Coronavirus has disrupted every economy worldwide, bringing about a “new normal.” Most businesses were hit hard by the pandemic because they weren’t prepared. According to the World Bank, companies’ sales dropped by 45% between April and September 2020. Businesses suffered because they didn’t have a continuity plan or the right system in place.
Business continuity can help organizations maintain resiliency and respond quickly to disruptions, whether internal or external. They save money, time, and their reputation. In one company, continuity might mean keeping the lights on–enabling faster customer responses, ensuring seamless workflows, fulfilling unexpected customer requests, or addressing a sudden increase in product demand. In another company, continuity might mean revamping operations for distributed work, reimagining business models, and reinventing supply chains.
Business process management (BPM) can be key in enabling current and future business continuity. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the adoption of automation technologies such as BPM. It has highlighted the need for organizations to speed up their automation plans with a renewed focus.
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How Does BPM Help?
It Enhances Business Resilience and Agility
Effective process management enhances business agility. If you have a clear understanding of how business processes work, you can make them flexible enough to withstand change. Business transformation initiatives brought about by an external crisis can be challenging to implement. But if you know your processes are optimized to be efficient and effective, you can quickly restructure business operations, take advantage of new opportunities, and face new challenges.
Workers Stay Connected
Collaboration plays a key role in effective process management. BPM software that allows for collaboration is vital as it connects workers in different geographical areas. They can discuss and optimize business processes. During a crisis, the entire company may have to work remotely, and this is when process management software truly shines. It provides a single platform to operate from before, during, and after a crisis. A good business process management system can make your organization thrive during a crisis, not just survive.
Helps Companies Prepare for the Future
A crisis can have long-term, far-reaching effects. Choices made today can have long-term implications for an organization. Having the information needed to make the right decisions at the right time can make all the difference. BPM software with a process mining feature can give you the information you need to make the right business decisions.
Process mining uses mathematical algorithms to analyze business processes based on event logs. It’s perfect for forecasting and provides the insights needed for process optimization. You can come up with process optimization solutions and test them through techniques like digital twinning and process simulation. Process mining can help reduce unpredictability in business processes.
The Importance of BPM in Business Continuity
- It helps employees collaborate during a crisis without interruptions.
- Makes companies agile enough to withstand internal and external disruptions.
- Documents business processes, policies, and procedures to ensure consistency and continuity.
- Makes comprehensive information readily accessible by the right personnel.
- Significantly reduces the time spent managing business continuity plans.
- Helps companies determine the tasks and processes that are crucial to their day-to-day operations.
BPM and Business Continuity
The coronavirus pandemic has shown us how important business continuity truly is. Business Process Management tools have helped organizations to keep running as usual. Companies with a comprehensive plan and automated processes quickly managed unexpected interruptions to their daily operations. They avoided downtime and mitigated the effects of the pandemic.
While crises and pandemics are unavoidable, BPM software can help mitigate their effects. During a crisis, events move too fast and you can’t respond effectively if you don’t have the right system in place. Process management ensures the business runs as usual in an environment of uncertainty. Underpinning business processes can withstand disruptions.
A strong process management framework models your key business activities and ensures they are understood by all the staff. As a result, the company can offer a consistent and positive customer experience even in difficult circumstances, reducing customer churn. When good process management is combined with process automation, processes within key business areas run as usual. For instance, marketers can quickly close prospects already within the sales cycle.
A Real-Life Case Study: Takeda
Back in 2020, pharmaceutical company Takeda started recruiting patients for a clinical trial of a coronavirus treatment. The company drew antibodies from the blood of recovered patients for the treatment. Collecting people’s information usually took several weeks–the company had to choose suitable candidates and get the paperwork in order.
Because the virus was spreading fast, Takeda decided to speed things up with process automation. The company started using software for tasks like opening files, cutting and pasting text, and selecting input fields. The software repeated the tasks for each prospective patient. As a result, the paperwork was completed in days instead of weeks.
Final Thoughts
There’s no way of knowing when a fire may break out, an earthquake may occur, or infectious disease may wreak havoc on your businesses. Ensuring business processes run as usual during a crisis can make the difference between success and failure. A good BPM system can help companies withstand any disruption and ensure business continuity for the long term.