Mettre en œuvre avec succès une solution d’automatisation des processus métiers (logiciel BPM) peut s’avérer complexe. La plupart du temps, un projet de transformation digitale est coûteux en temps et en ressources, sans parler des obstacles humains et techniques qu’il peut rencontrer. Pour réussir un projet BPM, il est essentiel d’impliquer les équipes à tous les niveaux et d’adopter dès le départ les bonnes pratiques. Si vous souhaitez automatiser vos processus métiers, suivez nos conseils et notre méthodologie pour atteindre vos objectifs rapidement et sans encombre !
Les solutions de Business Process Management (BPM) ont fait leurs preuves ces dernières années, notamment dans le secteur industriel. Aujourd’hui, tous les secteurs cherchent à accélérer leur digitalisation grâce à des solutions d’automatisation des processus métiers.
- Intégration des nouveaux employés
- Gestion des réclamations et non-conformités
- Appels d’offres, gestion des fournisseurs et achats
- Processus administratifs ou de conformité
Autant de domaines d’application destinés à automatiser leurs flux de travail.
Souvent, ce sont les responsables métiers qui sont à l’origine d’un projet BPM. Conscients des problématiques quotidiennes de leurs équipes, ils cherchent des solutions pour améliorer la productivité et le bien-être au travail. Peut-être est-ce votre cas ?
Nous rencontrons régulièrement des projets où la direction nomme un “responsable innovation”, “responsable processus” ou encore “responsable transformation digitale” (peu importe l’intitulé du poste) pour piloter la modernisation et l’automatisation des processus.
Quelle que soit l’origine de la demande, un élément nous paraît essentiel pour la réussite d’un projet de transformation digitale : l’implication des parties prenantes à tous les niveaux. Dans 98 % des cas*, le succès d’un projet dépend uniquement des facteurs humains. Grâce aux conseils et bonnes pratiques de cet article, vous mettrez toutes les chances de votre côté pour atteindre vos objectifs.
*Chiffre donné au hasard, mais qui ne doit pas être loin de la réalité.
Qu’est-ce que le BPM ?
Le Business Process Management (BPM) est une approche visant à optimiser le fonctionnement d’une entreprise grâce à ses processus métiers. Ces processus correspondent aux activités que l’entreprise doit mener pour atteindre ses objectifs.
Le BPA (Business Process Automation) permet de dynamiser et d’automatiser les processus à l’aide d’un logiciel. Son objectif est d’automatiser les tâches manuelles sans valeur ajoutée et de faciliter les échanges entre collaborateurs. Le BPA fluidifie les workflows en améliorant l’efficacité quotidienne.
Ainsi, le BPA s’inscrit dans le BPM, mais un projet BPM n’est pas systématiquement du BPA.
Pourquoi certains projets de transformation digitale échouent-ils ?
La plupart des écueils d’un projet de transformation digitale proviennent d’un besoin mal défini. Il est crucial d’identifier et de formaliser ce besoin initial, qui constitue la colonne vertébrale du projet. Pourtant, même avec un projet bien formalisé dès le départ, il peut tourner au désastre.
70 % des projets de transformation digitale échouent, selon une étude McKinsey menée auprès de plus de 3 000 dirigeants.
Plusieurs raisons expliquent ces échecs :
- Mauvaise structuration du besoin → choix inadapté de la solution technique.
- Implication des mauvaises personnes → faible adoption par les équipes.
- Budget mal calibré → dépassements de coûts.
Au-delà des pertes de ressources (financières, humaines, temps), le principal risque est de se retrouver avec une solution inutilisée. Un problème plus fréquent qu’on ne le pense…
75 % de nos clients sont des responsables métiers sans expertise IT spécifique.
Nos conseils pour un projet BPM réussi
Passons à l’action ! Voici nos recommandations clés pour réussir votre projet BPM. Chez Iterop, nous accompagnons chaque jour des projets variés, et ceux qui adoptent la bonne méthodologie dès le départ atteignent leurs objectifs en quelques semaines seulement.
