Business Process Management in 2022: Here’s what you were reading
As 2022 ends, let’s look at what our readers enjoyed the most over the last year in the areas of business transformation and operational excellence.
In many respects, 2022 developed differently than what we expected back in January. Unpredictable and unprecedented global political and economic situations forced many companies to strengthen their business transformation initiatives. We’ve seen business models change rapidly to adapt and respond to changing market conditions, and businesses have learned that successful enterprises are those that pivot from a traditional model — “the way we’ve always done things” — to new and innovative ways of working.
The key drivers behind all these different operational excellence endeavors include accelerating digital transformation, increasing customer satisfaction, and optimizing business processes in terms of cost, time, and quality. Sustainability has also become a central corporate objective, and the management of risk to ensure business resiliency and regulatory compliance has become increasingly important.
We covered many of these topics — as well as many others — on the Software AG blog to help our readers and customers understand how technology can support business transformation and operational excellence. As 2022 ends, we want to recap some of our most popular content just in case you missed it so you can prepare for a successful new year.
Operational Excellence
Our readers wanted to learn more about business process management (BPM) in general and understand the truths behind the persistent myths surrounding the topic (see: “Debunking some BPM Myths“). Casper Jans takes a similar view and uses the massive consolidation trend in the process mining space as an opportunity to describe the benefits of an integrated business process management approach (see: “Integrated BPM“).
Though it feels like the Winter Olympics were eons ago, such a sporting event is always a good opportunity to draw parallels to performance optimization in business (see: “Lessons in operational excellence from the Winter Olympics“).
In “Five things that can go wrong with process automation“, we underline that — with the current widespread adoption of automation technologies — the prerequisite for success remains process transparency and continuous optimization.
And finally, do you still remember seeing images of long queues at airports and train stations during the summer and autumn? We can’t forget that at the center of all operational excellence efforts should be the customers and meeting their needs (see: “Have we forgotten about customer experience?“).
Process Mining
Though Process Mining is not brand new, 2022 ushered in a new era as it became one of the most powerful technologies used to identify the vulnerabilities of business operations and successfully trigger the needed optimization activities.
We highlighted the connection between process modeling and process mining, and how both are critical to developing business strategy and to having a clear understanding of where your business is today (see: “Process Mining vs Process Modeling: Two Sides of the Same Coin“).
We also described concrete application scenarios of process mining further in the areas of financial services (see: “Process mining helps banks comply with sanctions“) and core business process procurement (see: “Process mining optimizes procurements and supply chain“).
Sustainability
The topic of sustainability received an enormous amount of attention in 2022, driven by the climate crisis and energy discussions. It is obvious that this aspect also plays an increasingly important role in the definition and optimization of business processes.
We looked at this connection between process management and sustainability from a number of angles (see: “DO look up: with sustainable processes“, and “A guide to achieving your ESG objectives“). And we put the importance of sustainability into context for executive-level leadership as it has high significance for the external messaging and overall strategy of most organizations (see: “5 reasons why CEOs should care about sustainability“).
Finally, we describe the concrete implications of sustainability and sustainability initiatives will ultimately have on the financial sector (see: “The process challenge of sustainable finance“).
Regulatory Compliance
Finally, in 2022, the number of legal rules and regulations increased, adding to an unbroken trend over recent years. For companies, this increase means thinking about how compliance management can be operated even more efficiently (see: “The digital future of compliance“).
Last year was also characterized by numerous critical situations (supply chains at risk, cyberattacks, etc.) that many companies dealt with. We learned that process management must prepare companies for unplanned situation and that operational excellence must go hand-in-hand with risk management to achieve business resilience in these turbulent times (see: “Business resilience remains paramount“).
The year 2022 was certainly unpredictable and unprecedented, but we saw our customers across every industry respond with a mixture of determination, agility, and innovation. We at Software AG wish you a very happy holiday season, a wonderful new year, and we look forward to taking on all the new and exciting business process transformation and operational excellence challenges with you in 2023.