Definition of BPM: System

Gartner recently broadened the definition of BPM, recasting
it as "a management practice that provides for governance
of a business's process environment toward the goal of
improving agility and operational performance."¹ This more
holistic view offers a structured approach for optimizing
processes and takes into account the software tools
discussed above as well as an organization's methods,
policies, metrics, and management practices.

According to Gartner, BPM is about becoming a process-managed organization, which requires the following disciplines (in addition to Information Technology):

Expertise and Experience — focus on
process-centric skills, training,
education, certification, research,
business acumen, and intellectual
capital

Organizational Disciplines —
adoption of new or improved culture,
structure, roles, responsibilities,
policies, rules, incentives, and
procedures

Management and Control
Activities — improvement of
processes by defining, modeling,
simulating, deploying, executing,
monitoring, analyzing, and optimizing

Partnership and Services — reliance
on partners to provide services such as
consulting, implementation, and business
process outsourcing

Because this approach to BPM allows organizations to abstract business process from technology infrastructure, it goes far beyond automating business processes (software) or solving business problems (suite) — it enables business to respond to changing consumer, market, and regulatory demands faster than competitors, thereby creating competitive advantage.

Back: Suite

 

¹ Gartner, Michael James Melenovsky, Jim Sinur, Janelle B. Hill, David W. McCoy, Business Process Management: Preparing for the Process-Managed Organization, June 2005.