In today’s business world, enterprises are aiming at continuous improvement of business excellence under a global working environment. Business process management (BPM) is key to achieving this goal. It is a discipline involving any combination of modeling, automation, execution, control, measurement and optimization of business activity flows, in support of enterprise goals, spanning systems, employees, customers and partners within and beyond the enterprise boundaries.

Business excellence can be in various fields, such as innovation leadership, cost leadership or customer service mindedness. BPM means reengineering regardless of the type of business excellence of an enterprise. To fulfil that, reengineering by BPM needs to be designed in the three dimensions of Business model, Business processes and Management.

Illustration: Business model – value proposition

The Business model defines the value proposition and value statement, i.e. products and services to be delivered. Redefining such a value proposition is a constant task, in a dynamically changing environment. It is an ongoing  reflection of what your customer needs and cares about (“Needs”) and what you do well (“Core competencies”).

Business processes describes the structured activities and the workflow for an effective, transparent and flexible transformation in creating value for the customer. Further, Management in this sense entails the process of decision-making and of process kickoff, as the system must be managed – it will not manage itself.

BPM as an ongoing optimization tool means change management through a continuous and endless feedback loop, which is to be applied in all dimensions per above. Such a lifecycle is customarily split into the steps Design – Modeling – Execution – Monitoring and Reengineering.

Illustration: BPM lifecycle

Complexity in a BPM is further increased by a global environment, bringing in challenges through distance and differences in language, rules and culture.

Managing all these factors on a rolling basis is the purpose of BPM and key to success!

Author: Thilo Krohn, Partner International Accounting Advisory, Auren Germany