Business process integration (BPI)
What is business process integration (BPI)?
In most modern enterprises, it’s difficult to maintain visibility and control across different locations, departments, and systems. By combining concepts like business process management (BPM), workflow automation, and process automation, BPI aims to break down these barriers to improve operational efficiency and achieve a more autonomous enterprise.
What’s the difference between BPI and BPM?
BPI and BPM are closely related concepts that must work together as part of a continuous process improvement effort. Developments in artificial intelligence (AI) have strengthened transformation efforts for many organizations, dramatically accelerating the process of building and refining workflows and making the vision of BPI a reality.
BPI
- Framework to describe the process of integrating different aspects of a business to improve efficiency
- Includes different process improvement methodologies and frameworks
- Describes the process of improving visibility to break down data and technology silos across an organization
BPM
- Overarching process management strategy
- Defines, models, and optimizes business processes
- Identifies areas in a specific workflow that can benefit from automation
- Some organizations adhere to standards like BPMN
Why is BPI important?
Effective business process integration allows organizations to streamline operations, save time, make better decisions, automate customer service, and ultimately increase customer satisfaction. BPI also helps complex organizations spend less time maintaining disparate systems and more time on high-priority projects.
Benefits of BPI
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Streamlined operations
An effective BPI program allows organizations to improve efficiency by eliminating redundant tasks and reducing manual intervention, leading to cost savings, reduced time to delivery, and streamlined operations. -
Reduced costs
BPI can significantly reduce operational expenses by automating manual tasks, minimizing human error, and improving efficiency across multiple departments. -
Increased customer satisfaction
BPI allows organizations to automate customer service to spend more time delighting customers and less time on manual processes, leading to more personalized omni channel experiences, improved satisfaction, and reduced customer churn. -
Better decision-making
With integrated processes, organizations have access to better data, leading to improved transparency, actionable insights, and more informed decision-making.
How does BPI work?
BPI allows an organization to run more smoothly by connecting people, processes, and data to reduce manual work and improve efficiency. An effective business process integration model should eliminate process gaps, reduce duplication, connect distinct processes, and enable real-time decisioning.
Our broad and flexible set of integrations lets you access data across any application.
What are the different types of BPI?
Robotic process automation
Robotic process automation (RPA) uses bots to automate repetitive manual tasks, eliminating the need for human intervention while enabling employees to focus on more important tasks and initiatives.
Business process management
BPM is a methodology to manage processes and workflows in an organization and is a crucial component of any BPI strategy.
Process mining
Process mining bridges data mining and BPM, allowing organizations to drive continuous optimization by visualizing and analyzing their processes based on factual data.
Workflow automation
Workflow automation brings together the people and information needed to use AI and software to execute various tasks and processes. Workflow automation is a task-level enhancement that focuses on specific steps within a process.
While there are many different aspects of a successful BPI strategy, having access to the right data at the right time is always a key component. As an example, Pega Live Data allows users to quickly and easily define the data required to build the apps they need, and then access that data directly – all without having to worry about how and where the data is actually stored and accessed.
When you put Pega workflows at the center, you can evolve rapidly, at scale.
What are some challenges in integrating business processes?
While there are many benefits to establishing a BPI strategy, there are also several common challenges for most organizations. It’s critical to have BPI champions at various levels of leadership and across different departments to overcome challenges and successfully drive change.
- Data silos
In many large organizations, data is stored in multiple systems across many different departments, with varying levels of access control and security. Integrating these disparate sources is a crucial aspect of BPI. - Complicated business processes
Especially in enterprise environments, some business processes are naturally complex, involving multiple stakeholders and decision points across various areas of the business. Aligning with decision makers to establish business processes is crucial to the success of any BPI program. - Legacy technology
Legacy systems and technical debt are common challenges for establishing BPI. But with effective communication and change management, organizations can successfully secure buy-in for process integration programs.
What are some use cases for BPI?
BPI is vital for organizations across many different industries. With distinct legal, regulatory, and business requirements, a BPI effort must be tailored to the specific needs of the organization and the industry it operates in.
Insurance
Traditional insurance claims processing can be a slow, complicated process involving significant manual intervention. BPI can help streamline and automate workflows in the insurance industry, eliminating repetitive tasks and improving claim processing time. For example, Aflac was able to automate the processing of 3,000+ emails per week with the help of Pega Customer Service™.
Healthcare
In healthcare, effective BPI can help automate manual tasks like patient scheduling, prescription refill reminders, lab result delivery, and much more. For example, by integrating disconnected systems and processes, enGen was able to reduce annual average medical cost by $17 million and increase members served with case management by 2.5X.
Automotive
The automotive industry relies on interconnected processes, making it an ideal scenario for BPI. For example, with a new approach to process automation and BPI, a global auto industry powerhouse created a quality information management system to automate quality inspection and allow workers to identify and report issues seamlessly. With 14 manufacturing sites in North America alone, the automaker was able to reduce application development time by 73% with 300% ROI over five years.
How to get started with BPI
The process of establishing a BPI program is different for every organization, but generally, you will want to start by identifying current pain points within operational workflows and assigning stakeholders from relevant business units. For most businesses, engaging with established experts in BPI can help streamline this process.
- Identify current business processes
Most organizations should start with a thorough audit of current business processes and workflows to identify opportunities for integration and improvement. - Choose the right approach
Evaluate your current systems and technology stack to identify opportunities to reduce technical debt, integrate systems, and streamline business processes with the biggest impact on revenue. - Develop an implementation plan
It’s often helpful to start small with a pilot program to test your BPI tools and approach. Identify a low-risk project to help identify potential blockers and challenges before scaling up to a larger, more complex BPI program.
Empower your organization to manage complex business processes, automate workflows, and drive transformative service.
Frequently Asked Questions about BPI
