Top Business Process Management Companies

Business process management is the coordination of staff and computing systems to produce advantageous business outcomes.

Along with traditional processes for accounting and finance, there are often manufacturing and supply chain processes to take into account. Factor in on-premises systems, the cloud, digital transformation and a myriad of applications, and the picture gets far more complex.

Hence, business process management (BPM) software has become vital in many businesses to keep track of everything. 

Jump to: 

• BPM Trends
• How to Select a BPM Solution
• Appian
• CMW Platform
• Blueprint Software Systems
• PMG
• Nintex
• Zvolv
• Oracle BPM
• Bizagi BPM

BPM Trends

Increased Adoption of Cloud-Based Platforms

As more and more companies move their operations to the cloud, there is a growing demand for cloud-based platforms that can manage and automate business processes. These platforms are often more cost-effective and easier to scale than on-premises solutions.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

There is a growing interest in using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to automate routine human tasks and make more accurate predictions and decisions. This can help companies become more efficient and improve the overall customer experience.

“With the release of GPT, AI continues to make broad impacts in business operations, and the demand to incorporate AI into process orchestrations will continue to rise,” said Malcolm Ross, senior vice president of product strategy at Appian.

Low-Code and No-Code Platforms

There is a growing need for platforms that allow nontechnical users to create and manage business processes without needing to write code. Low-code and no-code platforms have become increasingly popular, as they enable businesses to quickly create and deploy automation solutions.

“A low-code/no-code approach lets you build operational excellence without constant third-party developer involvement,” said Michael Donaghey, vice president of sales at CMW Lab. “Citizen and semi-professional developers can make changes at a faster pace at the same time, reducing a company’s workload, delivery time, and costs.”

Increased Automation of Customer Service and Support

Companies are increasingly turning to automation to handle customer service and support tasks such as answering frequently asked questions, scheduling appointments, and handling customer complaints.

“This helps to reduce the workload on human customer service representatives and can improve the overall customer experience,” said Ross.

Robotic process automation (RPA) is a mainstream technology for automating repetitive manual processes. Buyers are looking for larger automation platforms that simply incorporate RPA and allow them to easily orchestrate processes that traverse humans, AI, systems, and digital RPA workers.

“BPM for automation is evolving beyond just modeling and designing processes for automations,” said Tony Higgins, chief product officer at Blueprint Software Systems. “Solutions are available that enable automation programs to completely understand their RPA estates with robust analytics.”

Greater Focus on Process for Regulatory Compliance

As more sensitive data is shared and stored electronically, there is a growing need for secure, compliant automation solutions. This is especially true for companies that operate in regulated industries such as healthcare and finance. BPM helps with this. 

Data fabric is a rapidly evolving foundational layer that can drive intelligent process decisions and routing. Data fabric technology is designed to integrate data from multiple systems into a single and easily managed virtualized data model.

“This is important to ensure AI can be trained with a complete view of data, and business processes can easily traverse data silos,” said Ross.

End-to-end process orchestration moves a business activity or project through its entire life cycle, pulling in and processing data through bidirectional integrations. It goes beyond simple automation of repetitive tasks to tie together human activities with digital workers.

“By using a workflow that represents an entire business process from start to finish, more strategic value is created. More complex business logic is supported, and stakeholders have real-time visibility into status and KPIs (key performance indicators,” said Joe LeCompte, CEO and principal at PMG.

Also see: Top Digital Transformation Companies

How to Select a BPM Solution

Having a BPM platform that is optimized to your particular business offers significant competitive advantages.

As such, BPM platforms should include the following core elements:

• Graphical business process or rule-modeling capabilities.
• A process repository to handle modeling metadata.
• A process execution engine /rule engine.

Some systems remain on-premises, but increasingly, cloud functionality is needed due to so many processes residing in the cloud. There is also a wide difference found in the size and scope of market offerings, and platforms can be either basic or sophisticated systems.

The other key factor: how intuitive is the user interface? BPM solutions are necessarily complex, and if only highly trained individuals will be using yours, the user interface can be correspondingly complex. Yet if you expect wider user in your company, look for a more intuitive user interface.

Top BPM Solutions

eWeek evaluated the many BPM solutions available on the market. Here are our top picks, in no particular order.

Appian

Best for: Companies seeking a low code / no code solution.

The Appian Platform is used to design digital software solutions, automate tasks to drive efficiency, and optimize business process operations. Its low-code approach simplifies the visualization and building of new applications and the establishment of workflows. It provides visibility to drive continuous optimization.

Key Differentiators

• All of Appian’s design time experiences are low and no code for faster time to solution and value.
• The platform includes all components necessary to deliver end-to-end process automations and reduce IT complexity and maintenance.
• Visualization capabilities are easy for users to implement.
• Appian helps organizations build new applications and workflows.
• Automation capabilities are available across AI, individual development plans (IDP), RPA, and application programming interface (API) integration.
• Appian offers integrated process mining and analytics.

CMW Platform

Best for: companies who want unified process automation.

The CMW Platform by CMW Lab is a low-code BPM suite built for unified process automation. It can be used for digital transformation. Building a process management system with CMW Platform is said to reduce development costs and lower the IT workload.

