Trends and prospects for the development of BPM systems

2023-2024

Technological trends in the development of BPM systems

TAdviser analyzed the technological trends in the development of BPM systems that market participants are talking about and identified the most relevant of them.

1. Easy to configure your BPM system

Simplifying the construction of business models and their automation could close the problem of a shortage of highly qualified personnel. Comindware expects to develop solutions that will help users adjust their modeling actions to achieve effective results. At the same time, work will continue to improve the UI/UX convenience of platforms.

2. Using low-code as an automation tool for a wide range of tasks

The specialist does not complicate his work by writing program code, but works only with the business and production processes of the enterprise. The development of processes and implementation is much faster, - notes Aleksei Romanov, General Director of Fogstream.

Low-code and no-code platforms allow you to create and modify process applications without the need for encoding. For 2022-2023, this approach has already become the de facto standard for Russian solutions. In our experience, most of all robots on the ROBIN platform are created by analysts without involving programmers, "explains Dmitry Vedev, head of strategic marketing at SL Soft (Softline Group of Companies).

3. Robotization in process automation

The use of RPA and chatbots in BPM has become virtually standard over the past two years. Today, this trend is developing - increasingly, instead of simple algorithmic robots, full-fledged "digital employees" are being developed and introduced based on artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, voice and text analytics. Such smart complexes are already able to robotize entire sections of business processes and effectively interact with other "digital employees" or humans.

4. Using artificial intelligence

The areas of its functional application are gradually expanding. But if in terms of solving specialized AI problems, domestic suppliers have something to offer, then in terms of "general AI," which provides quality comparable to ChatGPT, the objective gap from Western analogues is significant.

Artificial intelligence technologies are becoming an integral part of BPM systems. AI provides the creation of corporate assistants capable of processing requests, analyzing the knowledge base, generating responses, searching and indexing data, as well as recognizing audio and visual data, - comments Kirill Chekhankov, Head of IT Solutions at Konica Minolta Business Solutions Russia.

Billions of rubles are allocated for AI-related projects. In September of this year, the President of Russia also instructed the government, together with state corporations and state organizations, to make adjustments to their digital transformation strategies by December 25 in order to accelerate the introduction of artificial intelligence technologies in their activities. This will definitely affect the development of the IT market in Russia, including in the segment of BPM solutions. AI will become the driver of the development of these systems, - said Lyudmila Bogatyreva, head of the digital solutions department of the Polilog Agency

5. Moving from Systems to Platform Solutions

According to Vladimir Taranchenko, head of BPM practice at iFellow, such solutions will allow not only to automate processes, but also to identify and optimize them.

6. Facilitate integration flows. Availability of universal APIs for integration

Attention is also paid to creating ready-made integrations with popular services, solutions for project management. This is a big plus for organizations that want to carry out digital business transformation with the help of one tool.

BPMS is a universal orchestrator of business processes in the organization. The system takes control of a wide variety of processes, including in counterparty systems. It is important that she does this clearly, quickly and without additional risks to the business. This can be achieved if we provide high performance for the BPM system. This will allow you to process a large number of transactions per second, as well as ensure reliability, monitoring logging and process security, "says Denis Seleznev, General Director of First Form.

The key value of integrated solutions is precisely the integration of services. The customer does not need to solve the problems of product integration both in terms of technical capability (there can be many restrictions here) and in terms of significant financial and time costs.

For corporate customers, integrated solutions offer additional benefits: discounts within the loyalty system and reduced costs for administering interaction with service providers. It is convenient for companies to work with one supplier, since they do not need to spend resources (on search, analysis, negotiations) in order to choose the most suitable service, - notes Lyudmila Bogatyreva, head of the digital solutions department of the Polilog Agency. Using mobile solutions.

7. The ability to deeply customize and configure processes by users

The prospects are opened up by the synergy of BPM, RPA, Process Mining, AI, and other digital technologies. Deep customization by the user involves the implementation of BPM systems without the skill of programming and deep immersion in software development. Low-code/no-code increases the availability of automation for all types of business and reduces implementation time. A continuous analysis of the current and prospective state of business processes in the organization, especially using AI tools, including decision support tools, is also in great demand, - summarizes Vasily Anfinogentov, director of the business process automation department of FORCE - Development Center (FORS GROUP).

8. Analytics and Process Mining

Process analytics is a powerful tool that can expand the capabilities of BPM to improve the visibility and transparency of processes in real time, identifying border cases, bottlenecks and "gags" in processes. It is also used to optimize processes - by analyzing real data, Process Mining helps identify areas for improvement, allowing companies to flexibly configure business processes.

9. Cloud

BPM systems for medium and small businesses are actively implementing a cloud approach - at least many vendors over the past year have announced the possibility of using their systems both on-premium and cloud model.

