What Makes Business Process Management Intelligent?
By Ivan Kot, Itransition
According to the State of the BPM Market 2020 survey, 62% of global companies use at least one software solution to carry out their business process management (BPM) tasks. By helping organizations control processes and align them with the dynamically developing goals, BPM systems enable companies to evolve at speed. Hence their immense popularity.
At the same time, nearly 40% of the survey respondents mention that they are likely to change their current BPM software within the next two years. Growth-minded organizations find traditional BPM solutions insufficient to meet modern real-life cases and lacking in flexibility. For them, intelligent BPM is the way to go.
Essential Characteristics Of Intelligent BPM
Also known as IBPM, intelligent BPM enriches traditional solutions with cloud capabilities, real-time data analytics, and AI features to deliver cross-company intelligence and support managers with actionable insights and automation.
IBPM applications are relevant to various industries, from finance and banking through healthcare to education. Adding more firepower to classic BPM systems' data management and analytics capabilities, the next-generation intelligent solutions greatly increase agility and enhance decision making.
But how to identify truly intelligent BPM software when with over 400 BPM platforms listed on G2 alone? Just take a look at the following defining features of smart business process management applications. Knowing them will help you ensure that your next implemented solution, whether you choose it on your own or seek BPM consulting, is intelligent not only by its name.
Real-Time Data Processing And Insights
Some of the most prominent limitations of conventional BPM systems concern their inability to act in real time. Traditionally, business process management platforms would collect data from various touchpoints and periodically process it to update the knowledge base and provide suggestions for process flow optimization.
The new breed of business process management solutions uses artificial intelligence and other technologies to consume and handle a continuous influx of data while shrinking the business reaction window. Modern tools also deliver custom dashboards and reporting that extract all relevant information to provide each business user with personalized actionable insights.
Low-Code Capabilities
IBPM platforms apply the low-code principle to narrow the gap between insight and action. Featuring drag-and-drop functionality, powerful form builders, and UI designers, they empower business users to deploy their workflows without relying on the IT team.
The entire process logic can be designed graphically, with no or minimal coding. In low-code platforms, as opposed to traditional architectures, processes are created by people who are actively involved in their execution. All in all, low-code platforms enable greater business agility, accelerate processes, and decrease IT costs.
Rule-Based Analytical Decision-Making
By weaving rule-based analytical decision making into processes, new-generation BPMs reduce the need for manual handling of recurring decisions, thus optimizing business efficiency. They also deliver automatic compliance, as standards, regulations, and policies are embedded in their business rules.
Depending on the industry and process complexity, different business rules engines can be integrated into a smart BPM platform. For a small number of simple processes, such as updating forms, sending automated emails, or routing tasks, a basic workflow-based engine will suffice. However, more advanced workflows with many conditions require a more sophisticated logic that conducts an action according to preset rules.
Predictive Analytics
Data-heavy industries, such as healthcare or eCommerce, may require a more advanced feature than the rule-based approach. In that case, they may benefit from predictive BPM, which harnesses the power of Big Data and couples it with predictive modeling.
By pulling out data from other systems, machines, and IoT sensors and applying machine learning algorithms, predictive analytics systems examine and foresee possible scenarios to enhance process planning and strategizing. For example, they can develop goal-oriented predictions, anticipate delays, and analyze client behavior in addition to suggesting enhancements to align operations with particular goals.
Cloud-Based Collaboration And Productivity
It's easy to take cloud infrastructure for granted. Still, many legacy BPM tools are only deployed locally on the client servers, thus lacking the capability to support a modern highly dynamic business environment.
To deliver real-time collaboration and enable remote teams, BPM systems need to run in the cloud. By supporting the integration of social media channels, mobile apps, and analytics, cloud-based software improves teamwork and streamlines workflow execution and reliability.
Most on-premises solutions cannot compete with the cloud's 99.9999% uptime and immense stability delivered through the use of auto-scaling and load balancing. Besides, compared to legacy solutions, cloud-based BPMs are low-maintenance — they don't require an on-site team to constantly monitor and manage the environment. Finally, cloud-based software provides a scalable cost structure that's often easier to manage and control than local deployments.
End-To-End Business Process Automation
Intelligent BPM software also enables end-to-end business process automation to achieve productivity, agility, and compliance. It comes with complex automation modules, including help desk, document and inventory management, timesheets, marketing automation, etc. The application of AI and machine learning allows these systems to automate and streamline business processes from start to finish, eliminate potential bottlenecks, and minimize errors.
For example, marketing modules automate campaign building tasks, manage email lists, and send out messages. They also can coordinate surveys and schedule social media posts. Automated reporting tools extract valuable data and present it in a user-preferred format.
State-of-the-art BPM systems may also leverage robotic process automation (RPA) to automate smaller, mundane, and inefficient tasks. RPA can be used as part of a company’s strategy to log into systems, manipulate data, provide simple outputs, and trigger responses, among other activities.
By leveraging deep learning, more advanced IBPM tools enhance back-office operations, offering features that automate data capturing and validation for enhanced auditing, accounting, and HR processes.
Final Thoughts
Today, we have BPM systems that can cater to virtually any case. The BPM industry is intensely competitive and finding an intelligent solution that will help your business unlock growth opportunities is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Fortunately, you can count on trusted BPM consultants to analyze your existing workflows and identify the optimal solution that features all the above functions to close your teams' performance gaps and unleash productivity.
About The Author
Ivan Kot is Customer Acquisition Director at Itransition, focusing on business development in verticals such as eCommerce, Business Automation, and cutting-edge tools such as blockchain for enterprises. He began his career as a developer, taking different positions in both web and mobile development projects, and eventually shifted focus to project management and team coordination.