No company wants to admit that it operates at anything other than maximum efficiency, but keeping a large organisation fully tuned up and running at optimum levels is a difficult task.
At the same time, there has never been more pressure on companies to be as lean as possible, and the IT department is increasingly seen as a key player in helping to improve efficiencies and reduce costs.
As a result, the twin disciplines of business process management (BPM) and business process automation (BPA) are becoming more visible, as companies strive to do more with less, while still moving the company’s goals forward.
Terminology
While different vendors use both terms in different ways, these technologies are agreed to have the potential to release people from jobs and processes that can be automated, increasing efficiency, reducing costs and freeing up staff to concentrate on high value tasks.
“This is all about identifying the various processes companies use to go about their business, and then questioning if they are being carried out in the most efficient way possible,” said Barry O’Reilly, director of BPM solutions for Oracle.
“Let’s say you’re in the insurance business and you process insurance claims. There is a life cycle to each claim from when it comes in the door, until the time it is either rejected or paid. It goes through several different stages, maybe through a claims or assessment department and then onto the finance department. Each department has some work to do on the claim.”
According to O’Reilly, the BPM goal would be to automate that process, but at the same time manage it. “As well as reduce the amount of work that’s involved in having a claim processed, we might also want to have increased visibility into the processes — to know at what stage in the lifecycle any particular claim is at any particular time,” he said.
“If someone rings up wondering why their claim hasn’t been paid when they were told it would be, you need to be able to find it in the system. Likewise, if the average time in the industry for processing a claim is, say, four weeks and it’s taking you six then you might want to know exactly why that is the case.”
“Getting to the heart of the metrics in that process is enormously valuable. You can find out exactly how long each step is taking and hence identify where inefficiencies are occurring. You can align the resources you have with the job you want to do.”
More than tech
BPM professionals are quick to point out that their discipline is not solely about the application of IT. However, there is no doubt that when it comes to business process automation in particular, technology can allow companies to streamline the way they do business and significantly reduce costs.
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