How Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) works

Business-process-as-a-service (BPaaS) is a relatively new concept.  It mixes Business Process Management (BPM) with one or more aspects of cloud deployment: SaaS, IaaS, or PaaS.

What is Business Process Management?

Business process management is an approach that aims to make a company’s workflow more effective, efficient and adaptable to new developments. This kind of workflow enables businesses to be more flexible and to decrease their spending.

Traditional Business Process Management Systems (BPMS) integrate business processes and keep track of running instances of these processes. A BPMS coordinates the execution of a business process step by step. Each process instance is monitored by the BPMS, and provides users insights into each processes progress and show if they are completed successfully, or if they have crashed. In case of a crash, the BPMS shows where the process had issues. By monitoring, evaluating and identifying where business processes fail, companies have the opportunity to act proactively and optimize their processes. This will ultimately lead to lower costs and better customer satisfaction.

BPaaS or Cloud-Based Business Process Management

A Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) is any business process delivered as a service through cloud solutions.  With BPaaS one or more business processes are uploaded to a cloud service that performs and monitors them. Like any other cloud environment, BPaaS gives companies the opportunity to use cloud software in a pay-per-use model, instead of having to invest in hardware and maintenance.

Here are some advantages of moving business process management to the cloud:

• Decreased costs from not buying and maintaining servers to manage and coordinate business process.
• Pay-as-you-go pricing model
• Increased mobility, by accessing the solution from any geographical point. This allows businesses the opportunity to grow and expand much faster.
• Scalability by allowing companies to add new processes without much infrastructural cost.

Last year, Gartner released its forecast for the Cloud Business Process Services/Business Process as a Service area. It predicts that BPaaS will grow from $84.1B in 2012 to $144.7B in 2016, generating a global compound annual growth rate of 15%. Of the eight sub segments Gartner is tracking in their BPaaS forecast, Cloud Payments (17.8%) Cloud Advertising (17.1%) and Industry Operations (15.1%) are expected to have the greatest compound annual growth rates (CAGR) in revenues generated by 2016.