E01 | The Impact of BPM and Workflow Orchestrators on Business Sustainability
- apastorello
- 21 mai
- 9 min de lecture
Dernière mise à jour : 25 juin
In the previous episode, we explored how leveraging the synergy between business processes and data lineage provides a competitive advantage in digital solution design. Now, to activate these synergies effectively, we need to understand the importance of each pillar and how technology can come to help. This episode focuses on the foundational role of business processes and the digital solutions available to optimize them.
📍The Central Role of Business Processes in Digital Transformation
Business processes are the core expression of how your organization creates, delivers, and protects value.They embody roles, decisions, controls, and interactions, making them the true lens through which change becomes tangible.
2 examples to identify the key signals
Let's explore how they indicate when a process is suboptimal and how we can set functional targets to optimize and streamline them for better efficiency and customer satisfaction.
The order-to-Cash process in a Retail Company
Customer Journey
CURRENT PROCESS
Unclear order status
Late or inconsistent order confirmations
Delays not communicated
Returns are difficult
🚀 OPTIMIZED PROCESS
Real-time updates/notifications (order accepted, shipped, invoiced)
Transparent handling of exceptions: clear explanation of delays or additional requests
Clear rules and tracking for return requests
Cost to the organisation
CURRENT PROCESS
Manual verification of customer credit at every order
Repeated validation of master data (payment terms, VAT, delivery address)
Maintenance overhead due to fragmented systems
Duplicate stock checks
🚀 OPTIMIZED PROCESS
Credit and master data validated once at the onboarding or contract level
Clean reference data reused across process steps
Synchronised orders & stock
Fewer exceptions through rules
Operational Flow Efficiency
CURRENT PROCESS
Orders routed manually to different departments for fulfillment and invoicing
Delivery and invoicing not synchronized, leading to delays in revenue recognition
Exceptions handled case-by-case via email
Inaccurate picking or shipping due to lack of process control
🚀 OPTIMIZED PROCESS
Rule-based routing of orders based on product type or customer segment
Fulfillment and invoicing steps orchestrated as part of an integrated process
Exceptions categorized and directed through standard handling paths (e.g., missing PO, credit block)
Picking and shipping guided by order validation rules and standard instructions
Loan Origination & Approval Process
Customer Journey
CURRENT PROCESS
Document requirements not clearly communicated upfront (e.g., income proof, co-applicant info)
Documents requested piecemeal, causing frequent back-and-forth with the applicant
Long wait times without feedback after submission
Lack of visibility on application status or reasons for rejection
🚀 OPTIMIZED PROCESS
Comprehensive document checklist and eligibility rules provided at the start
Single submission with clear guidance on required attachments
Timely notifications on progress (e.g., document review, credit decision)
Transparent feedback on decisions with guidance on missing or rejected elements
Cost to the organisation
CURRENT PROCESS
High manual effort in collecting and cross-checking applicant data across systems
Duplicated KYC/AML reviews when customers apply for multiple products
Inefficient processing leads to customer drop-off and higher cost per acquisition
🚀 OPTIMIZED PROCESS
Centralized and reusable customer profile across loan products
Risk-based compliance logic to streamline low-risk applications
Funnel monitoring to detect drop-off early and reduce processing waste
Operational Flow Efficiency
CURRENT PROCESS
Fragmented workflow with inconsistent steps across branches, digital channels, and brokers
Risk assessment handled manually or late in the process, creating rework
Exception cases (e.g., missing documents, scoring anomalies) handled via email or outside the system
🚀 OPTIMIZED PROCESS
Unified workflow across channels with standard task routing (intake, scoring, approval)
Early-stage credit scoring and eligibility checks to streamline downstream activities
Embedded exception handling with predefined rules and escalation paths (e.g., low score, need for additional guarantees)
These examples are just starting points! Your organization must first define its own identity, way of working, and transformation goals. Once that is clear, it's time to explore which technological approach best fits your path. To help you navigate that choice, let’s take a look at today’s leading paradigms and when each one makes more sense |
What are the key approaches to process optimization, and how do they differ in scope and impact? |
🔎 BPM vs. Workflow Orchestration: Clarifying the Distinctions
When optimizing business processes, organizations often choose between Business Process Management (BPM) and Workflow Orchestration, two approaches that serve distinct needs. While both aim to improve efficiency and automation, their fundamental difference lies in their architectural philosophy: BPM is centralized and Workflow Orchestration is decentralized.
