What is Business Process Management?
Business Process Management is a structured approach to discovering, modeling, analyzing, measuring, and improving how work is done in an organization, focusing on the entire flow from start to finish. For example, it can be about how a customer case is handled, how an order is approved, or how information moves between different parts of the business.
The purpose of BPM is to create processes that are clear, efficient and can be improved over time. The work often begins with mapping the current situation, identifying bottlenecks and unnecessary steps, and then designing a better future way of working. An important part is also to follow up on the results to see if the change has actually had the desired effect.
What is the difference between BPM and BPA?
BPM is the overall approach to understanding, managing and developing business processes. Business Process Automation is the part that automates selected steps in the process. These can be recurring, rule-driven or time-consuming steps that otherwise require a lot of manual work.
Automation is a natural part of BPM, not a separate initiative. Think of process automation as a tactical part of BPM. The relationship between the concepts is clear: BPM sets the direction, while BPA helps automate and digitize the change in practice.
This is also why BPA will be so important going forward. Understanding a process is no longer enough. To create real impact, the improvement needs to be built into a working method and system support that can be used, followed up and developed over time.
BPM can be seen as the control of the process. It is about analyzing the current situation, defining responsibilities, developing a better way of working, and following up on the outcome over time. It is therefore the framework for how the process should be understood and developed.
BPM determines what needs to be improved. Here you look at the entire flow. What steps are there? Where do you wait? Where do things go wrong? Where do you lose traceability, speed or quality?
BPA is instead the part that automates certain steps in the process. It uses technology to handle repetitive business tasks in multiple steps, often with little or no manual intervention. In other words: BPM describes what needs to be improved, and the automation of workflows helps implement the improvement.
Here you eliminate manual intervention, duplication of work and unnecessary handovers. Monday describes the relationship clearly: BPM helps the organization determine what should be automated, while automation is the tool that makes implementation faster and better.
Why BPM automation is important for the future of BPM
A common weakness in BPM work is that it stops at the analysis phase. Processes are documented, workshops are held, and future flows are mapped out, but everyday life continues much as before. What is often missing is the ability to translate process insights from a process mapping into a new way of actually working.
When automation becomes part of BPM, you not only gain a better understanding of the process. You also gain the ability to standardize execution, reduce human dependencies, create traceability, and follow up on the process in real time. Ardoq describes that automation capabilities are crucial in BPM tools, as they help organizations reduce manual efforts and reduce errors.
In larger organizations, this is especially important. Processes rarely go through a single system. They move between functions, teams, and platforms.
BPM without BPA risks becoming a theory
A process can be well described and yet function poorly in practice. It is enough that a few critical steps are still in emails, PDFs, Excel, various systems or physical handovers for the entire flow to become vulnerable.
This does not mean that everything should be automated. Poor automation simply locks in a poor way of working in a new tool. But it does mean that BPM as a discipline becomes significantly weaker if it does not lead to some form of automated execution where it is justified.
Four reasons why BPM automation is growing in importance
The fact that BPA is becoming more important is not just about efficiency. It is about processes that have become more difficult to run manually.
- Processes cross more systems than before
Many business processes move between ERP, CRM, case management, document flows and specialized systems. BPM can provide an overview, but BPA is needed to make the flow work in practice.
- The demands for traceability and control are increasing
When more decisions need to be followed up, manual processes quickly become a risk. Automated flows make it easier to log steps, secure regulations, and see where deviations occur.
- The rate of improvement needs to increase
BPM is fundamentally a discipline of continuous improvement. But it’s hard to improve quickly if every change requires a lot of manual coordination. When automation is in place from the start, it becomes easier to adjust and scale processes over time.
- AI makes BPA more relevant, not less
The more intelligent functions are connected, the more important it becomes to have clear processes, responsibilities and integration points. AI does not replace BPM. On the contrary, the process perspective becomes more important when organizations want to use AI in practice .
Research on BPM and AI describes how AI can contribute to multiple parts of process work, such as analysis, redesign, implementation, and follow-up. This makes automation more relevant, as someone still has to translate process insights into an actually workable way of working.
What is true is that traditional automation has often worked best when the process is based on structured data and clear rules. AI makes it easier to work with structured data . However, AI-based methods can also make it easier to work with unstructured data and information, such as documents, free text, images and other content types.
Tip!
Learn more about how to take Enterprise AI from pilot to operation in your processes.
What does this mean for organizations that want to move forward?
For your business, this means that process work needs to be linked more closely to system support than before. Not in the sense that each process must have its own tool, but that the improvement work must end up in something that can be used, measured and further developed.
It usually starts with a few fairly simple questions:
- Where do people do the same thing over and over again?
Here there are often clear candidates for BPA.
- Where does the “wait” between steps and teams occur?
This is often where processes lose momentum, control and quality.
- Where is traceability lacking?
If you can't follow the process, it will also be difficult to control.
- Where does the process rely on the right person happening to know what to do?
Then you don't just have an efficiency problem. You also have a risk problem.
When these questions are linked to a well-thought-out BPM approach, BPA becomes not just an automation tool for efficiency. It becomes a way to make process improvement truly possible.
