IDG Research Services recently surveyed 400 IT executives.
They were asked, 'Which business benefits did you derive by using BPM software in your past and current BPM initiatives?' The top responses: 46% saw increased productivity; 46% saw reduced operating costs; and 45% say they experienced improved quality of services or products.
In addition, some of the respondents (26%0 say their BPM initiatives have delivered a higher business innovation rate.
My Thoughts...
I know that managing business processes can be a daunting task. It crosses departmental boundaries and most people are not fond of change. However, it is extremely important to the success of your company and I want to stress that most companies that have undertaken BPM projects are very happy that they did.
This IDG survey supports my thoughts
Managing your high value processes leads to decreased costs, increased revenues and improved customer relationships [the Triple Crown of business].
Decreased Costs - By eliminating non-value added tasks; automating some activities; redesigning some activities; and eliminating some activities you will decrease costs [and improve productivity].
Increased Revenues - If you can produce more widgets [services] in less time, then you have the capacity to increase volume [revenues]. Further, it will be easier and take less time for your company to respond to changing customer demands.
Improved Customer Relationships - Shortening lead times and being more responsive to customer demands will be good for the customer. Managing the processes more effectively that interact with your customer will improve your customer relationships.
And, if you decrease costs, increase revenues and improve customer relationships - the results will show increased profits.
Your Thoughts...
Does this make sense? If not, why not?
If it does make sense, is your company looking into improving their processes?
Process Management - Keeping it Real!
Excellent comments Scott; I couldn't agree more. The only comment I might add is the importance of keeping the focus on the Customer when evaluating core processes. We preach Successful Customer Outcomes or SCOs and suggest that it is critical to include these metrics in any process analysis or BPM effort.
Scott, I think you have definitely picked benefits that are far more realistic than the usual BPM story: efficiency, accuracy, auditability and agility (though they are great marketing words).
Much like James says, focusing on the customer, the outcome or their satisfaction with your service should lead to additional revenue. Current customers are easier to sell to that new customers, as we all know!
I'm still not sure that process improvement should be as daunting as you describe though. Maybe we vendors play that up too much?
In short, increase the bottom line and the efficiency of your sales and marketing efforts by having a happy customer base and you have a great win with your new processes.
I'm with you on this, but I think the core of any BPM initiative is on decreasing costs. That's the only one of the three items that is directly within a company's control. Increased revenue and improved customer service are "side benefits" to improving your process. They are derived from proces improvement and come from the steps taken to cut costs and improve efficiency. They are quantifiable in most cases, but any initiative must start with improving the processes and removing non-value added steps