User:Jehanbastians/Process Management Software

Introduction
Almost every organization in the world from the smallest sole proprietorship to the largest multinational conglomerate use some sort of process. In some instances processes are documented and signed off with process owners,and process leaders etc while in some cases it is just the "way things are done"

Therefore process management software or a process management platform is software that helps an organization manage its processes effectively.

Process centricity is a phase in the life of almost every company. It generally occours midway in a companies life cycyle. It is a natutal progression of events. As the company grows the founders need to relinquish to professional managers tasks they did thelselves at the inception. However they may want certain aspects of how they approached certain tasks to remain constant since the company is identified for a particular attribute or quality of service.It is in these instances that process management software becomes useful.

Some times as organizations grow, there is more than one business location where business is conducted, processes also govern the flow of information between the different locations. Similarly in industries where the concept of "branch offices" prevail such as Banking, Financial Services (leasing and insurance)and Various Consumer Service Industries the need to communicate between the head office or corporate office and the branches becomes a priority. In most cases there is centralization of work regionally or at the Corporate level to reduce costs and improve internal efficiencies. In these circumstances process management software becomes invaluable.

What is a process?
A process can be defined as a collection of tasks set in order in which they need to be performed with certain guidelines on how the tasks need to be performed and the time allocated for each task. []

What is process management?
Process management can be defined as: Managing a business process to achive a higher level of effectiveness and efficiency from the users involved in performing tasks related to the process.

Software that enable process management
There are many types or genre of software solution that support the overal objective of process management. These are generally tagged as follows:

1. Workflow Systems 2. Document Management Systems 3. Decision Support Systems

The truth is that they all do support process management in components and in fact many systems have one areas of focus but also include aspects of the other segments or types.For example a workflow management system could have basic document management capabilities. Similarly many Document Management Systems do contain basic workflow facilities. Similarly a workflow management system could have decision suppport functionality. But based on Internet or Web research carried out there is no single system that can be considered a hybrid or a "Process Management Platform"