What is business process management?

Businesses from every industry run numerous processes on a constant basis. Without these systems, a company cannot function properly. With business process management, you can focus on your core operation's most mentally challenging tasks while the simpler tasks are handled automatically. So, what is business process management, exactly?

 

Identifying Processes

Process management begins with understanding processes. A process is any operation within your business that must be carried out on a regular basis. This is most easily recognized in situations such as a factory, where individual stations add or alter an individual component of a product on its way to be finished. While the shop floor is the most obvious place where processes occur, every action that must be carried out frequently that has a known outcome can be classified as a process that can be managed through automation.

Creativity Vs. Continuing

There is a distinction between creative and continuing processes, as well as the tasks that make up these processes. A creative task and its attendant process requires the mind of a skilled individual who can create new ideas and merge existing ones into new arrangements. A creative process might be the designing of an advertisement or the identification of how to effectively test which color of an item the customer prefers. There is considerable data usage even in creative processes nowadays, so there will be data overlap with continuing processes.A continuing process is one that requires little to no creativity, and may in some cases be harmed by creativity. The hiring process is a prime example. While some HR managers believe that intuition is the key to hiring top candidates, often the continuing process of identifying effective candidates by resume and application is better when there is no potential for human error. Continuing processes are prime candidates for automation.

Automation

An automated process is one that can be carried out with minimal human intervention beyond initialization. It is helpful to consider a railroad track that allows trains to travel down a pre-made path without the engineer needing to steer. Provided the track remains unblocked and intact, numerous trains can proceed over it. In the same way, an automated process of sorting resumes by keyword or identifying the demographics of your website's visitors can save a great deal of human time. Further, this type of automation can eliminate the potential for unsubstantiated "hunches" to skew probable results. Ultimately, managed automation of continuing processes can free up creative human minds to work on creative processes.

Your Best Use of Time

Your business contains one primary goal, in the provision of a product or service to your customers. Working to magnify the effectiveness of this core operation is the ideal way you and your employees will ideally spend the bulk of your time. When most of your processes are automated, in particular your continuing processes, you have more time free to make the best creative decisions and grow your business into its most effective form. Process management is concerned with automating the processes that do not require creativity, so you can devote time and energy to the processes that require your skills.

Managing Your Business More Easily

Process management allows you to automate many of the rote, time-consuming processes that your business undertakes in its non-core areas on a regular basis. While your creativity and skills are highly necessary, they are not necessary for many basic processes. If you spend the finite time in your day working on creative processes instead of mixing creative and continuing ones, you can maximize your effectiveness. Visit processplan today to start your free trial, and make your day that much easier.