusiness Process Management with a Competitive EdgeImplementing Transparent, Agile and Consistent Business Process Management Page 
Until now, business process improvement practices have either removed human-intervention as much as possible and focused resources on exception processing or simply automated as many business decisions as possible. While both approaches are valid, the outcome can vary substantially based on how you automate the decisions in your processes. If you don't pay attention to the "how," you are likely to significantly limit your improvement options, resulting in reduced visibility, limited agility and a lack of consistency.
Businesses can approach automating the decision logic of their business processes a number of ways. Let's review the different options on how to automate decisions and how they impact overall process efficiency.
Traditional Software CodingThis process allows the decisions made in the automation process to become part of the actual software code. While there is likely to be some consultation with the end users of how the process works, as a matter of practice decisions are often made in the IT department as they create the workflows and develop the software program. Once the process is launched, any changes that are needed require IT effort to revise the software code. Obviously, this becomes a labor intensive and costly ongoing exercise for any process that operates in a highly dynamic environment.
This approach will also limit your business insight and ability to improve your processes since decisions coded in a programming language will prevent business users from understanding how and why business decisions have been made.
Standard Business Rule Engine (BRE) Employing a standa... [download for more]