Friday 4th April, 2014

Too often still an after-thought, the use of social media has the power to strengthen an organisation's process improvement. Social media by definition is immediate and by using it organisations have access to real-time data. Many of today's leading organisations are already making use of it in their BPM agendas.

The latest research on the subject by Accenture suggests that organisations that embrace social BPM will become more agile, improving their ability to deal with volatility and risk.

If, for example, there is an issue in goods received, immediate online communication between customer and supplier can help the parties address the problem and improve the process. In doing so, the organisation also raises their visibility in a way that customer's increasingly expect.

Social media can also be an excellent tool for bridging the gap between external networking and internal integration. For example, an organisation’s I.T department can use social media to communicate with the engineering division as it works on new products, often creating a tighter feedback loop between the two departments than existed previously.

Transparency has long been an ingredient of the success of process-driven organizations. Social media takes that transparency to a different level, gathering and disseminating the feedback that improves existing processes and creates new ones. Increasingly companies are using online blogs as a way of interacting between departments and strenthening the bond between BPM decision makers and the users affected by their decisions.