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Low-code BPM enables digital transformation

By Marilyn de Villiers
Johannesburg, 10 Jul 2017

Flashy, front-end customer applications won't achieve the much-touted superior customer experiences sought from digital transformation without the support of solid back-end, deep processes.

This is according to The Forrester Wave: Digital Process Automation Software Q3 2017, a new report from Forrester Research that highlights the fact that traditional business process management (BPM) vendors like Appian, IBM and Pegasystems that are rooted in delivering BPM's deep, mission-critical and complex processes, are taking aim at digital transformation by focusing on DPA's wider, more basic, situational process apps.

These apps, says the report's author, Rob Koplowitz, are best led by business users with minimal IT support. They require a wide, low-code development approach that provides a platform for large numbers of rapid, business-driven applications.

Forrester calls the low-code market a "high growth" area, and predicts it will grow to over $10 billion in 2019.

Boston-based BPM vendor Bpm'online says its own experience supports the Forrester report. In its e-book How to fuel your digital transformation in 2017, Bpm'online points out the rapidly increasing amounts of data and digital interactions flooding today's connected organisations make it extremely difficult to keep pace with digital transformation challenges.

Businesses cannot afford to keep throwing more and more resources at BPM initiatives aimed at dealing with the ever-growing number of disjointed processes, tools, applications and solutions that characterise the digitally transforming organisation.

Bpm'online maintains BPM solutions with low-code development and modelling capabilities platforms address these difficulties quickly, easily and affordably.

Low-code development utilises basic visual design tools like drag-and-drop and point-and-click to enable the rapid creation, optimisation, launch, use and change of business processes and even business applications - even by users with no IT background.

It effectively makes BPM available to each user, drastically cutting the expense of digital transformation process as well as overall IT maintenance.

Intelligent BPM tools

Gartner has predicted that by 2020, 60% of all fast-mode application delivery projects will be done outside of formal IT teams.

Bpm'online says successful low-code development and modelling associated with what it terms "intelligent BPM tools" consists of three key pillars:

1. Ease: Minimal or no coding with a user-friendly, visual-based drag-and-drop functionality:
* No or minimal coding required to build or launch a process.
* Minimal upfront cost of the implementation and training.
* Fast alignment between IT and other departments.
* Easy-to-use drag-and-drop functionality to make process or app management easy and intuitive.

2. Performance: enterprise-grade, secure, scalable functionality:
* Powerful tools to fully meet the organisation's digital transformation needs to supercharge the innovation.
* Scalable BPM capabilities with processes that can be scaled as the company or project grows.
* Support of the continuous change and process improvement with minimal investment.
* Unified data: processes, apps, software solutions.

3. Agility: the ability to change processes faster than ever:
* Rapid delivery of processes with an ability to instantly change process elements without having to pause the process.
* Reduced dependence on the IT department.
* Quickly response to evolving market conditions and latest trends.
* Ability to easily keep pace with the ever-growing expectations of prospects, existing clients and employees.
* Comprehensive and accessible analytics to help all system users make data-backed decisions.

"To paint a longer-term vision for an effective digital transformation powered by BPM, business process leaders will need to anchor the business case to their organisation's transition to digital business by fostering genuinely intelligent BPM tools," Bpm'online concludes.

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