Companies adopt business process management solutions for many reasons - improving productivity, reducing expenses and enhancing general workflow efficiency. However, in order to achieve these results in a timely manner and optimize the ROI of BPM investments, firms have to embrace the underlying structure that supports process management software - data analytics.
According to TechTarget, analytics is key to boosting BPM efforts because it streamlines the efficiency and ensures that the benefits CIOs expect from these investments get delivered.
"The efficiencies are just an end result of giving people an easier way to do their jobs rapidly," Matt Richard, CIO of the Laborers' International Union of North America, told the news source regarding his own investment into BPM software. "The whole point really is to get members jobs and better paying jobs, and for contractors to easily find the skills they are looking for in our members. By having one system, we can ensure integrity of the data. With real-time, accurate data, not only will members advocate for us, but contractors will as well because they can get a better product from us and interact with us more effectively and efficiently to get the resources they need."
In a recent survey on BPM adoption, performed by Forrester Research, 59 percent of firms noted that they are investing in BPM solutions to identify workflow bottlenecks and refine their processes for optimization. At the same time, 41 percent of companies are using these solutions to better their customer service and engagement - delivering higher-quality service overall. In both cases, optimizing the data foundation that operations rest upon will enhance these efforts. In order to do this firms have to move beyond bottleneck identification and service growth and look at how BPM solutions can drive value in general. Richard told the news source this is why his firm invested in Appian's BPM solutions.
"To me, BPM tools should be a platform on which I can build apps that drive value for my organization by gathering the data we need to do that - not just as a means to find bottlenecks in the process flow and trying to refine them."
With the right systems in place to refine operations on a broad scale and make the tools workers use to get their jobs done more efficient, businesses can optimize more than profits and renew their focus on overall growth.
Ben Farrell
Director of Corporate Communications
