NZ Organisations Plan to Increase Investment in BPM

More Than One in Three NZ Organisations Plan to Increase Investment in BPM in Next Three Years But Lack of Staff Resources Constrain Benefits

Auckland, 29 October 2015 – Resource constraints and a lack of time are limiting the benefits New Zealand organisations are gaining from business process management (BPM) initiatives, new research has found. While the majority of organisations do report improvements, most also acknowledge there is still much work to be done. Indeed, more than half (52%) New Zealand public sector organisations say that few to none of their processes are even documented.

However, the prospect of future investment in BPM appears strong with 37% of businesses indicating they plan to increase their spending in the area in the next three years with organisations citing its positive support for growth, as well as the introduction of new technologies, including mobile devices, and overall organisational and structural change.

The research conducted during July by research firm TNS Global on behalf of Promapp used results gathered via an online questionnaire completed by more than 620 organisations in Australia, New Zealand and The United States.

Asked to identify the top barriers to process improvement today, 56% of New Zealand survey respondents pinpointed low staff numbers compared to an average of 40% across the US, Australia and New Zealand. The research also found that the majority of organisations do not have fundamental process government roles and 36% do not have ‘process owners’.

At the same time, 58% of New Zealand organisations overall and 68% of New Zealand public sector organisations claim lack of time is a barrier to implementing and managing business process improvement efforts. Just 39% of organisations in the US and 53% of businesses in Australia claim lack of time as an issue in implementing and managing business process improvement efforts.

However, sourcing the dollars to fund BPM projects in New Zealand seems less of an issue at home than overseas. Just under one in five (19%) businesses struggle to budget for BPM compared to 26% of organisations in Australia and 43% of US-based organisations.

While 65% of NZ organisations lack an agreed process governance structure, they’re ahead of their US counterparts where 86 per cent of organisations lack an agreed process government structure. In addition, 64% per cent of New Zealand organisations have process owners identified compared to 60% in Australia and just 16% in the US.

Despite these shortfalls, both public and private-sector organisations that invest in process management are seeing benefits from their investments. When asked whether BPM has delivered some positive impact on their performance, 88% of public sector and 84% of private-sector respondents confirmed that it had. Positive impacts nominated included improved consistency and standardisation, better alignment between teams, improved productivity and the easier induction of new staff.

“The results are encouraging, however they show there is still plenty of work to be done,” says Ivan Seselj, CEO, Promapp. “While BPM is achieving key benefits in both the public and private sectors, there are clearly ways in which these could be extended even further.”

The results demonstrate the majority of organisations across Australia, New Zealand and the US have bought into the concept of business process management with two thirds of those surveyed globally already having BPM systems in place compared to 74% in New Zealand .

Within both public and private sectors, 83% of respondents believe BPM plays an important or very important role in helping them to meet organisational goals. 86% of New Zealand companies believe that BPM plays an important or very important role in helping meet their organisational goals. This number jumps to 92% for the New Zealand manufacturing and construction industries with their heightened focus on quality and improvement.

The top three benefits of BPM identified by New Zealand business include improved staff efficiency, enablement of consistent service delivery and improved customer satisfaction.

Who’s Winning? Public Sector or Private Sector?

When asked about their top priorities, 62% of public-sector organisations nominated 'increasing customer satisfaction'. This was followed by making better use of physical and financial resources (50%) and improving quality (40%).

"It's clear that the BPM strategies being adopted by organisations are working," says Ivan Seselj, CEO, Promapp. “In fact, the survey found that there is a strong correlation between a focus on BPM and profit growth over the past three years.

"Interestingly, the research found that the benefits achieved from BPM by public-sector organisations outweighed those in the private sector. Of the survey group, 82% of public-sector organisations said BPM had helped to improve staff efficiency, compared with 72% of private-sector respondents."

Other BPM-related benefits that appear more evident among public-sector organisations included enabling consistent service delivery (82% versus 72% in the private sector), improving customer satisfaction (64% v 55%) and reductions in training times and costs (55% v 46%).

When asked to nominate the top three reasons for increasing their investment, public-sector organisations highlighted changes in organisational structure, the impact of new technologies, and support for growth.

“The research has identified that there is still a lot of room for improvement when it comes to getting the most value from BPM initiatives," says Seselj. "Within many organisations the fundamentals are just not there. Process owners, a governance structure and more visible leadership are essential ingredients for success.

"Organisations who consider their processes to be “best practice” are more likely to have internal process owners, an agreed process governance structure and a Chief Process Officer," says Seselj.

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