BPM: The Success Story
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Business process management (BPM) is a programming solution which makes it easy for companies to codify their current processes, automate their execution, and monitor their current performance while focusing on aligning all aspects of an organization. This not only enables companies to be more efficient and manage end to end operations but also improves business sustainability by reducing the cost of operations. ”Fire Fighting” becomes history and challenges become attainable. The ability to meet future business challenges by implementation of BPM eliminates single points of failure.
The platform vendors like Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), IBM (NYSE: IBM), and Cordys have plenty of clients adopting the technology. Companies like Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC), Barclays (NYSE: BCS), and Carrier Refrigeration have adopted the technology with far reaching results.
IBM gained two points of market share in BPM platforms as WebSphere extended its functionality to encompass cloud and more of the process interactions that occur on an everyday basis in an enterprise. IBM is positioning to let people connect across the lines of business from within the business process applications.
Ericsson, the world’s largest mobile system supplier, required a seamless ongoing technical support of software for distribution and coordination which was facilitated with the help of BPM. The communications industry is an industry where competition has become fierce and dynamic, In a progressively more challenging environment during the year, Ericsson’s market share was well maintained, adjusted operating margin was slightly improved, and cash conversion was well above target at 117%, reflecting management’s ongoing focus on improving working capital efficiency as well as a lower level of turnkey projects. Mobile telephones are reaching a penetration beyond all expectations. In the past ten years the telecom industry and Ericsson have transformed; from focus on voice to focus on internet, from hardware to software and from providing network equipment to providing solutions including services. I believe Ericsson remains well positioned in relation to its peers, with sustained revenues and margins and in certain areas increased market share, a healthy balance sheet and a strong cash position. This enables the Company to pursue emerging opportunities created by the market.
Barclays the leading player in the banking industry for almost 300 years is also said to be a user of the BPM technique. The Banking and Capital Markets industries have some overlapping challenges as well as some unique challenges. The continued consolidation requires robust best-in-class back-office systems to enable business flexibility. Continually increasing regulatory requirements are forcing organizations to adopt a centralized approach to managing risk and achieving compliance. The escalation of fraud from unauthorized insider access, ID theft, phishing, etc is resulting from non-integrated systems. BPM helps to evolve the enterprise architecture to more of a process driven path. It is reported that Barclays improved on customer service and consistency considerably after using the BPM technology. Central printing is another core area developed with the help of BPM which is extensively used by Barclays.
The Barclays chief executive Mr Jenkins last month said that “success will be defined by how our stakeholders think and feel about Barclays.” Barclays wealth and Investment Management division is the largest wealth manager in the United Kingdom by client assets. It had $275 billion in total client assets across the globe as of the end of June. The division currently has 13 offices in the United States, including its trust company office. Although U.S. stocks fell in very light volume recently after strong gains last week the forecasts are that markets will remain volatile till US elections in November after which a consistency is bound to come.. "We had a couple of days of nice buying on good volume which was an indication that institutions were stepping back in to buy stocks," said the chief technical strategist at Delta Global Advisors in Boston.
Barclay’s investment in Infrastructure Development Finance Company Limited (IDFC) will diversify their investment banking operations alongside the positive acquisition of Ugandan Bank Nile. The futuristic outlook is bright for Barclays. It is slated as one of the long-term stock players.
Market Forecasts for Business Process Management (BPM) indicates that the current market at $2.6 billion will reach $7 billion by 2018. Growth comes as automation of process adapts more efficiently to collaboration between people and provides interactive processes based on exception management.
Some of the key benefits of BPM are:
- Improved managerial focus on key responsibilities
- product evaluation
- strategize functions and processes
- process upgrades
- replicate the change to the process
- Re-engineer - revamp the processes from scratch for better results
- Increasing the flexibility and functionality of current infrastructure and data
This leads to improvement in:
- Process quality
- Customer satisfaction
- Cost reduction
- Assistance in continuous development of the organisation
Companies like Oracle and IBM are focussed on researching the client’s core value while tailoring process improvement initiatives.
According to Susan Eustis, lead author of the Winter Green Research team that prepared the study, “Cloud computing and smart devices represent the major forces impacting business process management (BPM) markets. As the enterprise managers work to implement apps that make automated process more responsive to the needs of customers, partners, suppliers, and distributors, people use business process management (BPM) as the tools to help workers.”
Enterprises are beginning to change their buying behaviors based on the deployment speed, economics and customization that BPM -based technologies provide. The future of BPM looks incredibly strong, a powerful tool which delivers business outcomes by providing transparency coupled with the ability to measure performances.
Your IT and business people have the same goal—helping your business operate at its best. So give them tools they can use as a team to build the best-possible business processes. That’s Business Process Management (BPM).
SharmisthaB has no positions in the stocks mentioned above. The Motley Fool owns shares of International Business Machines and Oracle. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.If you have questions about this post or the Fool’s blog network, click here for information.