BPM
Centralized Control
In a BPM-driven approach, process governance is consolidated within a single platform, offering a unified front-end for managing and optimizing all business workflows. This centralization ensures:
end-to-end visibility,
standardization and governance across processes and sub-processes.
Particularly useful in environments requiring strict control, compliance, and a holistic operational view.
Workflow Orchestration Decentralized Flexibility
A Workflow Orchestration takes a modular and decentralized route. Rather than enforcing a single governance layer, it allows:
autonomous subsystems to function independently,
while remaining orchestrated within a broader logic.
This makes it ideal for dynamic, fast-evolving organizations, where tools, teams, and systems need to stay flexible and loosely coupled, yet synchronized.
⚖️ Pros and Cons of Each Approach
BPM
Centralized Control
✅ ADVANTAGES
Unified governance and compliance
End-to-end visibility and reporting
Standardized process optimization
⚠️ CHALLENGES
Can be rigid and complex
Requires significant upfront investment
Less adaptable to rapid business changes
Workflow Orchestration Decentralized Flexibility
✅ ADVANTAGES
Greater flexibility and adaptability
Easier integration of specialized tools
More scalable for evolving architectures
⚠️ CHALLENGES
Risk of fragmentation and silos
More challenging to maintain end-to-end visibility
Requires strong coordination between independent workflows
Technical Considerations That Make the Difference
Beyond governance, BPM and Workflow Orchestration (WFO) differ in how they handle execution, scalability, resilience, and auditability, all critical for long-term success.
Process Execution & State Management
BPM: Typically uses stateful engines, ideal for long-running workflows with retries, wait times, and escalation handling.
WFO: Often stateless or event-driven, requiring external state handling (e.g., via APIs or message queues), which increases flexibility, but also complexity.
Exception Management
BPM: Offers native support for fallbacks, compensations, and branching logic.
WFO: Exception handling is distributed and often custom-coded, demanding strict coordination across services.
Process Modeling & Abstraction
BPM: Visual tools like BPMN make it business-friendly and collaborative.
WFO: Often built using code or config files (YAML, JSON), giving developers control but limiting visibility for business stakeholders. (But there are few exceptions on the market 😉)
Auditability & Compliance
BPM: Centralized execution makes traceability and compliance straightforward.
WFO: Requires a distributed audit trail, with each component contributing logs and context.
Scalability & Resilience
BPM: Scales vertically with the platform, suitable for structured loads.
WFO: Scales horizontally across services, perfect for microservices and cloud-native environments, but needs robust monitoring and failure handling.
✅ Making the Right Choice for Business sustainability
The best approach depends on who you are as an organization and where you want to go:
Need control, compliance, and standardization? → BPM may be your fit.
Need agility, modularity, and scale? → Workflow Orchestration could be the better path.
That said, the right choice does not depend only on your ambitions, but also on your starting point. Both your current technical architecture and your organizational maturity will strongly influence the feasibility of the shift. Trying to move from one end of the spectrum to the other, for example, from a fragmented, code-driven orchestration setup to a fully centralized BPM, may introduce unexpected costs, integration friction, and cultural resistance.
A sound plan must consider not only where you want to go, but also how far you are from it, both in business practices and in system landscape. The closer the fit between your needs and the model you choose, the higher the chance of sustainable success.
In many cases, a hybrid model works best: Let BPM govern the core, while WFO empowers the edges to adapt and evolve.
