Top 10 Best Business Process Management Tools for 2024 - Increase Operational Efficiency

Business process management (bpm) tools are essential for companies looking to optimize and automate their business processes. With the right bpm platform, organizations can improve efficiency, reduce costs, and drive better outcomes. In this comprehensive 4000 word guide, we will look at the top 10 best business process management tools for 2024 and how these solutions can increase operational efficiency.

What is Business Process Management and Why It Matters

Business process management (bpm) is a disciplined approach used by organizations to identify, design, execute, document, measure, monitor, control, and improve business processes. Bpm tools and software enable users to map out their end-to-end business processes and workflows in a visual manner.

A business process is a collection of related tasks or activities that together create value for a customer or achieve a business objective. Business processes like order fulfillment, claims processing, and employee onboarding involve people, systems, data, policies and other assets to deliver a product or service.

A bpm tool provides capabilities for process modeling, automation, integration, monitoring, and optimization. Using a business process management system helps organizations improve productivity, reduce costs and errors, and quickly adapt to changing business needs.

There are many benefits to implementing a business process management tool:

Visualize and Map Processes

A bpm tool allows you to create visual process maps of your workflows from end-to-end. This provides visibility into the steps, activities, business rules, systems and stakeholders involved. Process modeling helps identify inefficiencies and bottlenecks.

Automate Tasks and Activities

Bpm software makes it easy to automate repetitive, manual tasks through workflow automation. This eliminates duplicate efforts and improves efficiency. Intelligent automation can route work to the right people or systems.

Ensure Compliance and Consistency

Following standardized processes ensures compliance with regulations and consistency in outputs. Bpm tools allow you to embed business rules and logic.

Improve Collaboration

With all stakeholders involved in designing and improving processes, it enhances collaboration across business units. Bpm software also facilitates information sharing.

Adapt Agile Processes

Visual process maps make it easy to pivot and adapt processes when business needs change. Bpm enables building agile processes that evolve with the business.

Optimize Continuously

With process analytics and data, you can simulate scenarios and continuously improve processes. Bpm allows you to optimize processes for improved efficiency and outcomes.

Gain Real-time Visibility

Bpm dashboards and reports provide real-time visibility into the performance of live processes. You gain insights to resolve bottlenecks instantly.

For these reasons, business process management has become critical for companies striving to transform their operations in an increasingly digital business environment. Next, we will look at leading options among the top business process management solutions for 2024.

Top 10 Business Process Management Tools for 2024

1. Appian

Appian is one of the leading low-code business process management suites. It speeds up building and deploying enterprise applications for automating complex business processes.

Key features include:

• Intuitive drag-and-drop interface to model processes visually

• In-built features for workflow management and automation

• Forms and document management

• Ready-to-use application templates

• Integration with third-party apps and data sources

• Process analytics and artificial intelligence

• Multi-experience development to deliver applications across devices and platforms

With Appian, organizations can map, design, automate, manage, and optimize business processes through a unified platform. It is ideal for transformation initiatives where change needs to be delivered rapidly.

2. Kissflow

Kissflow offers a complete no-code BPM platform and workplace to digitize business processes and build workflows and applications rapidly.

Key capabilities:

• Intuitive visual designer for process mapping

• Pre-built connectors to integrate easily with hundreds of apps

• Workflow builder to automate approvals, assignments, alerts

• Forms builder to create data collection forms quickly

• Reports, dashboards, and analytics for insights

• Collaboration features for teams and groups

• Artificial intelligence to streamline workflows

Using Kissflow, both business users and IT teams can collaborate to automate workflows across departments and transform business operations.

3. Nintex

Nintex provides capabilities to manage, automate, and optimize business processes quickly with digital forms, workflows, and analytics. It seamlessly integrates with tools like SharePoint and Office 365.

Key features:

• Workflow automation with prebuilt templates

• Tools to easily build forms, surveys, quizzes

• Drag and drop workflow designer

• Connectors to link workflows with leading apps 

• Advanced analytics, reporting and dashboards

• RPA bots to integrate robotic process automation

• Nintex Promapp for process mapping

Nintex accelerates business process management across an enterprise by making it easy to turn manual processes into automated workflows across systems and teams.

