What does BPM actually mean?

BPM is one the most sought out enterprise application trend these days. I found a pretty good article which gives a complete insight about Business process management and i would like to share with all.

Business Process
The business process is the end-to-end coordinated set of collaborative and transactional work activities carried out by both automated systems and people to produce a desired result or achieve a goal. While this definition is simple enough, the coordination of complex sets of activities carried out by independent work participants (humans and machines) is by no means simple. Business processes are essentially human phenomena, but in today’s automated and wired world, automation and technology assistance to amplify human work are indispensable. This technology assistance involves automation of routine transactions and dynamic human collaborations.

Business Process Automation (BPA)
BPA simply means automating a business process. Since the advent of the first commercial computer in 1951, companies have embraced technology to streamline and speed up their support activities for greater operational efficiency. As far as primary activities, today a number of technology families have emerged for this purpose, including workflow systems and, more recently, Internet technologies such as application servers. While just about any technology can be used to automate business processes, the real issue companies face is how to optimize and manage those processes after they have been semi- or fully automated.

Business Process Management (BPM)
BPM is a business discipline or function that uses business practices, techniques and methods to create and improve business processes. From this general definition, just about any process improvement discipline or activity, including reengineering, TQM or Six Sigma quality methods, outsourcing and lean manufacturing, can be considered as BPM. Thus, from an extremely general perspective, BPM has no distinguishing definition at all; it’s just about anything that contributes to process improvement—it can mean whatever you want it to mean.

On the other hand, the term BPM has been propelled onto the front pages of the business and technology literature for far more specific reasons. Whether manual or automated, companies have learned that the piecemeal process improvement methods and techniques they have scattered throughout their organizations don’t produce breakout results. So, if your manufacturing division uses Six Sigma, and your marketing department uses voice-of-the-customer techniques, without talking to one another, that doesn’t mean you have a process-managed enterprise, the kind of enterprise that produces outstanding and sustained business results.

BPM Systems
BPM systems are technologies designed for the complete management, not just the automation, of business processes, from creating innovative new business processes, to their redesign and improvement over time. BPA, the one-off automation of a business process, is only a part of a complete BPM system. It’s the “M” in BPM that really counts, for change is not a one-time affair.

BPM systems provide computer assistance for supporting all process work such as Six Sigma initiatives; mergers and acquisitions; overriding processes embedded in ERP systems; implementing industry-specific collaboration protocols such as Rosettanet Partner Interface Processes for the IT industry supply chain; or complying with regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Automated support systems are absolutely necessary to deal with today’s complex business structures and to get beyond the piecemeal approaches to process improvement. Without this automated support, it would take armies of people to take on the real tasks of real-world process work.

Process-Managed Enterprise
The leaders of a process-managed enterprise recognize that it’s the end-to-end, enterprise-wide business processes that make or break the company. They have a holistic, not piecemeal, definition of enterprise BPM. They also recognize that end-to-end process management is complex and requires not just great management theories, but also requires commensurate support from automation tools.

The process-managed enterprise requires BPM systems to realize the goals they set for holistic process management work. Companies that adopt this perspective often interchange the terms BPM and BPM systems, for the two go hand in glove if management intent is to be translated into execution.

Leaders of a process-managed enterprise understand work-oriented business architecture and design work structures around the end-to-end business processes. They know they need to bring the right tools to the table in order to realize their vision, for business is no longer conducted manually or through time-delayed, batch-oriented information systems. Today’s executives want the tools and infrastructure needed to become time-based competitors, competing on cycle time, product design time, lead time, time to market, response time, just-in-time inventories and up time. They know that to place time on their side, they need tools that can allow them to create and manage flexible and fine-tuned business processes that can keep up with and even anticipate ever-changing customer demands. Such processes must cross company boundaries and coordinate the multi-company work of the entire value delivery system.