10. Development of non-process management models

When companies need to adapt quickly, the weakness of fixation on one technique, including process methods, is clearly manifested. It is impossible to take up optimization of all processes at the same time. At the same time, a rigid process without loss of controllability can be decomposed and other methods can be used at certain stages to improve the efficiency of commands. For example, flexible management through kanban boards or case management. Conversely, rapid hyperautomatization and RPA can be applied on top of processes. IT tools for applied business tasks should support opportunities to be more flexible, - comments Konstantin Istomin, Executive Director of Directum.

The trends that were mostly just talked about before are finally turning into real implementations: virtualization on K8s clusters, going to the clouds, Big Data. Information security tools will be strengthened, this is due to the increase in the number of attacks and their complication. The development of AI will definitely continue, for example, search through GPT is now super popular, - predicts Yuri Vostrikov, General Director of LANIT Omni (part of the LANIT group).

It is also worth noting as a trend the possibility of influencing the business process from outside, for example, agreeing on a contract with a partner using emails and taking into account any external events and data in the business process, "adds Anton Ivanov, founder and CEO of Citeck.

Promising areas of development

Low-code is becoming "stronger," and many companies are looking towards expanding the possibilities of its application, simplifying configuration, forming Web 3.0. Vendors strive to ensure that services created using low-code work with high performance, meet customer expectations and do not lose out in competition with code implementation. Most likely, the internal development or absorption of office packages by BPM systems and the refinement of their functionality to create "seamless" will continue.

We believe that the development will take place iteratively, in gradual steps. Technology needs to be interactive and customer experience-driven. Qualitative improvement of the experience is often achieved not by adding new functions, but by improving existing ones, making the overall interaction with the product more friendly. Probably, everything goes to multi-platform high-performance super systems that combine design, Process Mining, automation, RPA, AI, ML, all this with low-code settings that can be expanded, Comindware experts comment.

According to Vladimir Andreev, president of Docsvision, after overcoming the extremely difficult stage of import substitution for all, new promising areas will arise. For example:

• Creating an adaptive interface that simplifies user interaction with the system, relieves the problems of adapting employees to process changes
• Use Process Intelligence and Process Mining to continuously improve processes
• development of integration mechanisms and implementation of Low-code/No-code systems for development of integration solutions;
• Further convergence of BPMS and other system classes
• development of a variety of scenarios for using AI in applied processes, etc.

With the advent of ChatGPT and similar technologies, there are new opportunities for generating document texts, task drafts, orders, etc. Such assistants in a few years will become as familiar as choosing the best route in the navigator, bypassing traffic jams.

Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence today. This is a fashion theme, but it is impossible without human control. Therefore, AI will develop in the field of predictive analytics and will help employees work faster and with less risk. But the result will be only if artificial intelligence has a human face, - said Denis Seleznev, general director of the First Form.

Perhaps we will see mechanisms based on ChatGPT or its analogues in BPM systems. This could be the future in which robots will take on some of the functions of personnel in business processes, "reflects Anna Kuznetsova, head of BPM practice at Naumen.

The trend will grow to use data analysis methods to control business processes, identify problem areas, assess the activities of performers and perform individual business functions. The movement towards simplifying the interface will continue, the low-code toolkit will develop. As a result, the share of implementations created on its basis will increase.

Another promising direction is the unification of information systems into a single field. For example, you can automatically place a purchase requisition on the supplier portal, and the supplier, in turn, will respond to it with a further purchase requisition. Both the buyer and the supplier will be able to conclude transactions and sign them exclusively by electronic signature through the electronic document management system, and so on.

In the future, BPM systems will strive to create faster and more manageable business processes. They evolve into universal platforms that, on the one hand, accumulate huge amounts of data, and on the other, actively interact with users as full-fledged corporate assistants. They will provide not only automation, but also intelligent business processes, providing analytics, forecasting and the ability to quickly respond to changes in the environment. The development of artificial intelligence, analytical capabilities and user interactivity will become a key focus for the future development of BPM platforms, - comments Kirill Chekhankov, Head of IT Solutions at Konica Minolta Business Solutions Russia.

In addition, consulting will remain in demand, including an analysis of the company's business processes and tasks to form the implementation concept and terms of reference.

In the future, it will be difficult to imagine a BPM platform without a ready-made set of products and an end solution without a process engine, they will merge together. That is why BPM market leaders are already fixed on the development of a partner network and expanding the possibilities for creating application and industry solutions on the basis of their product, actively invest in application stores and training, - summarizes Yuri Vostrikov, General Director of LANIT Omni (part of the LANIT group).

