Cost Reduction With BPM: What You Can Do?

Yes. But would it happen on its own? No. BPM solutions are not plug-and-play options that you can employ and forget. Rather, for optimal results, you will have to make a few efforts to make sure that your plans see success.

Here is what you can do to save the business and operational costs using BPM:

You cannot just start cutting costs left, right, and centre as it may end up disrupting processes. A strategic move will be to identify and understand the processes before making cost reductions. Once you have created a library or hierarchy of your processes, you will be able to identify:

• Processes that need immediate attention
• Processes that are directly associated with the bottom line of the organisation
• The direction for a thorough analysis
• Process dependencies

This is essentially the foundation of your improvement plans that have been a work-in-progress for all this while.

Saving cost starts from creating an end-to-end process chain or process map by using the library that you created in the first step. It will give you an overall view of all the processes that are currently being executed. With the help of an efficient process modelling software, you can develop a deeper understanding of how certain processes work, what their pain points are, what bottlenecks need to be eliminated, and understanding the gap between the current and the desired state.

Analysis of the processes is how you begin to craft a strategy for cost reduction. It is where you understand the value addition that a process brings to your business or your customers. Analysis usually happens on 4 different bases; Value, Time, Cost, and Efficiency. It encompasses everything that forms a business, including people, governance, systems, and technologies.

Analysis of the processes is how you begin to craft a strategy for cost reduction. It is where you understand the value addition that a process brings to your business or your customers. Analysis usually happens on 4 different bases; Value, Time, Cost, and Efficiency. It encompasses everything that forms a business, including people, governance, systems, and technologies.

Once the value has been determined, and expenses have been identified, process analysts categorise the processes based on the costs they incur and their priority. Cross-referencing these costs to the value they add to the business and their priority, you can begin reducing the costs of these processes. This can be done in 3 ways:

• Grab every opportunity for cost-cutting
• Prioritise processes that incur the highest cost and try to make the most out of the investment.
• Prioritise improvements that are the most accomplishable, thus making the most out of the opportunity.

The difference between random cost-cutting and systemised cost reductions becomes apparent when you begin to look at things this way. BPM strategies, combined with the right tool and analysis brings the best strategies at your door.