Key Differentiators

• It provides quick deployment on-premises, in private or public cloud.
• It uses a multi-tier hybrid software-as-a-service (SaaS) architecture and graph technologies to boost reliability and flexibility.
• Users can see first results within days.
• CMW Platform integrates scattered processes into one reliable system using API integrations, drag-and-drop capabilities, and other patented features on process management.
• CMW Platform is a customizable web-based platform to make changes on the go without developers.

Blueprint Software Systems

Best for: Companies that want to want to visualize their RPA deployment.

Blueprint enables organizations to visualize and understand their RPA estate, identify where there is waste and remove it, find retirement opportunities to reduce costs, become more efficient, and optimize any complex automations by refactoring them. It simplifies the process of migrating to another RPA platform.

Key Differentiators

• Users can migrate their RPA estates automatically with 60–75% time and cost savings when compared to manual migrations.
• Blueprint Software Systems ingests current automations, providing analytics and insight via dashboards about the complexity of automations and how many applications they interact with as well as the actions, variables, and decision branches of each process.
• Blueprint Software Systems maps RPA estates into a common object model and makes processes automatically compatible with other RPA platforms.
• Analytics help organizations better understand, optimize, and reduce operating costs.

Also see: Best Data Analytics Tools 

PMG

Best for: Companies that want a suite of dev tools.

The PMG Platform is a low-code process orchestration platform offering a suite of development tools to create business solutions for efficiency and a better user experience. Its workflow engine automates tasks, manages human activities, applies business logic, and transacts bidirectional integrations, supporting both short- and long-running processes.

Key Differentiators

• PMG’s API Builder configuration tool provides a way to augment off-the-shelf applications and solutions that aren’t easily customizable.
• If solution requirements include an end-user interface, it offers drag-and-drop configuration of portal and dashboard pages.
• As a low-code platform, businesses can leverage snippets of code they already use or ensure they have the flexibility to do so without the need for specialized tech staff.
• PMG’s Workflow Anywhere gives users the ability to run a workflow from anywhere within the platform or externally by using API Builder.
• The PGM Relay Framework offers enterprises the ability to run workflows, including PowerShell, outside of their firewall, delivering workflow capabilities while still meeting more stringent internal security guidelines.

Nintex

Best for: Companies that are focused on ease of use.

The Nintex Process Platform is a low-code process platform that helps companies discover, automate, and optimize business processes to drive growth. It offers intelligent forms, advanced workflow, digital document generation, e-signatures, RPA, process discovery technology, and a process management solution.

Key Differentiators

• Nintex Process Platform provides ease-of-use coupled capabilities for managing and automating processes.
• The platform is optimized for less technical users, like the operations and process owners intimately familiar with the processes that need to be automated and managed.
• The platform is focused on process management, automation, and improvement.
• Nintex Process Platform helps users define the processes that make the most impact to the organization.
• It provides simple process maps in collaboration with others in organization.
• It manages process participants to drive continuous process improvements.

Zvolv

Best for: Companies that want to boost hyperautomation.

Zvolv is a low-code unified platform aimed at driving hyperautomation for enterprises. It helps to accelerate digital transformation by streamlining processes across the organization with the combined use of no-code and low-code application development, automation, integrations, and analytics.

Key Differentiators

• Zvolv integrates decision-making automation and orchestration of processes across systems.
• The platform helps organizations tackle last-mile intelligent automation challenges that existing enterprise resource planning (ERP), BPM, or RPA tools cannot.
• An automation bot, low-code editor can be used by developers to enhance the application with complex use case definitions.
• Dynamic dashboards, reports, and drill-down analytics are available for decision-makers.

Also see: Top Data Visualization Tools 

Oracle BPM

Best for: large enterprise organizations.

Oracle Business Process Management Suite 12c is designed to make things simple for business users via a web-­based composer that allows them to model, simulate, optimize, deploy, and execute business processes. It also provides business-­friendly mobile and web applications as well as out-­of-­the-box process and case analytics.

Key Differentiators

• Oracle BPM offers the ability to manage by exception.
• The platform allows the modeling of structured and unstructured processes.
• Oracle BPM is a unified platform that spans systems, decisions, documents, and events.
• A light­weight Business Architecture modeling tool in the Business Process Composer provides a blueprint of the enterprise and gives a common understanding of the organization.
• Oracle BPM helps to align an organization’s goals and objectives and strategies with the actual projects that are being undertaken.

Bizagi BPM

Best for: Companies that want a common language between business and IT.

Bizagi BPM enables organizations to model, design, automate, and manage every business process on a single low-code platform. It provides the process insight and control to deliver value to the business.

Key Differentiators

• Bizagi BPM automates dynamic and complex processes enterprise-wide.
• It develops a common language between business and IT departments for faster development of applications.
• Shares, reuses, and adapts process elements to rapidly respond to changes in the market.
• Users can access real-time and historical reports to monitor business process performance and identify opportunities.
• Bizagi BPM connects modern applications, databases, or legacy systems to provide a centralized view of business data.

Also see: Top Business Intelligence Software 

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