The top 10 mistakes to avoid.

Choosing and implementing the right Business Process Management (BPM) project is an expensive undertaking that requires careful consideration. Increasingly, businesses require a flexible, agile and responsive solution, making capture-enabled BPM a beneficial option.

However, even the most robust system can be flawed if executed without careful deliberation and precision. To make capture-enabled BPM a success, below is a list of 10 mistakes that businesses need to avoid:

1. Letting IT or business functions choose the solution in isolation

Who chooses your BPM solution? If the decision is made by IT, chances are they will go for the latest technology without understanding or addressing user needs.

End users on the other hand could opt for solutions that resemble what they already have, which could perpetuate existing mistakes or fail to fit the IT infrastructure. Success requires engagement from both business users and IT.

2. Starting too big

Over-reaching is a common reason for early project failure. Resist the temptation to start with a bells-and-whistles answer to everything approach.

Instead, start with a straightforward project that can help to build the case for capture-enabled BPM within the business, provide valuable learning opportunities and help to identify wider corporate needs and potential.

3. Over-customising

As above, over-ambitious implementation can be fatal for BPM project success. The larger and more complex the initial deployment, the higher the cost; and companies can end up struggling with an unsatisfactory system they cannot afford to replace.

The excessive use of custom code can remove flexibility when it comes to native process mapping and analytics.

4. Not investing enough in people

BPM transforms the way a business operates, and the importance of employee training and management support cannot be overstated.Even the most advanced, capture-enabledBPM project will fail if people won’t accept it, lack the skills to use it or if it doesn’t meet their needs.

5. Forgetting about legacy systems

BPM is never a stand-alone solution; it is a layer on top of existing applications and infrastructures. A capture-enabled BPM solution needs to interface seamlessly with these indigenous systems, extracting, validating and purifying the data and ensuring all systems can communicate with each other.

6. Ignoring the external landscape

Capture-enabled BPM must help the business to meet external challenges. In today’s international business environment information can be received in a variety of languages and currencies, placing new demands on data capture and processing systems.  

In addition, an increasingly stringent regulatory environment around data protection requires BPM systems that deliver greater security, accountability and transparency of information at every stage of its journey through a business.

7. Not defining measures of success at the start

Capture-enabled BPM needs to prove its value. Quantifiable metrics including cost savings and ROI should be factored in at the start of a project.  

However, it is important not to forget about more qualitative or longer term benefits. Expanded business opportunities and a better ability to respond to change are two key benefits of successful BPM implementations.  In the long term, expanding revenue is a greater benefit than just reducing costs.

8. Breaking the ‘chain of custody’

Data protection has rightly become a high profile legal and political issue. Companies need to demonstrate that they have the measures in place to protect their own and others’ data.

Using too many different suppliers, such as bolting data capture technology from one supplier onto a BPM solution from another, may leave organisations unable to guarantee data security and integrity across the whole solution.

9. Forgetting to build intelligence into the solution

The volume of information created, received and processed by organisations is increasing at an unprecedented rate.Companies receive their information in many different formats, from many different sources, en route to many different destinations across the business.  

This information can contain errors or missing data. Intelligent, capture-enabled, fault tolerant BPM solutions will be vital in helping businesses to validate, correct and purify this information.

10. Not anticipating change

The world will continue to change, and the pace at which is does so will continue to increase. There is change you can prepare for, and change that will hit you unawares.  

Flexibility, agility and responsiveness are key elements to build into BPM systems.