Définir les étapes du projet
Notre premier conseil est de structurer le projet en étapes claires. Selon sa complexité, vous devrez établir un calendrier précis ou simplement identifier les jalons indispensables.
Exemples d’étapes :
- Définir les besoins
- Recueillir les retours des collaborateurs concernés
- Évaluer les ressources nécessaires (humaines, financières, techniques)
- Rédiger un cahier des charges
- Lancer un appel d’offres
- Valider une preuve de concept rapide
- Déployer la solution
- Recueillir des feedbacks et faire évoluer la solution
Chez Iterop, nos consultants vous accompagnent dès les premières phases. Notre méthodologie éprouvée garantit la réussite de chaque projet d’automatisation.
Cadrer le périmètre du projet
Délimiter le périmètre permet d’identifier le besoin et d’éviter les dérives. Cette étape nécessite de prendre du recul et d’analyser le fonctionnement actuel.
Questions clés :
- Combien de processus sont concernés ?
- Quels acteurs interviennent ?
- Quels outils sont déjà utilisés ?
- Le processus implique-t-il des intervenants externes ?
Nous recommandons de commencer petit : cibler un processus critique mais simple, où les bénéfices seront rapidement visibles.
Fixer un objectif clair
Un objectif bien défini est la clé du succès. Il doit être mesurable (via des KPIs) et aligné sur les enjeux métiers.
Exemples d’objectifs :
- Réduire les délais de traitement
- Diminuer le nombre d’échanges redondants
- Baisser le taux de non-conformité
Évitez les objectifs flous comme “améliorer la satisfaction client”. Privilégiez des actions concrètes dont les résultats sont quantifiables.
L’agilité est primordiale : validez d’abord un concept fonctionnel minimal, puis itérez pour l’améliorer progressivement.
Si votre objectif est d’aller du point A au point B, commencez par une planche à roulettes au lieu de chercher à construire une Ferrari. Cela permettra de valider le concept et son fonctionnement nominal. Vous pourrez ensuite ajouter de la valeur et des améliorations en le faisant évoluer progressivement.
Veillez à ne jamais perdre de vue l’objectif du processus.
Identify the resources to be mobilized
In order to obtain everyone’s buy-in, it is important to quickly identify the different resources to be mobilized. By resources, we are talking about identifying all the stakeholders who will enable the success of the BPM project . These are people who will need to be quickly involved in the discussions in order to address their concerns and obtain their buy-in.
Examples of stakeholders in a digital transformation project:
- Collaborators involved in the process
- Decision-makers (managers, business managers, etc.)
- The IT Department
Often projects fail or are slowed down in their progress because one or more people were not consulted early enough. They may realize the technical non-feasibility, raise risks of decommissioning or make a political decision…
The finance and budget allocated to the project are also part of the resources to be identified. It will be easier to achieve your objectives by having a precise budget envelope. Unlike ESNs and the development of business solutions, a BPM SaaS solution allows you to avoid hidden costs.
When analyzing resources, you can also ask yourself which resources formulate the specifications, which implement the solution and which retain the technical skills and know-how after implementation?
Succeeding in convincing and obtaining the approval of the right resources helps to limit risks and create positive dynamics around the BPM project.
Find the solution to use
Finding the right software solution to use is often the recurring question in the pre-project phase. This question sometimes comes up much too early and we even tend to orient the project around the solution and its technical characteristics. For us, this is clearly a mistake.
If you followed our previous advice, you should have a fairly well-defined specification where the business needs are correctly identified. If this is the case, you can now think about the technical solution that perfectly meets your needs.
We too often have requests where the project consists of tweaking the features of our BPM software . In this case, we prefer to review the specifications and check the initial need. Recently we had the case of a client who wanted to validate and store a document in Iterop. Iterop is made to manage the entire validation part but not to store the document. It is then advisable to connect to your EDM (document management) to automate the archiving part.
