Enterprise task management solutions ensure that the constituent work items (tasks) associated with workflows and business processes are carried out on time in order to ensure orderly and efficient flow of work through a business process. The business process may be a production line manufacturing physical products, a service company’s routine for carrying out client service and routine care, or a non-operational part of the business, such as accounting pulling the accounts and business reports together.
Enterprise Task Management
The major issue for mid-range businesses has been that enterprise task management is usually out of their budget range. Such solutions are also typically part of a larger business process solution which comes with visual workflow, custom forms, resource utilization and other functionality. Not only does this add to the price tag, but it also adds to the complexity of the solution, frequently requiring specialist help from the IT department or third-party developers to come in and implement the solution and then support it once deployed.
For smaller businesses, this is simply not within the scope of their budget and beyond their technical capacity to manage. This has driven mid-cap companies to use task management solutions which can manage their work, but which imposes serious limitations on how the company conducts its business. A frequent criticism is that the deployed solution makes people and the business work according to how it (the task manager) decides because of how the developers have created the product, and not being flexible enough to be changed easily or customized. This means the business is constrained and this is especially noticeable when it comes to scale the solution up to meet changing circumstances or sudden spikes in demand.
The mid-range market has been crying out for an enterprise task management solution which is simple to use and support, and which will also fall within their price range. At the same time, the solution also must be simple enough to use and change and to be fully customizable by the customer, so it fits around how they do business instead of forcing them into a straight jacket.
Lean BPM
Lean BPM (Business Process Management) solutions tackle the problems faced by the mid-market. Not only do they provide enterprise task management as a core feature, they also come with a feature stack that complements and works with it. This includes Visual Workflow designers that allow for processes to be drawn out, and when made live, automatically create associated tasks, resource utilization, reports and enforce work according to pre-set business rules you use.
In addition, Lean BPM tools are designed to be used by non-IT people – you do not need specialist coding skills to use them. Business analysts, team leaders and managers, along with process owners, and in fact, anyone able to understand and draw a business process, can use a Lean BPM tool. This simplicity also makes your business that much faster, allowing you to measure process efficiency and in turn, to improve and optimize your workflows to enjoy higher productivity levels.
Lean BPM tools also cost around 20% of a traditional BPM suite, and this is certainly within the budget range of mid-sized businesses. They also deploy very quickly because they are simple to use, and incidentally this also aids with user adoption too. Support costs are minimal because they do not need to be supported by your IT department, which is often over burdened and unable to deliver change requests as fast as your business people need. Finally, enterprise task management is within the grasp of the mid-sized business community through using a Lean BPM solution.
HighGear is the Lean BPM pioneer and according to CIOReview is a Top 20 BPM Provider and has also been named by Manufacturing Tech Insights magazine as a Top 10 Lean Manufacturing Solution. HighGear is deployed by a wide range of organizations, managing many different types of business process and workflow.