Taking BPM to the civil world

In recent years, the BPM (Business Process Management) market is gaining adoption. Due to high cost and complexity, the adoption of BPM technologies has been primarily limited to the Fortune 500; however, there are initiatives to broaden the target market of BPM. For example, Microsoft Business Process Alliance (BPA) extends the benefits of BPM to the SMB market and offers enhanced functionality to existing Microsoft customers. Which makes me wonder, why not take it one step further and use BPM technologies in our day-to-day civil life?

The main building blocks of a process - people, applications and information, exist in civil life as it exist in a business environment. For example, in a business environment, customer service representative would use CRM application to save customers information. Similarly in civil-life, one would use her bank web interface to check credits and debits.

Moreover, now it is more feasible than ever before. With Web2.0 technology, people involved in civil-life processes - our friends, family members and even our banker are accessible through social networks. WorkLight enables corporate (e.g. banks) to securely collaborate over social networks with customers (as well as partners and employees). Moreover, the increasing embracement of SOA technology, makes the applications we consume available. For having managed civil processes, all left to do is to connect the dots...

Now you probably say "Why would one bother managing his civil-life processes with dedicated technology?". Fair question. But think of it - few decades ago no one thought she would use a word processor to write a letter or a spreadsheet to calculate her debt. Now imagine your life today managing your personal information without it! The same will happen with your personal processes.

In a business environment, BPM technology benefits are reaped when used with repetitive processes. When you repeat a working procedure many times, you have an interest to automate it, execute it in a valid manner, monitor its progress and continually improve its performance to gain operational efficiency and eventually save money.

In civil life, as processes are usually not repetitive, the benefits and usages of BPM technology are yet to be discovered. Would it be worth the effort of the BPM define-develop-deploy-execute-monitor life-cycle? Intuitively, the answer is no. Furthermore, how people will handle technical aspects? It is clear that it would need much more easier methodology and simpler tools to use it for civil needs.

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Revisiting business process boundaries

Business Processes Management (BPM) is, according to Wikipedia, "aligning organizations with the wants and needs of clients". To achieve the required alignment, an organization iteratively design and model a process which addresses client needs, then process participants (i.e. IT systems and/or people) execute and monitor the defined process, and finally the organization optimize the process for better alignment.

Managing business processes with BPM systems is become more and more common. The BPM systems market has more than 30% annual growth, according to IDC. The benefits are clear: automation (at least partial), increased operational efficiency, reduced costs and higher transparency for different process stakeholders (process participants and managers).

Today, the common usage of BPM systems is managing processes within the boundaries of the organization, involving only inter-organizational process participants (i.e. organization IT or employees). A good example is a telephone company internal process which handles a technical problem of a customer; customer service opens a case, customer information is retrieved from database, technical staff handles the problem and close the case.

However, business process may involve external participants as customers or business partners. In the above example, the customer (the one the process is for...) is an important stakeholder of this process. The customer may need to supply additional information after initial research by the technical staff, or would like to monitor the case status.

When the process involves external participants, the required alignment is extended beyond the boundaries of the organization. This insight requires an holistic approach to business process management - where all process stakeholders - internal and external, take part. The process execution will be more efficient and take less time, thus reduce costs involved throughout the supply chain. Customer satisfaction will increase due to efficient and transparent service. One example for this approach is the increasing buzz around the integration of CRM and BPM capabilities.

If your organization operates in a competitive environment, with high sensitivity to customer satisfaction or to integration with business partners, it should start identify business processes with high impact on growth and manage them in a more holistic manner.

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