4. Bizagi

Bizagi is a digital process automation platform for modeling and optimizing processes. It provides intelligent automation, application integration, and real-time analytics.

Key capabilities:

• Powerful graphical process modeling

• Workflow engine to build and run automated processes

• Forms management for data capture

• Integrates with other apps and data sources

• Process simulation to visualize and optimize processes

• Business activity monitoring and analytics

• AI to evolve processes continuously

Bizagi helps organizations to connect, visualize end-to-end processes, and drive digital transformation. It is used by Fortune 500 companies worldwide.

5. BP Logix

BP Logix delivers workflow automation, forms management, and business rules management capabilities. It offers easy drag-and-drop process design and rapid deployment of apps.

Key features:

• Agile process builder with BPMN 2.0 support

• Intuitive forms designer for data collection

• Business rules management for consistency

• Real-time process analytics and dashboards

• Role based security, SSO, and SAML support

• Connectors for systems integration

• Available as cloud-based or on-premise

With BP Logix, business users can build and deploy workflow applications rapidly without coding, reducing reliance on IT teams.

6. IBM Business Process Manager

IBM BPM supports multiple environments with process modeling, automation, monitoring, and optimization. It provides visibility into processes through dashboards and analytics.

Key capabilities:

• Visual process modeling with built-in validations

• Rules definition for process consistency

• Library of pre-built reusable process templates 

• Real-time operational intelligence dashboard

• Analytics tools integrated with IBM Watson

• Lifecycle management and version control

• Security and governance controls

IBM BPM enables businesses to gain end-to-end visibility and control over processes through a unified suite. It helps accelerate automation and time-to-value.

7. Pega Platform

Pega Platform provides a unified low-code platform for case management, robotic process automation, workflow, and business rules management. It uses AI to optimize business processes.

Key features:

• Build and iterate processes fast with minimal coding

• Drag and drop workflow design

• Straight-through processing for efficiency

• Integrated AI to guide next best actions

• Real-time analytics for process insights 

• Omnichannel experience for users

• Enterprise scalability to manage high transaction volumes

Pega makes it simpler for business and IT to collaborate on creating algorithms that drive the world's largest companies.

8. Bonitasoft

Bonitasoft enables rapid building of process-centric apps with forms, reports, connectors, and real-time monitoring. It is open source and enterprise-ready for automation at scale.

Key capabilities:

• Extensive BPMN 2.0 support for process modeling

• Forms creation and data management

• Live monitoring dashboard

• Packaged connector for easy integration

• Task management with assign, filter, search

• Scalability to handle high volume processes

• On-premise or private/public cloud options

BonitaSoft empowers citizen developers in business units to take ownership of automating processes through an open and extensible platform.

9. BizFlow

BizFlow offers an all-inclusive intelligent process automation platform with workflow management, reporting, content management, and forms management in one suite.

Key features:

• Process modeling with validation

• Automated workflows and business rules engine

• Drag and drop forms designer

• Document management capabilities

• Real-time analytics and custom reports

• Enterprise scalability and security

• Hundreds of prebuilt connectors

BizFlow enables organizations to rapidly digitize and automate processes without complex coding across multiple applications.

10. ProcessMaker

ProcessMaker makes it easy for business users to collaborate, design, run, optimize, and automate business processes. The open-source tool has strong BPMN support. 

Key capabilities:

• Visual process design with BPMN 2.0

• Form builder for data collection

• Dashboards for real-time intelligence

• Connectors to integrate other systems

• SLAs and deadline management

• Access control and user management

• APIs and webhooks for extensibility

• Open source with community plugins

ProcessMaker empowers non-technical users to map, automate and improve business processes through easy low-code tools.

Key Capabilities to Look for in a Business Process Management Tool

Complete BPMN Support

The standard for modeling processes is BPMN (business process model and notation). Ensure your bpm tool supports the latest BPMN 2.0 for flowcharting workflows.

No-Code Process Design

The process design interface should be visual and intuitive drag-and-drop with pre-built elements so business users can map workflows without coding.

