The assimilation of technology, business sense and compliance into an organization's BPM practice can encourage both internal and external users to increase productivity, operational efficiency, and focus, and be more compliant with regulations.

While practitioners of business process management within an organization still need to pay attention to new trends such as collaboration, mobility and others, it is the way these new functionalities are not simply adopted but assimilated within the organization that will enable real change. They cannot work in isolation and must be converted into organic parts of the company. Some of the salient aspects associated with this assimilation are the following:

Technology. Best-in-class companies can and will acquire the necessary technology assets with the aim of remaining dominant and competitive; other companies will do their best with what they can afford. Mobile, cloud and other assets will continue to be important to consider, but more essential will be the assimilation of these technologies within the corporate value chain to optimize their benefit, by turning them into transformational assets for BPM practice. Technology adoption must be transparent so that it does not disrupt the value chain and adapts as much as possible to the existing technology framework.

Business. While new technologies play a major role in business transformation, it is the business side of the business that conducts its adoption, thus closing the virtuous cycle. Commitment from the business side of an organization is vital to ensure the adoption, use and final assimilation of technology and best practices. Cascading top-bottom responsibility for operational improvement and efficiency remains the cornerstone of real business process improvement.

Compliance. Last but not least, the ability of a business to quickly adapt to ever changing regulations, both internal and external to an organization, is key for making a business agile and responsive to new business and compliance demands. The BPM practice of an organization needs to ensure that business, technology and software are built into a coherent infrastructure that is ready to comply with and answer to new regulatory demands while maintaining optimal operations, avoiding disruptions, and performing at a maximum level of efficiency.

                                                    The Outlook

In 2014 both BPM users and software providers will increase their efforts to gain process efficiency by applying a holistic approach that includes the adoption of technology with less friction and better integration with other IT components, thereby creating benefit for the business.

New BPM initiatives will look to make better use of technology, be more business savvy, and incorporate elements to enable compliance with regulatory standards.