English
Blog
Building Successful Momentum With the BPM Lifecycle
BPM Predictions for 2024
Let’s just state the obvious: business processes are always changing.
Whether there’s a new technology in the market or new compliance regulations to abide by, your business processes can’t afford to stay frozen in time. We need — actually, demand — processes that keep up with the times, right?
Right! That’s why it’s essential to have a business process management (BPM) system to help your processes become efficient, effective and flexible. But we’re not just talking about keeping up with what’s now (even though it’s a lot); we’ve set our sights on what’s next.
Let’s take a look at our 2024 BPM predictions with insights directly from our business process experts at SS&C Blue Prism.
Modern Trends for BPM
We view BPM (sometimes referred to as business process automation or BPA) as both a technology and a discipline. As we delve into the BPM landscape, various challenges and innovative solutions are expected to shape its future.
According to Fortune Business Insights, the BPM market is projected to grow at a 12% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to $26.18 billion by 2028. This growth is rooted in the profound impact that BPM strategies can have on organizations, positioning them to be smarter, more efficient and highly effective in the market.
What drives this growth is more than just numbers – it’s the assurance that organizations who embrace modern BPM are set to witness transformative evolution.
The predictions gathered are insights from SS&C Blue Prism thought leaders and analysts of where they see BPM heading in 2024. We’ve narrowed it down to seven BPM predictions to help you better deliver transformational value.
What Are the Predictions for the BPM Industry?
Prediction 1: We’ll continue to embrace gen AI
Generative AI will continue to be a hot topic for business processes. Fundamentally, it’s able to change the way we work and automate processes — and organizations will swiftly strategize how they can harness this technology to their advantage.
What does this mean for you?
- Streamline complex workflows.
- Automate routine tasks.
- Enhance decision-making.
" The public release of ChatGPT sparked significant innovation, particularly in leveraging LLM and gen AI technologies. Although still evolving for business and mission critical processes, these technologies already offer promising applications in attended and task-focused areas. However, with a surge of offerings from top vendors, customers need discernment to sift through the hype and realize consistent value."
Head of competitive intelligence, SS&C Blue Prism
Top tip: Do your gen AI due diligence. It’s a relatively new technology and you need to ensure your use complies with growing regulations around it.
Prediction 2: More citizen-led process development
You’d be surprised at how many organizations still use legacy systems, which can make it difficult for your processes to adapt to new tech. That’s why we predict that more low-code and no-code tools will continue to grow in popularity as it helps speed up process improvements without a complete overhaul of legacy systems.
According to Gartner®, “CIOs have already been laying the foundation for democratized digital delivery with technologies such as low-code platforms, which 64% of CIOs said they have deployed or plan to deploy in the next 24 months.”
What does this mean for you?
- Simplifies building enterprise web applications.
- Removes the reliance on IT and developers.
- Regular business users actively participate in challenge identification and solution development.
- Improves efficiency, cost-effectiveness and speed to achieve digital transformation goals.
“There will be increased pressure on productivity and efficiency in long-established, ‘traditional’ businesses as they face stronger competition from new and agile competitors that were ‘born digital’. This will put more pressure on companies to seek alternative ways to perform work as they are compelled to reduce headcount in order to remain competitive.”
Head of industry strategy, EMEA, SS&C Blue Prism
Top tip: If you haven’t already, explore low- and no-code options in your business processes and BPM projects.
Prediction 3: BPM to strategically support compliance and security
BPM will be even more important in 2024 to help enable organizations to have a structured and strategic approach to incorporate new technologies, all while ensuring regulatory compliance. This includes the generative AI regulations we’ll likely see introduced as well as the increased regulations on environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting.
What does adopting BPM for compliance mean for you?
- It helps address security and compliance proactively throughout your supply chain.
- It ensures data is only available to those who need it when they need it.
- Adaptive processes that let you easily manage and prioritize in real time.
“2024 will see an avalanche of regulations fall on companies – it is not just about emissions and carbon footprint, so there is so much more that is going to be needed to report on.”
VP alliances and commercial operations, SS&C Blue Prism
Top tip: We recommend finding a BPM technology vendor or using a BPM tool to proactively make your processes compliant. It just means that you can avoid the need for an extensive overhaul in the future and adopting new regulations becomes far more manageable.
Prediction 4: BPM becomes more than just management
We expect more consolidation of intelligent automation (IA) technologies, including BPM, AI, robotic process automation (RPA) and machine learning (ML) to name a few, into a unified vendor/platform model so that business processes and customer interaction become more holistic and efficient. In the future, you’ll only need to have access to one platform, system or partner in order to plan, design, implement and analyze processes.
What does this mean for you?
- More efficient process creation, adjustment and implementation.
- More capabilities for BPM to support dynamic and collaborative work.
- Lower total cost of ownership (TCO).
“BPA offering vendors have expanded their automation capabilities to include adjacent technologies such as process mining, discovery and intelligent document processing (IDP).”
Competitive Landscape: Business Process Automation, 14 April 2023
Top tip: Look for tools and resources that work together, or even find a partner that offers everything you need as a package can simplify BPM. If you choose a mix-and-match approach to BPM or IA, ensure component compatibility.
Prediction 5: Making BPM even more customizable to you
In the ever-accelerating pace of technological advancement, survival for organizations hinges on adaptability. But that’s easier said than done; processes for all organizations are unique, so it can be frustrating to always incorporate new, better tech. We predict that BPM and BPA platforms will evolve to offer an improved solution: microservices and componentization.
What does this mean for you?
- Stay innovative and adaptable.
- Ecosystems are customizable to support several market conditions.
“97% of decision-makers said their firm’s IT maturity was at the traditional or modern stage, suggesting they’re still in catch-up.”
Predictions 2024: Enterprise Software
Top tip: Assess your current systems and see which ones are outdated. Consider updating them and using a BPM solution to craft better experiences consistently.
Prediction 6: Centering on the customer
2024 will see BPM and BPA strategies and implementation focus on the customer. The spotlight will be on refining organizational processes to directly enhance customer satisfaction, aligning technology with the goal of delivering an unparalleled customer experience.
What does this mean for you?
- Improved customer satisfaction.
- Greater response efficiency.
- Accurate customer data.
“We will move away from action-driven automation (how is it achieved) towards outcome-driven automation (what is needed).”
Senior director, product management, SS&C Blue Prism
Top tip: Prioritize the improvement and optimization of customer-centric processes.
Prediction 7: Detailed understanding of processes
Task mining and process mining will become stars of the show next year. They will only become more imperative to adopt to truly understand how business processes work so that organizations can adopt new innovations and technologies more effectively and efficiently.
What does this mean for you?
- Heightened visibility.
- Data-driven decision making.
- Continuous improvement.
“More than 50% of organizations now use process intelligence tools, and the remainder plan to use them.”
Predictions 2024: Automation
Top tip: Invest in process intelligence tools to create accurate process models to learn more about your process execution as it happens, not just how you think they’re happening. There are more nuances than you might think.
BPM Trends in 2024
These are the seven predictions we believe will be shaping the BPM/BPA industry in 2024. For a more detailed analysis of each prediction, informed by our experts and analysts, download the 2024 Business Process Management Predictions e-book to learn more.