You have now started the journey of automating your business processes and have started seeing the tremendous value it brings. However, this is just the beginning of the journey. While Business process automation saves you and your end users a lot of time, it doesn't mean that all your processes are perfect. There is always room to improve and make your employees', customers', partners', and suppliers' lives easier.
What is Business Process Improvement
This is where Business Process Improvement comes into the picture. Business Process Improvement is a set of activities used to analyze an organization's business processes to identify areas where they can improve accuracy, effectiveness, and efficiency and then redesign those processes to realize the improvements. Why organizations consider BPI can be attributed to a number of reasons including:
- Eliminate waste & friction in processes
- Reduce the time required to get work done
- Ensure better compliance with rules and regulations
How Does Business Process Improvement Work?
The beauty of BPI is that it is a very structured initiative and it works in the following way:
- Identify existing processes within your organization (You can learn more about documenting your business processes here ).
- Analyze processes and identify areas of potential improvement
- Run various simulations about any changes you can apply to these processes and their effect on the business.
- Focus on redesigning and reorganizing processes
- Assess and reassess the people behind those processes
Different Methodologies Can Be Used for BPI
- Six Sigma: This seeks to improve the quality output of a process. This methodology focuses on identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in processes to drive improvement. ... Reduce process cycle time. Increase customer satisfaction. Reduce pollution, and reduce costs.
- Lean Management: Lean management is an approach to managing an organization that supports the concept of continuous improvement, a long-term approach to work that systematically seeks to achieve small, incremental changes in processes in order to improve efficiency and quality.
- Agile Management: Agile Project Management (APM) is an iterative approach to planning and guiding project processes. Just as in Agile Software Development, an Agile project is completed in small sections. ... Insights gained from the critique of an iteration are used to determine what the next step should be in the project.
- Total Quality Management: A system of management based on the principle that every member of staff must be committed to maintaining high standards of work in every aspect of a company's operations.
- Kaizen: The Kaizen philosophy challenges the statement “that’s just the way we do things.” Through micro-changes, it strives to eliminate silos, egos, and waste and instead aims for efficient and standardized processes
To Conclude
Business Process Automation (BPA), Business Process Management (BPM), and Business Process Improvement (BPI) go hand in hand with each other. Any organization that is serious enough about improving the way it runs, increasing efficiency and effectiveness which results in better customer/employee experiences should invest in the three together. It might be a bit difficult in the beginning to do but with time when a system is in place contentious business process automation, management and improvement will be very simple and straightforward.
Learn how StemeXe uses AI and automation to implement Business Process Automation here.