Five Stages of the Business Process Solution life cycle

What is Business Process Management?

Business Process Management (BPM) is the process of using a variety of methods to discover, model, optimise, and automate, business processes. BPM is a discipline done by people which can help a business to control its processes, to achieve consistent results following the goals of the organisation. However, this term should not be confused with BPMS (BPM Suite) which refers to the technological suite to achieve these goals.

The key difference between project management and process management is the repeatability and predictability. While processes require a constant focus on improving efficiency and consistency, projects are often aimed at making changes in the process. A business should well understand the difference between those two concepts and make sure it adapts a good process management, as this is the key to delivering high-quality products and services. Furthermore, only when a good process management system is established, will project management have successful results to take a business to the next level. Fortunately, with the help of technology, and more specifically BPM software and low-code platforms, the management of processes is becoming easier and easier.

What are the five stages in the Business Process Solutions life cycle?

Design the business processes

The first stage of the BPM is the design phase. During this phase, all current business processes should be identified, and a decision on which of them needs to be automated should be made. Once those processes are selected, all the steps, actions, conditions, and people involvement with each of the processes should be identified and documented. This will ensure the creation of a correct new design.

Here at Dolphin IT Solutions, our experts can offer you a discussion to review your requirements, and then create a design of the workflow and the data forms in the most efficient way they can. Moreover, as part of this business analysis phase, our professionals would consider how paper-based systems could be simplified, by using business process solutions such as replacing paper trail and making it all electronic.

Build, Refactor and Model

Once the proposed design is finished, the process should be turned into a digital format so that it can be automated. However, in order for a good model to be created, a thorough understanding of both the current situation and what is needed to be changed are required. Moreover, building and running model prototypes is good idea at this stage, as this can allow evaluation of how the proposed changes affect the business processes. After using these prototypes for a while, valuable feedback of what can be improved in the system should be obtained. Then the IT team can refactor the business process solution, to best suit the needs of the client.

Here at Dolphin IT Solutions, we partner with WEBCON BPS to deliver your digital transformation project. We can design and build any nature of business process and data driven workflow that you need using this low code development platform. We provide you with prototypes that are tested and discussions about how these business process solutions could be improved. Moreover, we can train you to use the low code platform to be able to create and modify processes on your own.

Deploy to the Business

Once the first two stages are done, and the prototypes are tested by the developers and approved by the client, the next step of the business process solution is the actual deployment for which often a purchase of BPM software is required. Moreover, depending on the solution, the deployment could be introduced first to a small group of people (one department) in the company to allow users to gain confidence and at the same time fix any small issues, or it could be deployed for the whole organisation. However, no matter which way of deployment is selected the main goal of this stage is the same: to put into action the process implementation as specified in the design stage in a workflow format.

There are variety of choices when it comes to BPM software that can be used for implementing a business process solution, but here at Dolphin IT Solutions, we choose WEBCON BPS, which is a low code platform to rapidly create Business Process Solutions Applications. This platform enables instant change technology, rapid application delivery, integration with SharePoint and Office 365, reusability and much more, which makes it suitable for almost all business applications a client may desire.

Monitor and Optimise

After the deployment of the business process solution, the next step is the monitoring of the data collected while using the solution. The aim is to evaluate the performance of the solutions such as: Are the processes completed faster? Have time-consuming steps been removed from the workflow? Has your overall company efficiency improved? Are your customers happy with the new changes? Does the solution meet your objectives? Answering such questions could help identify if there are some ways in which a process could be improved, costs reduced, and much more.

Continuous Improvement

By analysing the gathered data, a vast number of optimisations can be implemented. However, sometimes the process might end up being too complex or inefficient, and optimisation may no longer be a solution. That is when an organisation may start thinking of re-engineering the business process to reduce its complexity, and make it more efficient so that business requirements are met, and costs are reduced. And that is how we go back to the first stage of the BPM life cycle, the design.

How can Dolphin IT Solutions assist you with your digital transformation?

Dolphin IT Solutions is a full project lifecycle delivery business. Our qualified business analysis experts, project / client managers, and solution architects will take your digital transformation project from conception, through design, development, and go-live with support afterwards. For more information about how we can help you implement your business process solution we suggest looking at our WEBCON page, portfolio, and blogs.

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