Business process management (BPM) software was designed to improve efficiency in managing and automating your business workflows. These business processes include marketing automation and CRM tools, employee onboarding, account management, invoicing, PTO requests, ERP systems, project management, business intelligence, and more.
However, deciding on this tool is not easy since it involves a lot of factors to be taken into consideration as it is involved in every part of your business operations.
To make your decisions easy, I have reviewed and ranked the best BPM software tools based on features, integrations, customizations, workflows, ease of use, and more.
So let’s get started.
What is the Best Business Process Management (BPM) Software?
Here is my list of top BPM software solutions to use this year.
1. Monday.com
Best overall BPM software ($8 per seat per month).
Monday is a tool that allows you to automate and manage your work without any code, hence it’s considered a no-code BPM software. You can also plan, deliver, and track your team’s work from a single dashboard. Overall, it’s the best BPM for customization.
The data visualization dashboard also lets you monitor your data with different views like Map view, Timeline view, Calendar view, Kanban view, etc.
Plus, it provides you with hundreds of pre-designed templates to create a project and business plan. Moreover, the drag-and-drop interface makes it simple to store, share, and upload files. Additionally, it also offers a search bar option to search your files using keywords, tags, added team members, etc.
Besides, you can enhance team members’ collaboration using features like mentioning teammates, leaving comments, attaching images, etc. The BPM platform is also capable of conducting video conferences within your project dashboard.
Additionally, it assists you in gaining an overview of the project by providing insights into your workflows, project status, budget spending, etc. Moreover, you can integrate 40+ business tools to ease operations for your team members.
Additionally, Monday.com provides 24/7 customer support with less than a 60-minute response time. You can also watch tutorials, attend webinars, and find solutions from its extensive knowledge base. No doubt, it is in the top 10 bpm tools list due to its numerous features offered.
Key Features of Monday Business Process Management:
- Allows you to add relevant comments to the project
- Drag and drop interface for storing and uploading files
- Advanced Search Filter Option
- Provides map view for location-based projects
- Highly Customizable Workflow
Pricing Plans:
Monday.com offers a 14-day free trial with its four paid plans
- Basic: $8 per seat per month
- Standard: $10 per seat per month
- Pro: $16 per seat per month
- Enterprise: Quote-based
2. IBM Blueworks Live
Best for large enterprises ($53 per user per month)
IBM Blueworks Live is a cloud-based workflow management software that helps you improve and build business processes through process mapping. It helps you include details in the process steps, assign owners to different lanes, visually depict your business processes, and more.
You can easily map your tasks and projects using IBM-provided drag-and-drop functionality. Plus, you are offered over 200 workflow templates and business projects that you customize the way you want.
Allows you to invite your team members or even external stakeholders to review and edit process maps from the Blueworks dashboard. Additionally, its cloud-based platforms save your hassles to downloading anything and ensure you access it everywhere.
Key Features of IBM Blueworks Live:
- Displays live news feed so that you don’t miss any new updates.
- Powerful messaging interface.
- Process automation within the business workflow.
- Allows Commenting on the platform.
- Provide playback and analyze features to get a better understanding.
- Allows you to publish your decisions and processes.
Pricing Plans:
IBM Blueworks Live offers three pricing plans:
- Cloud: Starting at $53 per user per month
- Private: Quote-based
- Federal: Quote-based
IBM also provides you with a 30-day free trial to access all the features. Plus, its BPM program allows you to invite an unlimited number of co-workers to collaborate. Additionally, IBM provides plenty of online tutorials and questionnaires to help you get started.
3. Appian
Best for data analytics and tracking market demands ($60 per user per month).
Appian is a low-code iBPM (intelligent business process management) tool that assists you in executing, managing, optimizing, designing, and automating workflows. Additionally, it allows you to perform data migration, view data in a single interface, and enhance and connect the existing system.
Thanks to its patented technology capabilities your built code is compatible with all devices like Mac, PC, Web, Android, iOS, etc. Simply speaking, it operates as a coding platform along with a business process management suite. Plus, you get access to data from multiple locations at a single place and perform actions on every data source using a single Appian dashboard.
Moreover, it offers drag-and-drop functionality to create process-based solutions and embed the process in existing apps. The ability to track and analyze market demands allows you to produce a data-based business process.
Additionally, it provides various process management features to re-assign tasks, view performance in real time, and monitor in-flight processes. It also performs predictive analysis and historical analysis to identify issues and resolve them accordingly. Also, its skill-based routing feature assists you in assigning the right task to a suitable person.