Despite the breadth of possibilities offered by a BPM solution, there are technical and functional limitations. The question is worth asking: do I really need a BPM solution to meet my needs?
Discover our guide to the BPM approach to understand its challenges and how our BPM solution works.
Keep in mind that it is the need that determines the choice of the final solution to adopt and not the other way around.
Have one or more internal sponsors
As we have seen previously, the success of a BPM project depends on the teams’ buy-in to the project. We recommend going beyond buy-in and finding one or two collaborators located at the heart of the project who will be sponsors/leaders/ambassadors/referents of the solution.
This person or people must be involved in the project, they must understand and know the business issues. They will be the first people to test the solution and provide feedback.
What should the sponsor’s profile be? Ideally, the sponsor should have clearly understood the objective of the project, should be able to give feedback and should be able to communicate easily with the teams. This person does not necessarily have to be technical, and it is not necessary for them to know how to configure processes. For us, the sponsor is a relay to disseminate and pass on information.
Without a sponsor, located at the heart of the project, the implementation of the solution can be compromised as well as its daily use by the teams. All the efforts devoted to the project would then be useless.
A good business process is a living process, which is not fixed and which evolves over time. Who else but the ambassador would be best placed to be able to propose these improvements and bring the process to life? The sponsor is a key element of the BPM project throughout its life cycle.
The adoption of a BPM solution by teams requires the establishment of a sponsor dedicated to the project. It is imperative to find a new sponsor if the first one were to leave the company.
Involve the teams
In the resource mobilization section, we talk a lot about human resources to convince. Here, we want to take the time to repeat and emphasize a central point: knowing how to involve teams from start to finish.
All collaborators and future project stakeholders have their role to play, even if only in the adoption and use of the solution. We too often encounter projects where change management has been botched. Users are faced with a new system that has been imposed on them overnight without understanding the issues involved. The results? General frustration. Users are dragging their feet and not getting involved in the solution. Project leaders blame the teams’ unwillingness. The project is stagnating, no one seems to want to budge and find solutions. We will have to redouble our efforts to reverse the trend and get everyone moving in the same direction.
As you might expect, no one wants such an outcome. That is why, from the early stages of the project, it is necessary to find solutions and techniques to get the various stakeholders involved. Change management is a mandatory step for any digital transformation project.
Moreover, even if you have done everything possible to do well, you will certainly encounter some resistance.
It is important to anticipate all the stages of change, especially the difficult phases of denial, anger, rejection, etc.
It is your role, with the support of management, managers and ambassadors, to reverse the trend so that the fall is as smooth as possible. It is necessary to ensure that the first part of the curve is as smooth as possible and to reach the acceptance and experimentation phase quickly.
Having identified and clearly defined the need allows all stakeholders to better understand the issues. It is necessary to surround yourself and obtain the support of all to successfully implement a BPM solution.
Our secret to accelerating change management?
One of the big secrets to facilitating change management is to get results quickly in order to convince your employees that you made the right choice. And to do this, you will need to have a solution that is flexible and easy to use enough to achieve this goal.
With ITEROP, 93% of our customers have set up a first project in less than 1 month.
Example of methodology: 5 days to automate a business process
Day 1: Identifying a key process
To ensure the success of a first BPM project, it is important to start by identifying a key and functional process. Indeed, it will be easier to quickly identify the benefits brought after the implementation of the solution.
You should not hesitate to note, on a document, upstream of the project the current issues and statistics. For example, if you already had indicators in place, you could easily compare the before/after the implementation of Iterop, in particular thanks to our KPI creation tool.
After identifying this key process, set yourself a goal to achieve (reduce processing time, secure data, reduce non-conformities, speed up production, etc.).
