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What Is Business Process Management (BPM)?

Employees looking at a computer screen that shows the power of business process management through charts and graphs

In today’s dynamic and ever-evolving business landscape, organizations strive to optimize their operations, enhance customer experiences, and stay competitive. Enter business process management (BPM).

At its core, business process management is a systematic approach to improving an organization’s workflow and operational efficiency. According to Gartner, business process management is “a discipline that uses various methods to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve, and optimize business processes.” This includes identifying process bottlenecks, automating manual tasks, and streamlining workflows for maximum productivity.

Why Do Organizations Turn to Business Process Management?

Business process management projects have increased in popularity in recent years because they drive valuable outcomes. Experts found that they can result in 50% productivity gains for administrative processes and 30% for knowledge worker processes.

And increased productivity isn’t all organizations gain from adopting BPM services. Businesses achieve a wide range of benefits, including:

  1. Decreased Costs: By streamlining workflows, business process management helps organizations save money on operational costs, redundant tasks, human errors, and more.
  2. Increased Efficiency: Business process management services help identify and eliminate inefficiencies within workflows by reducing manual, time-consuming tasks.
  3. Improved Transparency: With BPM, organizations gain a better understanding of how their processes work, making it easier to identify areas for improvement and track progress.
  4. Reduced Compliance Risks: By automating workflows and eliminating manual tasks, organizations reduce the risk of errors and compliance issues often caused by data entry errors or lost documents.
  5. Enhanced Employee & Customer Satisfaction: BPM practices reduce repetitive, manual tasks and increase efficiency, enabling employees to focus on what they do best. This results in increased employee satisfaction and improved customer experience.

How Does Automation Fit into Business Process Management?

Automation takes business process management initiatives to the next level.

By leveraging cutting-edge technologies like workflow automation, robotic process automation (RPA), and artificial intelligence (AI), organizations can automate repetitive tasks, further optimize workflows, and gain valuable insights to enhance efficiency and reduce costs. optimize workflows, and gain valuable insights to enhance efficiency and reduce costs.

For these reasons, more organizations are taking advantage of BPM solutions that incorporate both outsourced labor and automation technology. According to a McKinsey & Co. report, the digital transformation wave is evident in the realm of business process management, with 72% of outsourced services incorporating technology.

How Does BPM Relate to Business Process Outsourcing?

Many professionals think of business process management services as the future of business process outsourcing, or “BPO” for short.

Business process management companies take BPO services to the next level by handling entire business processes on behalf of organizations. They identify the specific steps involved in processes, analyze them for inefficiencies, and implement technology and/or outsourced business process services to optimize performance. BPM is simultaneously theoretical and practical, allowing businesses to evaluate existing workflows and make tangible improvements with the right suite of digital tools.

How Do Organizations Use BPM?

Organizations use business process management for a wide range of applications that cater to numerous sectors and functions. Here are several common use cases:

Mail Management

In an era of digital transformation, traditional mailrooms can become bottlenecks, slowing down communications and operations. By transitioning to a digital mailroom, which is a popular business process management solution, you can streamline the process of receiving, sorting, and distributing both physical and electronic mail.

Organizations that leverage BPM to optimize mail management enable remote work by making critical business documents accessible from anywhere, improve customer service with the ability to quickly find business files, save money by lowering both storage and labor costs, and boost productivity by eliminating manual tasks.

A study by Zapier found that 73% of workers waste 1-3 hours each day looking for documents and information. With a digital mailroom solution that combines outsourced services with document management software and workflow automation technology, you can ensure your employees aren’t part of that statistic.

Invoice Processing

Invoice processing can be a tedious and error-prone task – whether your process is manual or you’re using an ineffective solution. The right business process management solution will introduce automation into this process, making it more efficient and reliable.

By implementing an AP automation solution built on BPM, organizations can automate the capture and extraction of invoice data, route invoices for approval based on predefined workflows, and facilitate timely payments. This reduces the risk of late payment fees, improves relationships with suppliers, and frees up staff to focus on more strategic tasks.

Claims Processing

For organizations in industries like insurance, claims processing can be a complex and time-consuming task. Business process management can streamline and automate various steps in the claims processing workflow, such as claim initiation, assessment, and settlement.

By identifying and eliminating bottlenecks, reducing manual errors, and ensuring compliance with industry regulations, BPM solutions improve the speed and accuracy of claims processing, enhancing customer satisfaction and trust.

HR Employee File Conversion

Managing employee files is a critical task for HR departments. Business process management can help streamline it by digitizing physical employee files and, in turn, making them easier to manage, access, and update.

This not only saves space and reduces the risk of data loss but also ensures compliance with data protection regulations and makes it easier to gain insights into employee performance and trends.

Medical Records Conversion

Medical records are vital for patient care, and their management is often subject to stringent regulations. Business process management can help healthcare providers transition from paper-based to digital records, enhancing efficiency, security, and compliance. BPM ensures timely access to patient data and enables more coordinated and personalized care.

Advanced Solutions from an Experienced BPM Partner

At MetaSource, we are committed to providing our clients with top-of-the-line business process management solutions tailored to their needs. Our team is made up of experts with years of experience designing and implementing BPM solutions that improve efficiency, reduce costs, and drive growth.

Whether you need help with mail management, invoice processing, claims processing, HR employee file conversion, or medical records scanning, we have the expertise and technology you need. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your organization achieve its goals with business process management services.

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