The need for Business Process Management (BPM) systems had originally evolved due to business process automation. However, as the organzations automated their processes, they gradually discovered that mere automation of processes does not take into account the holistic environment the business operates in. With global processes running across multiple departments, business units, and distant geographies, the organizations realized the need of a system that goes beyond process automation and comprehensively manages complex processes for constant optimization. A BPM system does just that.

Business Process Management (BPM) system offers enterprises the capability to create, modify and manage its processes efficiently. BPM systems manage organization’s process and associated people and applications to produce the expected process output. However, businesses are continuously expanding and evolving. Therefore, processes too need to evolve continuously; and that too rapidly and reliably. A BPM system ensures that processes can be modified easily and processes executed rapidly, while ensuring consistency and reliability of other processes.

A true BPM system essentially manages processes, which not only require interacting with other enterprise systems such as ERP, CRM, and so on, but also efficiently handles human-and- document-intensive processes. As against an Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) system, which contains only a basic workflow while integrating various legacy applications across the enterprise, a BPM system goes much beyond. A BPM system has at its core a powerful workflow and business rules engine that manages the process, a document management system that keeps track of all the electronic documents, eForms for capturing essential data, integration capabilities to weave together different applications as a whole, collaboration capabilities for coherent and consistent communication, and secured, rights-based access to information and documents.

BPM systems enable enterprises to have tighter control over their processes. Leaner, streamlined processes lead to increase in efficiency, improved productivity, cost cuts, greater transparency in operations and comprehensive tracking and monitoring of different activities, with all this leading to operational excellence. BPM systems find use in virtually every industry ranging from Banking, Financial Services, Insurance to Manufacturing, Education, BPO, Telecom, and several others.