At one of our clients, specializing in wealth management, one in two files contained errors or omitted documents. Following the implementation of a formalized process by Iterop, all applications are now complete and the company’s turnover has increased. The objective set by management before the implementation was achieved with a project processing time reduced by 40%.
Day 2: Discussions with process stakeholders
The stakeholders and users of the future process are the key to the success of the BPM project. It is therefore necessary to involve them from the reflection phase. For you, who are in charge of implementing the project, it is important to understand how it works and to identify with the stakeholders what measures or changes would help improve the process.
The purpose of these exchanges is also to support change management. It is not the operation itself that is changing for your teams but rather the management of information between the stakeholders. It is therefore necessary to reassure them and support them throughout the project. Do not hesitate to highlight the various benefits brought by this evolution.
For the project to be a success and to ensure everyone’s buy-in, a leader who is supportive of the project will be essential. Their goal is to ensure that the implementation runs smoothly and to answer employees’ questions. They will also be able to promote the results to the teams.
The after-sales service of one of our customers had difficulty effectively monitoring the status of customer complaints and negative customer reviews tended to accumulate. Management therefore decided to implement Iterop and appointed a process pilot. The audit phase lasted two days, the steps were formalized with the entire after-sales service team and everyone was able to integrate the various changes as the meetings progressed. Today, employees can track an entire file in real time with just a few clicks. Processing times have been divided by three, leading to a clear improvement in customer satisfaction.
Day 3: Digitalization of the first version of the process
With the drawing tool available in Iterop, you can create a process in just a few clicks (discover examples of BPM processes ). Using the elements of the BPMN 2.0 standard, you model a first process using boxes and arrows. The idea is to formalize a first version that will then be improved. The goal here is not to draw hundreds of steps. You have to try to have a synthetic vision of the process. In Iterop Design, you can then create users, define their rights and assign them tasks. Once configured, you will only have to deploy your process to your teams and test it.
Secondly, you have the possibility to define automatic tasks (sending emails, reminders, data recovery, etc.) and to connect to your tools ( ERP + BPM , CRM, database, etc.).
Toulouse Métropole used Iterop and its speed of deployment to dematerialize its entire purchasing process. In 5 days the process was deployed and the first requests were taken into account. Iterop was chosen to overcome the difficulty of implementing a solution purely dedicated to purchasing, but longer and more complex to integrate. Today, the teams model and improve their processes in complete autonomy.
On average with Iterop, our customers deploy a first configured and automated process in less than 5 days.
Day 4: Implementation and monitoring
Once your process is implemented with the teams, you will monitor in real time the different activities, the time spent per task, which steps are blocking the progress of the process, etc.
With the statistics and indicator tools, you create dynamic dashboards into which your monitoring graphs are integrated.
In addition, it is also very important to take into account user feedback. At Iterop, processes are not fixed and we advocate the continuous improvement of each process.
In large organizations, managers define dashboards by teams and share all the necessary KPIs with employees. This way, everyone knows at all times where the production implementation is at, for example.
Day 5: Process improvement and analysis
As you use it, you will be able to modify your processes without interrupting ongoing activities. Your collaborators will not be disturbed in any way. You can thus modify the path of a branch, reassign a task, change the delay of a timer, the new version of your process will be instantly accessible. One of the great advantages of Iterop is that you do not need to call on specific development and take five days to modify a process.
One of our clients manages its ISO 9001 certification only with Iterop. During internal audits and various process reviews, the quality manager can directly integrate in a few clicks the improvements suggested by employees to improve the system.
Succeeding in a BPM project: it’s your turn!
Embarking on a digital transformation project for business processes can be complex if you don’t adopt the right method. There are many factors to consider to make a BPM project a success.
To sum up the methodology in one sentence: careful preparation and the involvement of the different teams allows you to put all the chances on your side.
Retrieved from: https://blog.outscale.com/reussir-un-projet-bpm/
Author: Olivier Jeunot
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