Strategy and execution are important for any major change within an organization to be successful. Unfortunately, closing the gap between strategy and execution remains a challenge for many organizations. Companies tend to focus more on execution than strategy for quick results, instead of taking time to understand how the right execution plan can deliver the best outcomes (Larrivee, Bob. 2016. Process Improvement and Automation 2016 – A Look at BPM. AIIM Industry Watch.).

A Changing Technology Landscape

Even though business transformation is often driven by technology, process excellence initiatives are necessary in the delivery of desired business outcomes. BPM suites evolved as a means of helping companies achieve these goals. However, they are often huge systems that require a high level of expertise and training to implement and use. They have slow implementation cycles, and most only focus on internal business operations and core processes.

Improved, modern BPM solutions need to:

• Streamline untamed processes that hold core processes together (email, social streams, collaboration portals, etc.)
• Integrate with these collaboration points and line-of-business (LOB) systems.
• Integrate with cloud file storing services (Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.)

Today’s customers expect to interact with products and services through software. With easier access to the internet, they are also more likely to search for alternative products and services. This puts pressure on companies to lower costs and provide better services. They need agile, integrated solutions that speed up time to market, while still adding the value of BPM suites. (McCarthy, John C. 2014. Software Must Enrich Your Brand. Forrester.)

To meet these needs, low-code business application platforms have emerged as an alternative solution to BPM suites. Four main components are driving their adoption:

• Their intuitive, visual tools which allow business users and developers alike to build process apps, with minimal coding and faster development and delivery cycles.
• Application Lifecycle Management Tools which lead to improved app quality, less development costs, shorter time to market and enhanced collaboration across departments.
• Their agility, which makes it easier and faster to implement changes.
• Reusable and scalable business objects (forms, business rules, sub-processes, etc.), which reduce development time and costs and allow existing security mechanisms to be preserved.

A comprehensive Business Process Automation (BPA) platform provides all these advantages while supporting the full range of BPM needs. It helps organizations transform their business and keep pace with rapid market changes with minimal disruption.

The Five Guidelines for Business Transformation Success

1. Choose a BPM platform, such as K2, that allows your organisation to identify problems and opportunities that can be accommodated for, quickly and effectively. Your platform must allow for a culture of continuous improvement and process maturity and effectiveness.  K2’s platform enables organisations to build processes using web-based drag-and-drop designer tools. It is also easier to make quick adjustments once the app is live.
2. Organizational change can only be successful once the underlying problems are identified and corrected. The K2 platform makes it easier for you by providing a framework that streamlines processes and is powerful enough to automate complex problems.
3. Identify KPIs and establish a framework for measuring them. Establishing a clear vision of the monitoring and control process and how it ties into business performance as a whole makes gaining and maintaining a solutions buy-in more likely. K2 helps by enabling smarter, data-driven decision making. By providing customizable graphical reports, you can monitor K2 applications for in-depth insights – in real-time.
4. Use an incremental approach. Large projects have a higher rate of failure and higher learning curves. With an incremental approach, leaders can quickly develop, deliver and gain feedback, so processes can be fine-tuned to best suit the unique needs and practices of the organization. K2 pairs exceptionally well with this incremental approach, ensuring quick development and delivery cycles.
5. Choose a BPM solution for continued excellence. Given the investments involved in building a sound BPM environment, organizations simply cannot invest in technologies that will not provide a consistent way to rapidly streamline business processes, at a low risk and cost.

Conclusion

Choosing the right BPA solution to transform your business will drive increased efficiency and help you manage business growth both now and in future. Linxus helps companies across all industries innovate and improve.

Click here to learn how Linxus and K2 can help introduce a new way of working to your business.