2022: Current technological trends and directions of development of BPM solutions

One of the striking trends of recent times is the widespread use of Low-code solutions. In 2022, it received an additional impetus and marketing priority in the segment of automation of business process management, says Anna Kuznetsova, head of BPM practice at Naumen. BPM systems in recent years have greatly developed their Low-code capabilities, which makes it easier and faster to implement a variety of solutions, said Vladimir Andreev, president of Docsvision. In fact, today there are two ways to create BPM: "bare" BPM engines, around which the rest of the application is developed, and Low-code platforms, where applications can be configured within a single platform, adds Dmitry Pereponov, head of business process automation at CROC IT company.

According to experts, most large Russian companies do not have developed internal development, so business often looks towards Low-code platforms. This choice is justified primarily by reducing the time and cost of implementing solutions. Using the example of the oil and gas industry, CROC specialists noticed that the use of the Low-code platform allows the customer to quickly test hypotheses in business. For example, if testing the hypothesis "about increasing economic efficiency" when developing from scratch would take several months, then in the case of the Low-code platform, this takes a few weeks.

BPM systems also use a visual business process designer, but the Low-code approach is much broader than simple business process design. The deep idea of ​ ​ Low-code: reducing the number of automation tasks coming from business. This is due to the acceleration of the creation of enterprise applications. Using the Low-code platform, the company can do automation of business processes quickly and efficiently, "explains Andrey Chepakin, Commercial Director of ELMA.

According to him, the Low-code platform should be considered in the long term as a tool for automating a wide range of tasks. For example, a company can first automate purchases, and then HR services, then - service and repair management, budgeting and project management, etc.

Our ELMA365 platform is a technological leader in the Low-code-solutions market, because in addition to using microservice architecture, it is distinguished by private cloud delivery. This allows the company to deploy ELMA365 on its computing power (or rent it). At the same time, the platform will be multi-tenant, that is, capable of serving users of various companies without launching additional copies of the solution. Various tenants can be used to automate subsidiaries or within a large company to automate individual projects, "says Andrey Chepakin, Commercial Director of ELMA.

Yuri Vostrikov, General Director of LANIT Omni, emphasizes the desire of companies for maximum flexibility due to microservice architecture and Low-code. Now the customer is interested in tools that will allow you to easily and quickly orchestrate and model even super-complex business processes, customize them according to specific needs, changing the logic and creating the necessary applications. It is important to have a BPM platform on the basis of which, in a single environment, you can not only automate the business processes of medium and large companies, but also launch client services. Such solutions combine Low-code tools, ready-made business applications, connectors and extensions for efficient adaptation, as well as industry scenarios.

If the enterprise segment focuses on Low-code, then small businesses liked the No-code concept. Large companies optimize processes due to maximum adaptation to their specifics, and small organizations care about the low price and readiness of solutions "in the box," the ability to adjust processes "on the fly," Directum notes.

A striking trend was the use of robotic business processes (RPA). When evaluating software products, customers expect intelligent tools that are inexpensive and ready to immediately benefit.

Many on the market talk about the "capabilities" of AI, and people need really working solutions, "Directum comments. - Therefore, we are developing a high degree of readiness AI so that any companies can easily use intellectual features out of the box. At the same time, the business will benefit - maybe at first small, but necessarily with little cost.

In addition, machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies are increasingly being introduced. Products are enriched with services with complementary technologies, in particular, omnichannel is a priority, emphasizes Anna Kuznetsova.

BPM systems have always been orchestrators of most processes in companies, says Dmitry Pereponov. - However, BPM systems still do not allow automating management decision-making. Such tasks have been and remain on the responsibility of management managers. Therefore, we see a vector of development in the direction of data mining based on ML. In this case, we will be able to transfer some management decisions to the system, and provide a person with the opportunity to work on more creative tasks.

Vladimir Andreev notes the convergence of BPM solutions with ECM-class systems that have been going on for many years. This significantly expands the range of use of systems of this class, in particular, when organizing processes for processing documents and automating various processes for working with them - contractual, technological, personnel, etc. Big changes have occurred in the field of working with paperless legally significant documents - a new signature format, working with a cloud signature, integration with the state portal. services, etc. As a result, deep integration of BPM and ECM is the possibility of using one client environment (working with jobs) for different processes.

BPM systems will merge even more with ECM and turn into the Content & Process Service Platform, according to Directum. At the same time, services must provide various embedding options: without UI, in the form of frames, with the display of their interfaces. We also need support for a high level of "services" - BPM solutions should work with any type of content no worse than ECM systems, be high-performance and scalable, and, of course, cross-platform.

In the coming years, we should expect increased attention of BPM system developers to ensure independence from Western technologies, that is, focus on open source products, as well as adaptation to Russian platforms and equipment. Software products will become more flexible, including through the use of microservice architecture. In the future, one platform will be able to close several subject areas, including BPM, CRM, EDMS, SD and others, Anna Kuznetsova is sure.

