Business process management, or BPM, is an essential aspect of modern business, allowing companies to maintain flexibility while still helping to streamline processes.
Below, we’ll take a look at this type of tool in more concrete terms and give you some examples of business process management.
Key Takeaways
- Business process management examples, in terms of industry, include:
- Quality control
- Fraud detection and prevention
- Employee onboarding
- Contract management
- Properly implemented BPM helps streamline processes while still giving managers the flexibility to adjust the process as needed.
- Business process management examples help to demonstrate a range of benefits, including:
- Decreased man hours
- Improved efficiency
- Increased productivity
- Smoother cooperation between departments
BPM Examples in Various Industries
Let’s take a look at some of the examples of business process management, signifying how effective this type of tool is in various industries.
Manufacturing
Industry pain point: Manufacturing is a complex and multifaceted industry. It involves a lot of different inputs, outputs, and processes, commonly requiring the participation of a range of individual departments. Managing this efficiently and ensuring that each department has everything it needs to accomplish its required tasks can be complicated. It also requires a lot of inventory acquisition and material dispensation.
Adapted process: By using a BPM tool, manufacturing companies can automate and centralize various different parts of the process. This allows them to rely on the BPM tool to send tasks to the next department as soon as one department has completed its task. For instance, if one team is responsible for parts creation and another for assembly, the BPM tool can automatically notify the assembly team when parts are ready for assembly. It can also automatically dispense the materials needed for each part of the process and place material acquisition orders when supplies are running low.
BPM Advantages:
- Improved efficiency through automatic material dispersal and requisition.
- Improved process handovers thanks to automated workflow processes.
- Less room for error due to pre-defined criteria for each process.
- Decreased waste through precision material dispensing.
- Decreased man-hours spent on the manufacturing process.
Finance
Industry pain point: The financial industry is heavily based on repetitive tasks like paperwork, filling out forms, signing contracts, and requesting signatures or approvals. This can prove a significant and tedious drain of resources like man-hours, decreasing efficiency and profitability.
Adapted process: Many processes in the financial industry are suitable for adaptation using a business process management tool. From the basics of client onboarding to filing relevant documentation, researching specific things, and even fulfilling contracts, the options are limitless.
BPM Advantages:
- Helps to facilitate easy process management, allowing for smooth transitions between one process to another.
- Creates a centralized platform where different departments and people can easily access the information and forms that they need for the different parts of the process.
- Decreases man hours and other resources required to ensure that all parts of the process function adequately.
Customer Service
Industry pain point: Customer service is one of the most interactive industries or departments in the business sphere. It involves a broad array of different repetitive tasks, from extending client tickets to reporting results and responding to client complaints and statements. There are many different aspects involved that can take up a fair amount of time and don’t necessarily require direct human intervention to be performed successfully.
Adapted process: BPM tools generally work in tandem with automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Adapted processes in this type of situation may include things like using A.I. bots to answer common questions and giving customers immediate access to the information they desire. It may also include aspects like automatic ticketing, query logging, and other similar examples.
BPM Advantages:
- Lower human resource requirements due to increased automation.
- Increased productivity through better handovers and decreased time and energy investment
- Quicker responses to customer queries and complaints through partial automation.
Employee onboarding
Industry pain point: In almost every industry, employee onboarding is a fairly comprehensive process. New employees need to become familiar with company policies, workflows, expected delivery methods, deadlines, and a range of other aspects. Sending all this information out by hand can be a painstaking process and a resource drain for many companies.
Adapted process:
Adaptations can be made to this process so that, during employee onboarding, the new employee receives all the documentation and information that they need automatically. Using BPM allows them to manage the recruitment life cycle without as much required human input.
BPM Advantages:
- Improved efficiency
- Smoother handovers
- Reduction in the number of repetitive tasks
- Reduces the amount of effort required
- Empowers employees to become familiar with processes quickly and play a fulfilling role in the company
Contract management
Industry pain point: In human resource management or industries where many contracts are processed daily (like real estate or accounting), there’s a lot of potential for error. It can also take a lot of time to write the sheer amount of contracts by hand.
Adapted process: In these kinds of industries, it can be useful to adapt the business processes so that less human input is required. In some industries, they may choose to create templates for different types of contracts and then automate the process so the system automatically creates new contracts and gives access to the appropriate employee/s (for review purposes).
Alternatively, the company may automate contract creation in part by immediately allowing employees or managers to edit an existing template while simultaneously providing the appropriate information to be entered into the system.
BPM Advantages:
- Decreased time and effort investment
- Improved efficiency
- Centralized access to data from multiple points in the system
- Increased visibility, improved data analysis
Healthcare
Industry pain point: The healthcare industry is a complex industry that requires keeping track of many different details in an array of different categories. Patient files, prescriptions, appointments, allergies, previous conditions, and other medical data are just a limited selection of the many things that need managing here.
Adapted process: What makes healthcare one of the most impressive business process management examples is the fact that there’s a solution for almost every department, allowing hospitals, clinics, and even private practices to keep careful track of all the necessary information.
Using a BPM tool allows the institution to create a centralized platform from which anyone who needs access can find the information they need. If one doctor needs to stand in for another, for example, the system can give them instant access to the patient’s file as long as they have sufficient access.
Furthermore, a BPM tool can help the institution to send out invoices and bills automatically and on time. This helps to ensure that there will be fewer glitches in terms of payment and that the system is up to date with the current financial statistics for each patient.
BPM Advantages:
- A decrease in human effort required to complete each part of the process.
- Automatic billing, invoicing, and sometimes even insurance claim logging.
- Centralized access to important information, meaning authorized individuals can access it without costly delays.
- Better collaboration between departments through instant access and communication. I.E., prescriptions and appointment scheduling.
Conclusion
As seen from the business process management examples given above, BPM is a tremendously useful tool. It can help to simplify, improve, and facilitate a broad array of different business processes, allowing your company to make the most of its resources, from man hours to finances.
If you’re interested in taking your business to a higher tier, saving resources, and improving efficiency, it’s time to look into a business process management system. If you are ready to take this key step, get in touch with us, and we’ll demonstrate how HighGear can help your business.
FAQs on Business Process Management
What are the Core Elements of Business Process Management?
Business process management has six main components, and they include the following:
- Modeling the process – Creating a visual representation of each part of the process.
- Executing the process – Using BPS software to execute and automate the process (I.E., creating workflows and automating routine tasks.
- Monitor and optimize the process – Use the BPM software to monitor the workflow and identify any problem areas. Optimize the process to correct any sticking points.
- Governing the process – Establish governance policies, set access controls, and define roles and responsibilities. Essentially, ensure that the process aligns with company standards and regulatory requirements.
- Documenting the process – Creating extensive documentation to ensure that everyone knows how to participate in the process. This may include process maps, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and exception handling.
- Analyzing the process – Regularly review the process to look for any areas that require improvements and review data analytics for the process.
What Is A Real-Life Example Of A Business Process?
One real-life example of a business process is employee onboarding, another is contract management, and a third is customer service loops. When a company hires a new employee, they send them all the relevant information and have to ensure that the new recruit has everything they need to become a valuable addition to the business. This process starts at the interview phase already and ends when an offer has been made to the candidate.