A look at cost management and BPM

BPM or business process management is a systematic approach to improving your organization's business processes.Business process management seeks to make the business processes more effective, efficient and more capable to adapting to change.Cost management goes hand in hand with business processes; striving to make your business processes more effective and efficient cost money and finding a balance is extremely important.Let's take a look at cost management and BPM.

Business Processes
Let's backtrack a little and take a closer look at what a business Process is.In order to better manage the costs of BPM you need to have a clear understanding of business processes.

Business processes are a series of specific, measured tasks that are performed by people and systems within the business.They are designed to increase productivity and make your business more efficient.Each business process has different yet important characteristics.

Here are some of the characteristics of business process:
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• Business processes have internal and external users


• - Business processes usually take place between different organizations within the company


• - They are based on the quality of work done within the organization and have three key elements; entity, object, and task

So how does business process management tie into all this?Well, business process management or BPM automates and streamlines the business processes which are critical to the organization so that productivity is ensured.Business process management helps to restructure, control and handle workflows involving both people and systems

Benefits of using Business process management
Business process management can provide a variety of different benefits to businesses.Let's look at a few direct and indirect benefits.

Direct benefits of BPM

1. Business process management can reduce the amount of overhead expenses within the company.When it comes to BPM cost management is a big issue and if you can decrease overhead expenses costs go down.Every company can appreciate that.


2. Business process management can automate key decisions which can also save you valuable time and money.


3. BPM also reduces maintenance and operating costs which at the same time improving productivity within the business.

Indirect benefits of BPM

1. Indirectly, business process management can improve the process cycle time, forecasting, sourcing time cycle, and best of all customer service.Every business knows that if the customer is happy they are more likely to stay in business longer.

Now that you can see that business process management can save your business money in many different areas you will then need to figure out which business processes you need to automate.Although you can automate almost every aspect of your business using BPM your focus should initially be given to areas that meet the following criteria:
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• Return on investment from implementation should be high and immediate


• - Business processes should be crucial for productivity improvement


• - Clearly visible savings from automation

Taking a look at cost management and BPM can make a lot of sense as it can seriously cut some of the extra management costs a business incurs.Companies trying to improve their business processes are turning to using business process management systems within their companies.They are adopting business process management in areas where it has proven to make significant differences and help with cost management.No the decision you have to make, is it right for your business?