Sergey Chukanov, CEO of SimpleOne, notes that in addition to BPM, there is another class of systems that allows you to automate business processes - this is a class of Enterprise Service Management (ESM) solutions, that is, service management systems. ESM systems have evolved from ITSM systems that offer to build the work of the IT department through the prism of providing IT services useful for business. It is proposed to apply a similar approach to other divisions of the company, primarily service ones. This will not only improve the efficiency of business processes, but also determine their contribution and impact to the overall results of the company.

ESM is indispensable for digital companies, whose products can be purchased via the Internet or where interaction with customers takes place online, says Sergey Chukanov. - Although ESM systems are primarily intended for service companies, such solutions can also be used in enterprises of any other areas of activity, including in production companies, to automate servicing or auxiliary business processes. Improving their functioning will lead to uninterrupted operation of the main business processes in the enterprise.

The implementation of flexible processes continues in the market: while maintaining a certain degree of formalization, the process becomes flexible and variable within individual stages. This makes it easier to implement and use BPM solutions based on such principles. Another important point is the need of business for solutions that, in terms of the technology stack, would guarantee security and technological sovereignty.

In addition, the market will focus on developing high-quality APIs for the interaction of BPM systems with other software, experts say. As a result, you can provide your business with an integrated approach to improving efficiency and reducing costs. Near-future BPM platforms should also be able to work efficiently with accumulated enterprise data arrays.

2021

Technological trends in the development of BPM systems

Two key trends in the development of BPM systems have remained unchanged over the past few years. The first is associated with an increasing penetration of Low-code-development ideas, i.e. the ability to participate in the creation of applications of advanced users. The second most current trend is the expansion of the field of applications of intelligent technologies. Let's look at how BPM systems are developing within these and other trends.

Increasing the demand for Low-code tools

Without a doubt, the key trend is the movement of BPMS towards Low-code development of corporate applications. Platforms with or without "low code" are becoming more popular due to the tangible "personnel hunger." According to Terrasoft, 43% of organizations believe that the shortage of employees is a key challenge facing companies on the path to digital transformation. This affects the implementation of absolutely all digital projects, including the introduction of BPM technologies.

{{quote | One way to deal with this shortage in IT is to attract so-called citizen developers, users from businesses who know the processes and can configure and automate them using low-code/no-code, without involving developers. To do this, it is necessary that vendors provide products that combine low-code/no-code tools and BPM technologies - such as our Creatio platform, says Alexey Klochkov, Managing Director of Terrasoft Russia.

Andrey Chepakin, Commercial Director of ELMA, adds that BPMS is now considered not just as working with business processes, but as a single platform for developing corporate applications. At the same time, due to Low-code, development is reduced in time and cost.

The cheapening is due to a decrease in the requirements for the development team and the transfer of part of the development to the shoulders of analysts, fortunately, the low-code allows this transfer to be carried out, the expert explains.

Lyudmila Bogatyreva, head of the digital solutions department of the Polilog Agency, developer of the Polycode software platform, clarifies that low-code platforms have an unconditional advantage in short terms and low costs when setting up simple typical processes. But here, according to her, there are some restrictions that manufacturers do not always talk about. If you plan to develop a complex information system with unique functionality, then sooner or later you can rely on the limitation of this constructor. And then the implementation of complex functionality based on the low-code platform will be tens of times more expensive compared to classical development.

An example with a more well-known tool based on low-code, the Tilda site designer, is appropriate here. Yes, this is certainly a breakthrough in the market, as Tilda made it possible to quickly and cheaply make landings and simple sites. But for high-load and complex solutions (for example, for a marketplace), this tool is not suitable. In addition, many manufacturers promise that even a simple employee can configure new processes in a low-code solution. Still, this is not the case. Such work requires separate training and competencies, - says Lyudmila Bogatyreva.

Nevertheless, according to her, the BPM market will still develop in the direction of low-code by improving its designers by manufacturers and overcoming the restrictions mentioned above.

Developing Intelligence

The second most discussed trend is the use of artificial intelligence technologies in BPM systems. Intelligent technology is a tool that greatly speeds up routine but important operations. AI is used to automate decision-making based on data and previous company experience. Often he decides which of several hundred routes a specific contract will go along, how to group applications in lots when organizing purchases, whether two legal entities belong to one counterparty during bank reconciliation, etc.

AI modules as part of modern BPMS are still at the stage of formation and development, but we believe that this bright future will not be long in coming, "said Elena Gabdullina, Head of Business Process Management at CROC.

Lyudmila Bogatyreva (Polilog Agency) adds that the spread of artificial intelligence is largely due to state support for this topic.

While working on the introduction of Polycode from government customers, we hear a clear request for the use of AI, this trend will gain momentum, she is sure.

Multi-Platform Systems

One of the important trends is multi-platform, i.e. the ability to work the system on a computer and in mobile devices. The mobile application of the BPM system solves an important task - it allows employees not to be tied to the workplace. Mobility becomes a prerequisite for the implementation of projects, as it speeds up communications and significantly saves working time.

