“Brilliant process management is our strategy. We get brilliant results from average people managing brilliant processes. We observe that our competitors often get average (or worse) results from brilliant people managing broken processes.” Source: a senior Toyota executive

Business process management (BPM) is a systematic approach to making an organisation’s processes and workflows more effective, more efficient and more flexible in a changing business environment. Processes are at the heart of all business activities and ensure that consistency and repeatability can be achieved. Achieving processes excellence improves the way that businesses create and deliver value to customers. The important point here is that processes serve the customer rather than the organisation itself.

The goal of BPM is to reduce human error, process variation and wastage and focus stakeholders on the requirements of their function or role.

Many organisations make the mistake of investing in technology solutions to automate processes and workflows before they really understand the processes themselves. The process understanding must come before the technology, otherwise there is always a risk of just automating the inefficiencies of a manual process.

The Business Process Maturity Model

The concept of a maturity model can be helpful in identifying where your organisation is on its process management journey and the optimum support or solution required. The model below has been adapted from the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) originally developed for use in software engineering.

There are many methods and systems available to consultants and management to improve all aspects of the business process to achieve greater efficiency and leaner cost values. My view is that the methods applied must be appropriate to your culture and management style, and ideally should be designed specifically for your business.

Knowing where you are on the Process Maturity Model will help to guide your thinking on your process management journey and help to identify what your priority areas are.

As technology extends to all areas of the business, automation is no longer enough to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Companies that adopt Business Process Management will increasingly be able to adapt quicker to new opportunities and ensure resources and staff are utilised to the best of their ability.

If you are interested in discovering what level of the maturity your business is operating at then please contact us to arrange a free discussion.

“Continuous improvement is not about the things you do well – that’s work.  Continuous improvement is about removing the things that get in the way of your work. The headaches, the things that slow you down, that’s what continuous improvement is all about.         Source: Bruce Hamilton, President GBMP

If you found this post useful or interesting, you might like to subscribe to my regular updates using the form on the right hand side of the page. A mention on your favourite social media site would also be appreciated. Thank you.