Do we really need a process to manage processes?

Every time you turn around it seems that someone has come up with a new process that we must embed in our organization, or beware of the consequences. What are the imperatives for developing a business process management (BPM) capability? Is this just another hype that we can safely ignore until it goes away, or is it a real value proposition for the business?

I firmly believe that BPM is a core capability, and something that no organization can afford to neglect in our current, rapidly evolving, digital world.

Here are what I think are five compelling reasons to adopt or improve your BPM capabilities.

1. The business ecosystem is constantly evolving and becoming more complex

New and disruptive technologies are constantly hitting the business. Developments in cloud computing, mobile technologies and the rapidly changing world of social media create an urgent need for BPM to ensure that the business is capable of changing direction quickly to adapt to these changing market conditions.

These changes in the technology landscape are forcing businesses to overhaul their corporate strategy in order to keep pace with their competition.

BPM allows the enterprise to swiftly change direction by focusing on execution and linking business processes to the desired goals and objectives of the organization.

2. Customer attitudes to loyalty have changed

It used to be that customers started doing business with you and just stayed, regardless of any ups and downs that may annoy them while doing business with you. They would tolerate poor service, ignore the fact that your opposition was offering new and better services. Customers had a sense of loyalty and were reluctant to end the relationship with your business by going elsewhere.

Those days have long gone. If your competitor offers and new, exciting technology to their customers that you are not able to provide, then you can start waving your own customers goodbye as they walk out the door. They are not going to wait six months for you to catch up.

Without effective BPM, you will be unable to change gear and make the required changes to your processes to catch up to to your competitors before you have lost all your customers.

3. Business process management increases business productivity

One way to improve the bottom line for the business is to reduce costs, the the future of the organization does not lie with cost cutting but with but enabling corporate growth. The best way to promote growth is to improve productivity.

Companies that do not innovate will fall behind in a volatile digital economy where everything is becoming a commodity.

BPM helps to foster innovation by providing streamlined processes that will reduce unnecessary inefficiencies throughout the supply chain.

There are many other reasons why, if you have not already adopted BPM in your organization, you need to put real effort into the management of the processes that keep your business at the cutting edge of whatever industry you are in.

It would be all too easy to dismiss BPM as just another fad that will lose favor over time, but it is not. BPM is here to stay and the businesses that are still around in five or ten years’ time will be the ones who have recognized its importance and have harnessed its power to support innovation and empower the organization to keep pace with, or outrun, its competition.