It is common place to find managers of complex, high risk, and business critical processes, making operational decisions using data gathered and manipulated within a series of spread sheets that have grown organically over a period of time.

Technology is clearly not a pre-requisite in developing and maintaining good processes. However, when it is used, I believe that a BPMS should be the first choice for managing processes rather than spread sheets.

Limitations of Spread Sheets

Spread sheets were designed to support modelling and they are fantastic for this purpose. They were not intended to manage operational processes where the requirement is to track task assignment and completion versus targets (granted that many managers would disagree with this). They present a number of key challenges when they are used in this way, including:

This article highlights the importance that system integration capabilities should play when selecting a BPMS. Integration is often the largest challenges in transforming business processes and can often present one of the most difficult barriers to delivering rapid success.

Few business processes live out their life within a single system. Consider the example of winning a new customer, on-boarding them, delivering a service and gaining payment. It is not uncommon to find the following systems involved in supporting these processes:

This article offers advice on how to use a BPMS to support process transformation across three specific business areas.  When an organisation uses a BPMS to enable empowerment, focus on quality and compliance, and remove unnecessary human touches, it will gain great rewards.

The technology available to exploit these opportunities will vary across vendor solutions, but it is valid to assume at least basic support exists in the majority of solutions on the market.

Implementing new technology brings a range of challenges and this is equally true when the technology in question is a BPMS. These challenges become even greater when the BPMS is to support case management processes. Within this article I outline additional complexities case management processes exhibit, and suggest six features a BPMS should offer before being used to manage these processes.

Challenges of Case Management Processes

As with many IT professionals, I was first attracted to BPM by the capabilities offered by BPMS technology to increase business agility and reduce costs. Working as an IT Director, I identified two compelling reasons to invest in a BPMS. The first was that it offered a low cost and effective solution for automating administrative business processes, thus reducing operating costs. I secondly saw it as an effective solution to achieve a stated business aim of continuously improving processes at low cost, where the pace of change would be rapid.