Merging Microservices

Another technological trend is associated with the transition to a microservice architecture, which implies many small independent and weakly connected services. This approach simplifies the ability to upgrade and scale applications and reduces the cost of these processes. BPM systems, in turn, become the core of the company, uniting microservices of other information systems.

Integration flexibility

Anton Ivanov, founder and CEO of Citeck, believes that in the Russian market more and more vendors are coming to the need to create not a separate solution or a block of solutions, but to create their own platform with the widest possible offer for automating processes and with the ability to interact with different technological stacks and systems. According to him, today the customer demands from the new solution the ability to harmoniously fit into the existing software landscape of the company: no one immediately introduces the new system completely for all business processes, replacing the existing software.

Implementation takes place gradually, in stages, but the customer's business is continuous, so BPM should easily integrate with a wide variety of systems. The one whose decision is as flexible as possible in this matter makes direct integration without "crutches" will receive an advantage, - explains Anton Ivanov.

Closing ECM and BPM systems

Elena Istomina, Director of the Directum Consulting and Implementation Department, talks about strengthening the trend towards closing ECM and BPM systems. According to her, the classes and boundaries of the systems are increasingly blurred, while it is also impossible to say that BPM has absorbed EDO/ECM.

For example, there are tasks of legally significant work with documents, including their long-term storage. Their standard BPM does not close in any way. You can integrate different systems, or you can have one "hybrid" system that allows you to work with unstructured information, is able to build a process with the binding of digital legally significant documents and ensure their storage. In addition, there is now a trend to move away from documents to "records" (for example, formalized documents in XML formats). Somehow they also need to be stored with legal significance, to provide a human-readable format - this goes to Records Management. And now the overflow of classes again! - notes Elena Istomina.

How BPM systems will change in the future

The future of BPM systems is connected with growing intelligence, flexible business processes and easy integration with other solutions and services.

Flexible business processes

BPMS will change following business demands, experts say. Now their requests are understandable. This is rapid automation, hypothesis testing with MVP, the transition to product organization of work within the company. At the same time, in the next 5 years, according to the forecast of Andrei Chepakin, commercial director of ELMA, the business request agenda will begin to migrate towards "flexible" business processes, which will change following the results of big data analytics. Thus, in each individual instance of the business process, the BPMS will change or adapt it based on data from Big Data.

Further integration of BPM with systems and tools of other classes

Classic BPM systems have practically ceased to be in demand, said Vladimir Andreev, president of Docsvision. He notes that BPM functionality is converging with document management and EDM tasks, Low-Code tools for developing specialized solutions for various functional divisions. This integration of systems, he said, will continue in the future. For example, today the integration of process control tasks with universal communications tools (for example, with Microsoft Teams) and, in general, information exchange tools is in demand.

This kind of convergence will continue. In the foreseeable period, we will be able to see universal platforms for the development of arbitrary integrated solutions, in which the BPM functionality will be an integral part, - the president of Docsvision is sure.

General Director of Lanit B.P. Em (part of the Lanit group) Igor Pototsky believes that the word BPM itself will become a thing of the past, and we will have low/no-code platforms for automating business processes and creating corporate business applications with BPM functionality, Case Management, RPA, process analytics, AI, chat bots and virtual assistants, working with data and documents, the ability to work from the cloud, etc. According to him, all this is already happening.

Increasingly smart systems

The future lies in intelligent solutions, market participants are sure. The systems will improve the interfaces, become even more friendly to the user - they will prompt and select options, smart assistants will be built into the processes, etc.

Technologically, BPM will remain the backbone, the skeleton of future business digitalization systems and projects, but both robotization systems and artificial intelligence will play an increasingly active part in this process. Currently, vendors are actively working to improve these technologies, where there are great development opportunities, - notes Andrey Kholinov, General Director of K2RU.

Everything goes so that the user has to make as few clicks as possible. For example, these can be automatic monitoring using robots, analytics that are prepared by artificial intelligence, intelligent document recognition.

The role of the person changes to making the final decision based on the data prepared by the system. At the same time, business processes can take place with minimal intervention of people, - believes Denis Seleznev, General Director of First Form.

Docsvision President Vladimir Andreev believes that Business Process Intelligent and Process Mining will play an increasingly important role, which, being integrated into the basic BPM tools, will ensure the possibility of real continuous improvement of the company's business processes. BPM subsystems will be saturated with artificial intelligence tools that can be supplied as ready-made components for solving specific application problems, such as the task of intelligent recognition of electronic forms today.

Vendors, as experts and analysts, must think over in which user processes it is necessary to connect intelligence, what tasks go into the category of routine and can be transferred to "robots," where the role of a person can be transferred to an observer and controller, says Elena Istomina, director of the consulting and implementation department Directum.

