Business process management (BPM) challenges affect every part of an organization—from people and systems to leadership and performance. Knowing how to handle them is critical to successful BPM implementation.
In a fast-moving digital world, managing business processes well is critical for staying competitive. But implementing BPM isn’t easy.
This article is designed for business leaders, process managers, and IT professionals who need to overcome common BPM challenges to improve efficiency and achieve long-term success.
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Business process management challenges arise at every stage of the BPM lifecycle—from initial discovery to long-term improvement. Anticipating challenges and how to overcome them can make the difference between success and failure.
To ensure BPM success, it is vital to explain the value of business process management clearly to everyone involved. Done right, BPM leads to faster processes, smarter decisions, better collaboration, and lower costs. Making key stakeholders aware of all this will help you build momentum and gain buy-in.
BPM touches many areas of your business—operations, leadership, IT, and vendor selection. It is therefore unsurprising that organizations face a diverse set of challenges when implementing BPM.
Below are 19 of the most common BPM challenges. For each, you’ll find a tip to address it and a metric to help track improvement.
These challenges typically arise from structural or cultural issues within your organization. They can hinder cross-team collaboration and the adoption of process management tools.
Employees may resist the unfamiliar systems and revised roles introduced by BPM. They may even worry that their jobs are being threatened. This will slow the adoption of new workflow management systems and undermine transformation efforts.
Having siloed departments leads to restricted information flows and obstructs coordination between teams right across the business process management lifecycle. This impairs process consistency and slows decision-making, which leads to delays in cross-functional initiatives.
Constraints related to budget, personnel, or technology can delay BPM efforts, reduce scope, and make your company less process efficient. This may limit the reach and effectiveness of your initiative.
Without clear ownership, processes become fragmented and process performance lacks accountability. Performance management becomes difficult, conflicts are generated, and work gets left undone.
Without clear direction and executive support, BPM initiatives may fail to align with broader business goals and gain traction.
BPM without leadership endorsement may lack visibility, resources, and strategic alignment. As a result, your initiative might stall.
Unspecified or conflicting objectives when optimizing business processes seed confusion and lead to inconsistent execution. This reduces focus and ROI.
Without a measurement framework, BPM efforts become difficult to evaluate and adjust. Improvement remains anecdotal, and the true value of the initiative goes unrecognized, which can lead to future initiatives being rejected.
These relate to the IT infrastructure and technical capabilities required to support BPM tools and integrate them into daily operations.
Older platforms may not be able to communicate with new BPM tools to meet current business needs. This leads to fragmentation that reduces workflow efficiency.
Inaccurate or inconsistent data sets undermine BPM analysis and automation. As a result, optimization is hampered.
Tailoring BPM software too heavily creates complexity and hinders adaptability. This can make maintenance timely and costly.
BPM initiatives require knowledge that internal teams may not have. Without it, projects can get delayed or poorly executed.
Challenges in this category concern the ability to evaluate BPM initiatives through good data management and ensure they are driving tangible performance improvements.
If there is no benchmark, it is impossible to track improvement. Consequently, teams operate without reference points, and the business benefits of a process innovation become subjective.
Disparate tools isolate data and reduce visibility. This makes automating business processes more difficult and means bottlenecks are harder to detect. Using several management tools is also likely to increase costs.
Complex reports can obscure insights. This means stakeholders may miss key trends and it may be harder to communicate the value of BPM.
When process management is inconsistent, compliance risks arise. This means audits become lengthier and more challenging.
Tool and vendor issues stem from poor selection, limited functionality, and a lack of future-readiness in BPM solutions.
Selecting a BPM tool without thorough vetting often results in a poor fit. Capabilities may be lacking, integration may be limited, and user adoption may suffer due to poor usability. A misaligned tool can also hinder scalability and make it harder to achieve long-term BPM goals.
A solution that cannot grow with your business becomes a liability. System limitations will surface quickly, and time and budget will be wasted.
BPM vendors that fail to take a future-oriented approach in their software design will quickly be selling an outdated product. This will hold your business back and may lead to a sunk-cost fallacy.
Niche tools that only support narrow processes and ones that are designed for purposes other than BPM limit expansion. As a result, your organization will probably need to reinvest later to reach its full BPM potential.
Understanding business process management challenges is key to achieving BPM success. By anticipating obstacles and applying strategic solutions, your organization can optimize processes effectively, automate repetitive tasks, and continuously improve. With the right BPM software, you can turn process challenges into opportunities for innovation, compliance, and growth.
Download the 7-step guide to ensure future process transformations are smooth and repeatable.