Finally, it provides integrations with business tools like Salesforce, SAP, Google AI, AWS, Azure, Zero code, Blue Prism, and more to perform more business activities on a single platform.
Key Features of Appian:
- Drag and drop UI development.
- Low-code development.
- Build-in AI-powered by Google.
- Reporting and Analytics to create accurate business processes.
- Automate your tasks and workflows without APIs.
- Use pre-built UIs in your programs and codes to save time.
- Perform real-time testing of your coding using Appian’s software or mobile app.
Pricing Plans:
Appian has four tiers of pricing:
- Free: $0/mo
- Standard: $60 per user per month
- Flat Fee: Custom quote
- Enterprise: Custom quote
Now let’s understand the basics.
What is BPM Software?
Business Process Management (BPM) software helps you in mapping your business processes and tasks. It helps to enhance efficiency across the organization by identifying and eliminating roadblocks and increasing productivity.
BPM software helps company employees to align the business processes with key performance indicators and company deliverables to add value to end customers.
Appian, Monday.com, Process Street, and Kissflow are some of the best BPM tools in the market. The interesting point to note over here is that it will automate every task on the platform. Today, corporations are turning to cash in these platforms by incorporating automation in their workflow. There are many reasons for this new drive.
Statistics suggest that automation results in three times more conversion of leads into sales. Moreover, a research study shows that it increases business productivity by more than 15% and reduces costs down by 12%.
What Features Do You Need in a BPM Software?
These will differ from industry to industry and their deliverables. Additionally, it will vary based on sector and ownership. However, there are a few qualities of a business process management solution that are absolutely essential irrespective of the industry.
Here’s a list of some of the functionalities that you might need in a BPM business process management software:
1. Uptime
Today like most businesses are running global scale, there’s no room for software downtime anymore. Moreover, business process continuity depends on the 24/7 working of employees from different geographies round the clock.
While 100% uptime is not possible, software like Monday.com and Appian do provide a 99.9% uptime for this purpose.
2. Third-Party Integrations
A business process analysis software should provide extensive third-party integrations to leverage multiple applications and fill the gap of functionalities in a single application. Plus, it enhances functionalities and keeps the primary application lightweight. Thus, it’s a great idea to opt for a business process automation software vendor that integrates with business apps like Facebook, JIRA, Trello, Shopify, Dropbox, Slack, etc.
3. Customer Service
Excellent customer service is crucial to ensure everything runs smoothly regarding business process management. Company employees cannot resolve any software issue and business productivity may get hampered if not helped at right time. . Thus, you might want to choose a tool that offers 24/7 customer support via live chat, phone, and email.
Also, you should look for standard features like processes and forms modeling, data analysis, enterprise architecture modeling, social collaboration tools, project management integration, etc.
4. Scalability
A BPM software should be highly scalable to ensure there is no bottleneck in your growth story. Thus, you need Enterprise BPM software that scales with your organization’s profits, goals, and needs. Without scalability, it becomes costly to switch midway in terms of time and money.
5. Pricing
It’s very crucial to keep an eye on the budget no matter how useful the tool sounds. You can afford to splurge money if you are a big company, but this luxury is not available to most startups and small businesses.
That’s why a business must look at aspects like:
- Free trial period
- Renewal fees
- Pricing and features available
- Plan validity periods
6. User-Friendly Dashboard
Make sure you adopt BPM workflow software without exception throughout the entire organization to reap its full benefits. Thus, BPM software should be user-friendly that provides a simple and intuitive dashboard.
It should also offer features like task lists, shared workflows, in-built process templates, calendars, and one-click Gantt charts & forms. It should also be easy for users to switch between traditional views and Kanban boards.
Best Business Process Mapping Software – Final Summary
This covers my list of some of the best business process management software. All these BPM solution providers will help you manage, streamline, and build your business workflows and processes.
In the end, you’ll have to make an informed choice based on your experience, business requirements, team size, and budget.
All in all, I’d recommend Monday.com. It’s considerably affordable and offers impressive features like workflow management, a drag-and-drop dashboard, different dashboard views ( calendar, map, timeline, and kanban ), workflow automation, and a lot of other project management features.
Make sure to review all the tools carefully before making your final choice.
More from Smashitbuck: Do check out my other articles on gaming cryptocurrency, reputation management software, and PRM software to read this year.
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