In her opinion, intelligent systems at the enterprise will be able to form a whole ecosystem covering various areas from supply, production, to shipment from the warehouse. The moment will come when the systems will communicate with each other - this maximizes the effect. But so far it is far from that. We are at the stage when artificial intelligence is entrusted with individual small parts in processes.

The question is in our level of understanding which solutions customers are ready to entrust to the robot and, accordingly, which functionality is most in demand by the market, the expert explains.

2020

In August-September 2020, TAdviser spoke with experts from the Russian market for BPM systems and learned their opinion on the prospects for the development of such solutions in the near future. Most often, respondents talked about "understanding" such systems and reducing the entry threshold for modeling processes and applications, i.e. the growing popularity of Low-Code tools.

Definitely in the near future, all kinds of "smart technologies" will be developed and widely used: the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in business processes, technology for interacting bots in a natural language (NLP chatbots and voice bots). Now we are introducing this to market leaders. But it is obvious that soon it will be a massive story, - says Alexey Trefilov, director of ELMA.

Intelligent technologies will become an integral part of IT solutions, adds Elena Istomina, director of consulting and implementation at Directum.

Already today, Directum offers its customers an intelligent digital process and document management system where AI capabilities are included in standard delivery, she explains.

Denis Seleznev, General Director of First Form, believes that support for decision-making with elements of artificial intelligence (self-learning based on statistics) will become available for almost any user action in the system.

The BPM system should not only get rid of the routine, but direct and prompt, highlight an important one from the saturated information flow. At a minimum, the system should have online analytics and proactive informing users about emerging problems, he said.

According to Igor Pototsky, CEO of LANIT - BPI Em (part of the Lanit group), there is a movement towards digitalization of the company's internal processes, minimizing or completely excluding human participation in them.

Alexey Lapshin, General Director of Aplana Business Solutions, predicts an active "understanding" of solutions due to the use of AI elements, primarily Text mining technologies, smart chat bots, etc. At the same time, in his opinion, niche professional "specializations" of VRM solutions are actively being formed - legal, banking, insurance, etc.

In addition, he notes that so far not many enterprises in Russia are transferring business processes to the cloud, but life itself spurs this process.

Distributed teams at a remote location, integration with various services and payment systems - all this plays in favor of a more active transfer of information systems to public clouds, - said Alexey Lapshin.

Recently, there has been a demand not only for automation of processes, but also for their optimization, says Vladimir Andreev, president of Docsvision. In this regard, there is an increasing interest in both process analytics and Process Mining technology, which allows you to automatically restore process models from the data accumulated in the information system and offer models for optimizing processes to improve their efficiency.

Another prospect, according to Vladimir Andreev, is associated with the total rejection of paper in information processing processes.

Certain steps have already been taken here, but the mass introduction of these technologies is still far away. Obviously, this is the future. One of the aspects of this trend is the entry of processes beyond the boundaries of the organization and the implementation of end-to-end paperless cross-organizational processes both using EDO operators and without them, he notes.

Vasily Anfinogentov, director of the business process automation department of Force - Development Center (Force Group of Companies), believes that in the near future BPM systems will develop in a direction called "adaptive case-management" - this is a direction associated with a decrease in the formalization of the business process.

Comparing this approach to the classic BPM, the difference between the two approaches is the same as between the classic assembly conveyor belt and the modern automated assembly line. In adaptive case management, the stages of the process and the employees involved, the ways of working are determined by the information processed during this process. This approach makes it possible to significantly improve the efficiency of the involved employees. In many ways, interest in case management is due to the active development of flexible management approaches. Standard, tightly regulated processes are not always possible to apply in the company, which limits the possibility of using BPM systems. In such cases, the concept of case management comes to the rescue, which complements the classic ECM and BPM methodologies well, "he says.

Alexey Trefilov, Director of ELMA, connects the near future of BPM systems with the development of Low-Code tools. This, in his opinion, will provide the possibility of a low entry threshold for modeling processes and applications.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for automation has grown significantly. The understanding has come that it is not only the main processes that need to be automated. The problem with servicing and especially personnel processes made themselves felt in many businesses. Therefore, in the plans of 2020-2021, many organizations have a serious amount of automation of simple processes. For the success of these projects, the right tools are needed that will allow optimal use of the internal resource, and not constantly resort to the power of the IT department alone or external specialists of integrators, he says.

Many large customers who have long been on the market have so-called "legacy" IT solutions. As a rule, these are complex, monolithic systems that are complex and expensive in terms of support and development. For many of them, the terms of support from vendors are running out or have already expired. As noted by Anton Chekhonin, General Director of Norbit (part of the Lanit group), now customers are striving to modernize such solutions - to transfer them to modern platforms with microservice architecture.

This largely determines all the growing interest in the subject of BPM. On the one hand, you still have a single platform (with unified development tools, integration mechanisms, etc.). On the other hand, a large number of IT services appear around it, automating various business processes (both related and unrelated), the expert explains.

