What Does BPM Actually Stand For?

One of the most interesting things I have learnt recently from talking to people at trade shows is that despite all the media interest surrounding the huge potential and rising popularity of ‘BPM’ technology, there is still a lot of confusion over what the letters ‘BPM’ stand for and even more importantly what BPM software actually does.

This confusion appears to stem from the fact that the letters ‘BPM’ have been used as an acronym for a number of different things over the years and therefore now mean different things to different people.

The three most common terms that keep coming up in conversations at shows are:

1. ‘Business Process Modelling’
2. ‘Business Performance Management’
3. ‘Business Process Management'

So which is the right answer?

Well, the bad news is that there is no right or wrong answer. It’s a fact that ‘BPM’ can stand for all of these terms.

The good news however, is that these terms are all closely connected and they all boil down to one crucial thing …

… they can ALL help you improve the performance of your business!

Lets take a quick look at how they are related:

1) Business Process Modelling plays a vital role in Business Process Management. It is one of the first steps in a Business Process Management project and it is simply the drawing (i.e. modelling) of individual business processes in clear, graphical, flowchart diagrams.

A good process model has a wide variety of uses that include providing a single, easy to understand description of an entire process, identifying bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement, communicating ideas and training new staff.

For more detailed information about Process Modelling, you can download our free guide “How to Model Your Business Processes” from the Free Tools page at www.PresenceBPM.com


2) Business Performance Management also plays an important role in Business Process Management and involves the consolidation of data from various sources, the querying and analysis of the data, and then putting the results into practice.

This added visibility into a company’s core data allows KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) and metrics to be established, accurately measured and constant process improvements made and monitored.


3) Business Process Management includes Business Process Modelling, Business Performance Management and much more. Most of the current news stories and excitement in the press about ‘BPM’ refers to ‘Business Process Management’.

Business Process Management can be defined as the discipline of improving a company’s business processes by aligning strategy, management and operations to optimize business performance.

In its simplest form, it can be seen as a 3-step process:

1. Model your processes.
2. Identify areas for improvement.
3. Implement improvements and monitor results.

… and then repeat to create a cycle of continuous improvement.

Business Process Management technology is a new type of process-based software that compliments and extends the functionality of the IT systems and applications you already own. It can be used to develop and manage flexible new applications (often without writing any code) in order to get more value out of your existing IT investments and improve the performance of your business processes.

Whether you want to integrate data from disparate data, web-enable older technology, automate entire processes, monitor and alert on your data or create real-time reports and dashboards, this groundbreaking software can do it all and much much more.

So, what does ‘BPM’ actually stand for?

Well I like to tell people that it stands for ‘Improving Business Performance’ and wait for the puzzled look to appear on their faces!

Richard Knill