A Practical Example of a Hybrid ModelImagine a bank managing its loan origination process:
This hybrid model allows the organization to maintain control where needed, while still enabling flexibility and rapid adaptation where innovation is most needed. |
You’ve chosen the perfect model to optimize your processes. But are you ready to start building your roadmap? |
⚠️ The Dependency on Data: Why Process Optimization Alone Is Not Enough
Before taking the first step, it’s worth asking: are your data foundations solid enough to support the journey ahead? Because even the best-designed process can fail when disconnected from trustworthy, consistent, and contextualized data.
Process optimization without data integration is like building a high-speed train on unstable tracks. No matter how well-designed or well-executed the workflow, it will struggle to deliver sustainable value if the underlying data is inaccurate, fragmented, or misaligned with other systems.
Process design in isolation can produce short-term gains. But without reliable data flows and traceable dependencies across systems, it often results in brittle automation and hidden technical debt. Business Process Management (BPM) and Workflow Orchestration might streamline the how of operations, but without aligning with the what and why driven by data, organizations risk automating inefficiencies, or even scaling risk.
As the saying goes in data science: "Garbage in, garbage out" !
Perhaps one of the most widely experienced examples of the disconnect between processes and data can be found in healthcare, a domain nearly all of us have experienced directly or indirectly. In this environment, the consequences of bad data are not just inefficiencies, but risks to patient safety and regulatory compliance. |
It’s easy to say, “data should be clean” but when process teams and data teams work in silos, standards and ownership often diverge. Without shared models, business glossaries, and validation rules, systems have no reliable way to distinguish authoritative sources from redundant or inconsistent ones.
Worse, poor-quality data from one process often flows unchecked into the next, creating downstream failures that are hard to diagnose and even harder to prevent.
This isn’t just a technical challenge; it’s a strategic one.
That’s why data readiness must go hand-in-hand with process optimization. To unlock true digital advantage, companies need to ensure that their process models are:
Connected to trustworthy, high-quality data sources
Enriched with business context through metadata and lineage
Able to evolve with real-time data insights and exceptions
This integration between processes and data not only avoids errors, but it also creates a feedback loop where business execution continuously improves through analytics and insight.
In short, data isn't just fuel for automation; it’s the compass. It tells the organization whether it’s moving in the right direction, not just whether it’s moving faster.
Ultimately, sustainable transformation is about more than digitizing workflows. It requires strategic choices around data governance, systems integration, and long-term resilience, so that digital acceleration leads to real impact, not scaled dysfunction.
🎯 Key Takeaways
Business processes are not just a layer of execution! They are the structural skeleton that supports the entire organization. They define how value is created, controlled, and delivered across teams, systems, and customers.
In this episode, we explored the digital approaches available for optimizing business processes and the key drivers that can help guide your choice, by learning that:
BPM and Workflow Orchestrators are digital approaches to process optimization, with BPM best suited for control and standardization, and WFO for flexibility and modularity. They can be combined in hybrid models to achieve both stability and adaptability.
Technical architecture and organizational maturity matter; your starting point influences whether a centralized, decentralized, or hybrid model is sustainable.
Data readiness is not optional; disconnected or poor-quality data can break even the most efficient process.
Process and data must evolve together; traceability, consistency, and cross-system reliability require intentional integration.
What to Expect in the Next Articles
Now that we have explored The Impact of BPM and Workflow Orchestrators on Business Sustainability→ How automation, standardization, and orchestration contribute to efficiency, resilience, and long-term value creation; we’re ready to take the conversation further.
In the upcoming articles, we will dive deeper into:
Implementing Effective Data Lineage for Process Transparency and Better Decision-Making→ How organizations can map, govern, and optimize their data flows to enhance transparency, compliance, and business agility.
Building an Actionable Roadmap for Digital Transformation→ How to strategically combine BPM and data lineage, prioritize initiatives, and create a phased approach to ensure measurable impact and long-term success.
Each article will provide concrete insights and actionable strategies to help organizations build robust, resilient digital ecosystems.
Stay tuned for the next episode, we’ll uncover how mapping, tracing, and enriching your data flows through effective lineage can unlock greater transparency, ensure consistency across systems, and how it all ties back to making your processes smarter, not just faster!
