Business Process Management
Look around.
We are living in a projectized world. Projects are focused on external customers, developing new products, and enhancing operational efficiency.
There are projects to meet statutory, legal, and environmental requirements.
The overall appreciation for the value of project management has significantly improved globally.
At the same time, advancements in software programming made it possible for enterprises to manage portfolios, programs, and projects.
It is no surprise that a simple google search on ‘PPM software’ offers hundreds of results.
You must be wondering, ‘excellent.’ Why not? More the merrier and good for customers. The bright side of the story ends there.
Doing a deep dive offers us the reasons behind the flip side of the available PPM solutions.
PPM solutions have evolved from Gantt Charts to managing detailed schedules, resources, simple costs, risks and issues, and documentation.
Over time, some of the PPM solutions have also provided the ability to integrate with ERP software.
As business leaders and professionals, common sense tells us that today’s portfolio, program, and project management are more complex and encompass almost all the business processes in an organization.
Most PPM solutions either do not address the business process management or offer just lip service.
Their argument is simple – companies anyway have invested in standalone solutions for managing them!
In my opinion, this is flawed thinking and not relevant to the times we live in!
The multiplicity of systems leads to redundancy and creates multiple versions of organizational truth leading to poor decision-making.
If there is a strong rationale, organizations may choose to continue with their existing systems to manage their business processes.
By business process management, we are talking about the following dimensions.
- Business Case
- Procurement & Inventory
- New Product Idea Evaluation
- Customer Enquiry & Proposals
- Accounting & Invoicing
- Engineering Data (BOM) & CAD
- Comprehensive Documentation
- End-to-end Risk and Issues
- Quality & Defects
- Meetings
- Inter-business process workflows
- Analytics
- Organizational collaboration
In the above scenario, it is vital that PPM solutions should have the capability for either of the following.
- Offer comprehensive PPM with business process management.
- Offer seamless integration between PPM and business processes.
It is imperative that business leaders and professionals review their PPM solutions on the above lines to drive operational efficiencies, better decision-making, and robust governance mechanisms if they are serious about taking their organizations on the path of profitable growth.
A good strategy could be to start with an approach that integrates PPM with business process management.
Based on organizational acceptance and success, business leaders could switch off standalone business processes and move to a comprehensive platform.
Now the all-important question!
With the plethora of PPM solutions available in the market today, is there any solution that fits the bill as described above?
TouchBase® design strategy is centered around the organizational need to embed business process management with PPM to drive maximum business value.
Give TouchBase® a try, and you would be glad you did!