Another promising area for the development of BPM systems is associated with the expansion of mobile functionality. Denis Seleznev, CEO of First Form, says that this trend was not very typical for BPM solutions, but now more and more tools first appear in mobile clients of BPM systems.

For example, in the "First Form" this was the case with the voice setting of tasks (using speech recognition technologies) and the use of geodata (the current location of the user). Especially for mobile employees, checklists and photo reports were developed, which are used, for example, when examining real estate objects, checking trading floors or in any other "field" work, he notes.

According to Anna Kuznetsova, head of the company's BPM practice, Naumen BPM should gradually become the "heart" of the company's information systems and build interaction between them. This will take into account the addition of modern machine learning technologies, process optimization and predictive analytics.

2019

Developers of business process management systems continue to monitor emerging trends, assess their business potential in conjunction with BPMS and integrate the most promising technologies into their solutions. Some vendors note that the introduction of the entire complex of various products as a single system shows interesting results, since in this case technologies are able to multiply each other's effect.

The task of modern BPMS is to easily connect new technologies to the company's activities. That is why departments that deal with AI, RPA and Smart Interfaces (voice robots and chat bots) once appeared inside our company. Plans for the near future are to increase internal competencies for the integration of new technologies, "says Alexey Trefilov, director of ELMA.

Elena Istomina, Director of the Consulting, Implementation and Support Department, Directum believes that the key opportunities in the development of systems will be the emergence of intelligent processing tools, integration to build end-to-end processes, and ensure the legal significance of content that is born in the process.

Anna Kuznetsova, head of BPM practice at Naumen, a member of the ABPMP Russia association, believes that in the coming years various processes will be intellectualized by RPA and machine learning, as well as several systems will be combined into a single circuit to solve the problems of one group of processes. For example, it is possible to merge BPM, contact centers, intellectualization systems and BI.

Active integration of BPM with other digital technologies should lead to the emergence of integrated digital platforms that will provide all these services as a Lego designer - so that it is possible to assemble a business application from them without coding or with minimal coding (low code), says Oleg Elenin, CEO of Business-Console.

It is unlikely that this will be a monolithic super-system (Suite) - microservice architecture and containerization are considered more progressive. But one way or another, on the horizon of five years, we are likely to see such systems, he believes.

Vladimir Andreev, President of Docsvision, one of the current tasks of BPM systems sees an increase in their scalability to support a large number of processes:

With the comprehensive implementation of the BPM system in a large organization, the number of processes can increase exponentially as the coverage of various business processes increases. These could be millions of process instances. The goal of the BPM platform is to provide smooth horizontal scaling to ensure such growth.

In addition, the President of Docsvision lists other areas of BPMS development: increasing the usability of systems both in terms of use, configuration and process modeling; convergence of process control systems and group work systems, case management, task management tools and corporate communication tools.

Alexey Klochkov, Managing Director of Terrasoft, believes that in the coming years the key concept will be everyone a developer, which is becoming more and more popular around the world. This means that employees of the company without programming skills will be able to independently automate processes and configure software solutions.

Moreover, we see a future in which any business idea can be automated very quickly, literally in minutes. Low-code platforms, tools for quick integration, ready-made templates and applications - these technologies not only enable users to modify systems themselves and create new solutions, but also free up time for developers, allowing them to concentrate on more complex creative tasks, he notes.

According to Angelina Mikhina, head of BPM at Korus Consulting Group, in the near future the market will largely determine the growing interest in automating everything and excluding the influence of the human factor on regulated processes.

For example, this will help increase the popularity of solutions that are process mining still new to the Russian market. Last year Gartner , he called process mining one of the strategically important technologies. It allows you to automate the description of "as is" processes by collecting and processing data obtained directly from the company's information systems. In fact, process mining tools can analyze business processes in different sections for their effectiveness - and identify those that need improvements and transformation more than others. By doing this, companies can reduce the cost of implementing an IT infrastructure while improving its performance. Process mining is the first step towards comprehensive and innovative business transformation using RPA technologies, artificial intelligence or digital enterprise twins, says Angelina Mikhina.

Anatoly Belaychuk, BPM evangelist at Comindware, speaks of the relevance not so much of the development of BPM systems as an independent software class, but of their entry into the emerging new class of "smart automation" systems as one of the modules along with RPA, artificial intelligence and chat bots, etc.

The name has not yet been determined - some talk about the Digital Business Platform (DBP), others about the Digital Automation Platform (DAP), others about the Intelligent Automation Platform. Approaches also differ - someone sees the digitalization platform as a traditional closely integrated package (Suite), someone as a set of cloud services of the form "process as a service," "business rules as a service," united by microservice architecture. But one way or another, these developments are already actively underway, so we will see many new products in the coming years, "sums up the BPM evangelist at Comindware.

