These days, saying the business world is fast-paced is a bit of an understatement.
Business and marketing technology, including software, is evolving at such a rapid pace that it can be difficult to keep up with the changes. Those companies that take advantage of new opportunities, whether they are new processes or technology implementations, stand to benefit. Meanwhile, companies that fail to transform will be mired by old processes.
According to one study of fifteen years of business data by the Boston Consulting Group, managers at the most complicated organizations can spend 40% of their time writing reports and 30% to 60% of their time engaged in coordination meetings. This is a perfect example of how processes can actually get in the way of productivity.
Business processes are collections of structured activities which result in the delivery of products or services to a client or the completion of an organizational goal. They are meant to make business units more efficient and productive, but they can also become obsolete as the world changes around them.
Companies that rely on outdated processes tend to also be reliant on outdated technologies, as those technologies are integrated with their processes. Business process management is a tool for creating, maintaining, and updating these processes, so the company as a whole can stay agile.
What is Business Process Management (BPM)?
Business Process Management is a discipline focused on the improvement of end-to-end business processes through analysis, modeling, and continuous optimization. It can be applied to any set of business processes, including operational processes which deliver value to customers, invoicing, vendor management, and employee performance management.
There’s some difference of opinion as to how BPM should be executed, but there are some recognized steps, including:
- Designing ideal business processes
- Modeling business processes to understand how they work in different scenarios
- Implementing and standardizing business processes
- Monitoring implemented business processes for improvement opportunities
- Ongoing optimization of business processes
BPM is meant to improve the efficiency of workflows, reduce costs and waste, and enable businesses to scale. Without it, businesses run the risk of being hindered by outdated processes and ad hoc work.
How Can BMP Help with Marketing?
BPM has been embraced in almost every industry and by almost every department, including HR, IT, and even marketing.
Marketing professionals are expected to wear many different hats and must go through a series of processes every day to do their jobs effectively. Whether it’s creating content, updating a website, managing social media accounts, servicing customer relationships, or coming up with new ideas for marketing campaigns, there are always a series of steps to take before the task is completed. Often, those steps include brainstorming, creation, approvals, implementation, and others.
A single bottleneck can cause a company’s marketing apparatus to come to a stop, so there must be agile processes in place to keep marketing departments running.
For businesses that rely on outsourced marketing services, BPM is an ideal way to manage those relationships and make them more efficient over time. Established processes help you designate authority, including who has authority for approvals, and take a constructive approach to communication, accessibility, and vendor management.
Most marketing consultancies understand that they can’t subject their clients to their own processes and are willing to work within their clients’ own frameworks.
Using Your Technology Stack to Facilitate BPM
BPM technology refers to a set of tools and solutions that enable you to build, monitor, and change your processes, allowing your business to stay agile. Most BPM technologies have four core functionalities, which are process modeling, automation, performance monitoring and analytics, and application integration.
Any BPM solution you use should be able to integrate with your existing technology stack, allowing you to avoid costly silos and downtime. BPM technology shows its value by helping your translate data and analysis to action. In cooperation with your existing marketing technology stack, BPM tools can make your marketing team more productive and your marketing efforts more effective.
To learn more about optimizing your processes, improving productivity, and integrating new technologies, contact Aptitude 8 today.
