Business process automation vs.

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

terms do in fact differ in scope, uses and technologies they involve.

To keep IT and business stakeholders speaking the same language and ahead of vendor
hype, here we define the two terms and show how BPM and BPA work together to bring
maximum benefits to midsized organizations.
What's the difference between BPM and BPA?
Business process management is the methodology used by organizations to improve
end-to-end business processes in five stages: design, modeling, execution, monitoring
and optimization. Typically, it begins by defining the steps in a process, improving on
those that add value and consolidating or eliminating others, then tweaking electronic
workflows to match the process maps.
Business process automation, simply put, is the automation of business processes. BPA
can be both a standalone strategy as well as part of a larger, overarching business
process management strategy. On its own, BPA automates known processes -- often
without much initial analysis to determine whether the processes are good, bad or
indifferent.
When it's part of a BPM initiative, automation usually follows some level of process
analysis or modeling to determine process efficiencies while leaving the door open for
continued future improvement.
Who is involved with BPM and BPA?
While anchored in IT, BPM requires heavy input from the business side as both a
tactical and strategic approach to continued improvement.
Business process automation began as the basic idea behind many IT systems, using
technology components to substitute or supplement the use of manual processes for
information management, according to Gartner Inc. analyst Jim Sinur. Process
automation included straight-through processing between systems, involving integration

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

"Companies across the board are looking to get control of

processes and costs, saving money where they can and becoming
more efficient," Richardson said. "Automation is where the
conversation starts."
According to David A. Kelly, president of Newton, Mass.-based
Upside Research Inc., many of today's sophisticated BPM
solutions actually started in the area of BPA. "Today, given the
economic climate, many organizations are looking for practical,
results-orientated solutions for basic process automation and
management, with an eye for future growth and expansion," he
said.

John Vilim, chief technology officer of Waterton Residential, a

Chicago-based residential investment management company, has
supported business process automation for a number of years, seeing the benefits of
process and workflow automation firsthand. He said that although he doesn't think a
big-bang BPM strategy is necessary to use automation tools or realize some benefits, he
believes it does require some knowledge of BPM if you plan to build a full strategy.
"It's possible to get some benefit from automation without any of the BPM basics,"
Vilim said. "However, I think the real payoff comes from automating processes that
have been vetted through the BPM disciplines."