Business Process Management, BPM

Assigning a BPM System

Most BPM systems have evolved to automate the business process. BPM systems are a central part of the Service-Oriented Architecture SOA -. A BPM system with advanced integration tools is a kind of link between all services of a single IT solution. BPM is a necessary means of implementing the concept. SOA The main difference between BPM systems and applications of other classes is that the main object of automation in it is the business process.

Based on the logic of the business process, the BPM system distributes the work flow to the participants, thus ensuring the management of the business process. By itself, automation of business processes is not considered as a priority goal for the implementation of the system, and the calculation here is made that after the implementation of the BPM system, the company has a tool for managing business processes. This allows you to increase the performing discipline, set the necessary algorithm for the work of the company and control its correct execution, as well as start the process of continuous improvement of business processes. After all, without proper management, business processes lose their effectiveness, and this is a well-known fact.

BPM cycle

BPM is based on the idea of ​ ​ a continuous management cycle, including:

• definition of development goals
• modeling of factors determining the achievement of these limiter goals
• planning of actions leading to the achievement of the set goals
• continuous monitoring to monitor the status of KPIs and their deviation from the plan
• analysis of the achieved results, which makes it possible to better understand the nature of the prerequisite for effectiveness
• reporting that helps managers make further decisions.

Set of control cycle elements and their relationship

Targeted Automation Processes

As mentioned earlier, the purpose of BPM systems is to automate any business processes, but the maximum effect is achieved when used in processes with a high frequency of execution and complex logic. Examples are:

• telecommunication services connection processes
• retail lending processes at the bank
• processes of technical connection of the end consumer in the power, the process of obtaining insurance in the insurance company
• the process of creating a purchase order in logistics, etc.

BPM systems as the most effective management tool have proven themselves in such business processes.

Architecture and Analytics

There are three layers in the BPM system:

• a data management layer, including storage, which is populated with information from the organization's accounting systems using integration tools;
• a layer of BPM applications consisting of application modules to support integrated management and reporting processes;
• reporting and analysis layer.

The finished BPM solution consists of tool (BI) and application (BPM) components. BI tools are used to create and fill the data warehouse, analyze and publish reports, BPM applications - to support management functionality and calculate reporting indicators.

Any BPM system implies modular construction and usually includes:

• graphical functions designed to visualize, describe, and analyze processes.
• Job execution server (workflow server), the primary server on which BPM-controlled processes run. The server monitors the status of each process and business events within that process.
• operational tools that perform the functions of changes during the process, for example, managing work lists and work priorities.
• Monitoring and control tools: The monitoring module shows the degree or stage of completion of the process and its conditions.

The BPM system has two levels of business intelligence. At the first level is the business activity monitoring tool - Business Activity Monitoring (Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)). Here, through the analysis of the key indicators of the process performance in real time, the business process is controlled as well as the response to important events.

At the second level, automated business processes are analyzed - process BI (Business Intelligent). The analysis of the business process is carried out for its continuous improvement.

Adaptive BMP Systems

Currently, the speed of changes in the business process has increased (and continues to increase) so much that IT solutions become an obstacle to the development of companies. Therefore, today, systems that allow you to make changes most easily and quickly receive serious advantages. The adaptability of the BPM system is that there is no need for programming and easy configuration of the business process during its primary automation. An example is the Ultiumus Adaptive BPM Suite, which allows you to automate the business process with business analysts, while changing business logic is possible without the participation of an IT specialist.

Business Process Management Implementation

BPMs are implemented much faster than ERP systems due to the fact that in most cases business process automation is independent of each other. This makes it possible to quickly automate the main business processes of the company. Thus, a small business process can be automated in a day, however, for large projects, the implementation period can last up to three months. Usually, automation of business processes goes through the creation and approval of a terms of reference for automation. But in some cases, the rate of change is quite high, and it becomes necessary to use less formalized approaches, such as applying the principles of extreme programming, when a business user, together with a consultant, configure the system on their own, involving an IT specialist only to solve integration problems. This approach reduces the implementation time of the BPM system by several times, which often allows you to automate the process in less than a month. When implementing business process management systems, there are typical problems. The first problem is related to the coordination of opinions of all participants in the automated business process. In practice, this means that there may be cases when the negotiation time can be an order of magnitude longer than the automation time itself. The second problem with the implementation of a BPM system may be the need for compatibility with existing applications from various suppliers or even in-house development. In this case, as in the previous one, the time spent on integration can also exceed the time of automation itself.

Main costs

The amount of investments in the integration of the BPM system into the enterprise depends primarily on automated business processes and the number of client locations.There are systems, the starting cost of which is from 30 to 50 thousand dollars. If we consider a large organization, then here we can already talk about increasing the present amount by an order of magnitude - about 500 thousand dollars.

There are enough developments on the market worth less than 10 thousand dollars, but you should not take these systems seriously, since in practice their productivity is negligible or absent at all.

Advantages

The main advantage from the introduction of business process management systems is the fact that the company begins to work clearly according to a given algorithm, the performing discipline increases, and all this turns the organization into a well-functioning mechanism. First of all, the business process is accelerated, the ground appears for using new optimal business practices and benchmarking of business processes. The components of this perspective are:

• consolidation of information from different applications and data stores in the same system in an easy-to-view and analyze form
• financial applications for budgeting, planning, modeling and analysis with the most efficient functionality
• a unified management system that unites the efforts of all planning and forecasting specialists
• significant reduction in the time required to collect data from subsidiaries and affiliates
• a more complete understanding of the company's activities by attracting a large number of different indicators

Links

• Business Process Management System