2018

Robotization of processes

Unlike many other applied enterprise solutions, BPMs more flexibly and dynamically absorb innovation and become the application centers of many technology trends. Most noticeable now is the movement towards the development of symbiosis of BPM platforms and RPA solutions.

We are talking, of course, about the robotization of processes, when simple robots take on many repetitive routine operations, and BPMS build process logic and control interaction. We are already carrying out measures to promote such solutions with might and main, - said Alexey Trefilov, director of ELMA.

Build smart functionality

Reports and dashboards of BPM systems traditionally describe the past and, as a rule, do not provide information about the context, which makes it difficult to make effective decisions. New technologies, for example, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning), as well as methods and approaches, for example, Process Mining, used in modern BPM systems are designed to get away from this drawback, says Konstantin Loparev, head of LANIT - BPI Em (Lanit group of companies ).

Intuitive interface and low-code principles

There is a growing interest in systems that implement an intuitive interface and low-code principles (i.e. parametric configuration that does not require programming), which reduces the qualification requirements of users and administrators and reduces the "entry barrier."

The main trend of recent years throughout the world and Russia, including the demand for low-code systems, solutions with minimal coding. The task of developing business applications has been transferred from programmers to analysts who need convenient visual editors, - notes Alexey Klochkov, director of Terrasoft, Russia region.

The trend towards the implementation of the principle of the present low-code is also noticed by Alexey Trefilov, director of ELMA.

Some time ago, a business analyst could not completely do without a developer, since pure programming and additional development were necessary in a noticeable part of the tasks. Now the role of programming in business modeling is gradually decreasing due to the significant development of analyst tools in BPMS. Vendors see the development of business analytics tools as a competitive advantage, "he says.

Oleg Yelenin, CEO of Business-Console, also mentions evolution to low-code platforms.

Process systems evolve from BPMS (simulation plus engine execution plus monitoring tools) first to iBPMS (same plus mobile clients, clouds, social interaction), and recently - to low-code platforms that are distinguished by browser development, support for social interaction a la Facebook and, in general, a more modern user interface, as well as support for non-pattern operations (cases), the ability to work with data directly, outside the process context, focusing not only on internal, but also on external users, "he says.

Ease of transformation

Today's BPM systems need to be easily transformed to meet current customer needs.

According to Vasily Anfinogentov, director of the business process automation department of Force - Development Center (Force Group of Companies), the development of BPM systems is going in several directions. Firstly, this is a transition to increasingly specialized processes - from general and standard to automation of specific processes of a particular organization. Secondly, the transition to less and less formalized processes, which is a serious challenge for the traditional approach.

Now the competitive advantage will be on the side of systems capable of flexibly automating processes with "floating," not fixed stages, including those that are added after the start of the process, or those that depend on a certain set of conditions. In other words, modern BPM systems should be easily transformed in accordance with the changing business situation and the needs of today, the expert says.

Abandoning desktop applications

The First Form (1Form) company, based on its own practice, notes the tendency of customers to completely abandon desktop applications and focus on the "basic system in web + mobile application" tandem.

Managers want to work without being tied to an inpatient workplace. The world is becoming more accessible, and you need to be able to work effectively anywhere in the world, "says Sergey Tikhonov, Commercial Director of the First Form.

Others

Alexey Lapshin, CEO of Aplana Business Solutions (Aplana Group of Companies), among the main areas of development, BPM calls the transformation of BPMs from automation systems of any individual processes into a single corporate process bus or platform. Moreover, on the basis of this platform, other related information systems are integrated.

Alexey Klochkov from Terrasoft says that combining business process management and case management technologies on a single platform is in great demand. In addition, the development of smart technologies using machine learning tools and the Internet of Things continues. Also, according to him, entire ecosystems are developing with ready-made processes and extensions.

Platforms following the example of our Marketplace allow partners to create and users to find tools to solve business problems, explains Klochkov.

Alexey Trefilov (ELMA) says that his company regularly tries to go beyond the usual BPM concept, capturing areas outside of structured processes.

For example, we are developing the practice of applying decision notation (DMN) to automate management processes. Now DMN and BPM seem to be parallel stories, but over time we will come to a single practice. In the same area of ​ ​ development is the Case Management practice, which implies the automation of unstructured processes, he explains.

Read also

• Overview of the BPM system in Russia
• BPM Market Statistics
• Directions of development of BPM systems
• Learn more about BPMS
• Business simulation
• Global BPM Market
• BPM (Implementation)
• Where will the evolution of BPM lead?
• Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)
• Project and Process Management Issues
• Services and Products in BPM Practice
• How to painlessly implement process management in the company
• Corporate/Business/Enterprise Performance Management
• "Russian market VRM 2015-2016." BPM Logic and TAdviser Research