Workflow Automation

Automating manual tasks is where the time and cost savings come from. Assess the workflow engine and pre-built templates.

Forms Management

Creating forms, collecting data, and generating documents are common process needs. Evaluate the forms builder and data handling capabilities.

Business Rules Management

Applying rules and logic ensures processes follow policies and regulations. Check for a business rules engine.

Reporting and Analytics

Real-time dashboards, KPIs, process intelligence are needed for insights into bottlenecks. Verify analytics features.

Integration and Connectors

Processes cross applications, so assess support for APIs, webhooks, and connectors to integrate with other systems.

Security and Compliance

Process applications must meet enterprise governance, security and compliance needs so review these capabilities.

Collaboration Features

Ability for users to collaborate on designing and improving processes improves adoption. Presence of collaboration tools is ideal.

Artificial Intelligence

Look for AI/ML capabilities like predictive analytics, next best action recommendations, chatbots etc to make processes smarter.

Buyer's Guide for Choosing the Right Business Process Management Software

Selecting the most appropriate business process management solution for your needs depends on your specific use cases, industry, size, and other factors. Here is a checklist of criteria to evaluate when choosing a BPM tool:

- User experience - Easy for business teams to learn and use without extensive training

- Cloud vs On-premise - Assess if you need hosted or self-managed deployment 

- Initial setup and deployment - How long before you can build the first process application

- Support for integrations - Prebuilt connectors? APIs and extensibility options?

- Scalability - Can the platform scale and performance as processes and data volumes grow

- Mobile access - Ability to access processes and data on mobile devices

- Security - Robust access controls, encryption, data privacy capabilities

- Total cost of ownership - Subscription, implementation, training and support costs

- Latency - Will performance be snappy for a large number of concurrent users

- Compliance adherence - Review regulatory compliance support like HIPAA, GDPR, SOX

- Process analytics - Dashboard, reporting and visualization capabilities

- Vendor strength - Company stability, support responsiveness, client satisfaction

Prioritize the capabilities that are most important for your use case and environment. Shortlist vendors that best meet your requirements and evaluate through a proof of concept project before committing.

Driving Business Agility and Operational Efficiency with BPM

Implementing the right business process management system enables organizations to achieve business transformation and process excellence. Automating processes improves efficiency, while optimizing them continuously helps gain competitive advantage.

With solutions like Appian, Nintex and Bizagi, companies can enjoy benefits such as:

Quicker cycle times - Automate repetitive tasks to speed up process cycle times

Improved productivity - Eliminate tedious repetitive work so staff can focus on value-add activities

Lower operational costs - Reduce errors and waste through efficient processes 

Better compliance - Improve compliance with built-in validations and controls

Informed decisions - Gain data-driven insights to guide impactful decisions 

Enhanced customer experience - Shorter resolution times and personalized cross-channel engagement

Increased agility - Respond rapidly to changing business needs and environments

Truly intelligent businesses use process data and insights to adapt quickly. They empower people by augmenting their skills and speed with digital tools. By unlocking synergies across systems, they deliver superior efficiency and stakeholder experiences.

BPM solutions enable organizations to become adaptive, quick-moving, and responsive. They break down information silos and create an integrated foundation for digital transformation.

Conclusion - Start Your Process Automation Journey Today

In conclusion, implementing a leading business process management suite is essential to harness automation, achieve operational excellence, and gain business agility. The top 10 BPM software solutions outlined here offer the capabilities to model, execute, monitor and optimize end-to-end processes seamlessly.

Cloud platforms like Appian, Kisflow and Pega accelerate building process-centric applications across desktop and mobile for measurable business impact. BPM is a key enabler on the road to becoming an intelligent, digital business.

Moving forward, expect BPM systems to incorporate more artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, and robotic process automation. This will augment human capability and allow processes to become self-improving.

Now is the time to assess your process environment and identify opportunities to implement BPM for tangible gains. The best practice is to start with a limited pilot, prove value and expand across the organization. Partnering with the right BPM technology provider and system integrator will ensure you achieve process transformation successfully.