BPM Vs BPA
BPM Vs BPA
BPM Vs BPA
business
process management: A primer
By Kristen Caretta, Associate Editor
10 Nov 2009 | SearchCIO-Midmarket.com
What is the difference between business process management (BPM) and business
process automation (BPA)? Though often used interchangeably, these
and system-to-system communication that essentially removed the "carbon unit" from
activity execution processes.
"It's a lot of headless, head-down workflows," Sinur said. "It's effective, fast and
snappy."
How do the objectives of BPM and BPA differ?
Business process management aims to improve process agility, operational excellence
and cost efficiency by capturing the total picture of all workflows involved in a business
process. BPM has also expanded to include workforce optimization, improved customer
retention, business growth and regulatory compliance maintenance.
Business process automation is a quick way to automate the low-hanging fruit of less
complex processes or singular processes in extensive workflows. While business
process automation is not limited to simple or linear processes, these are often the
starting point for organizations without the time or budget to embark on a full process
modeling or analysis strategy.
Clay Richardson, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., said that while much of process
automation involves system-to-system automation, a lot of companies are asking about
BPA as the first step to business process management. In fact, most customers begin
using BPM for the automation aspects.
I think the
real payoff comes
from automating
processes that
have been vetted
through the BPM
disciplines.
John Vilim
chief technology
officer, Waterton
Residential