Business Process Management focuses on improving the agility and operational performance of an organization through the control of business processes.

Agile organizations depend heavily on Internet technologies to help them be responsive to customer needs and requirements with customized solutions and cooperation with customers and suppliers. With the use of a structured Business Process Management approach, organizations manage to integrate methods, policies, metrics, and software tools to introduce their products to the market quickly and cost-effectively, while continuously optimizing organizational activities and processes.

Information technology is a key component of business operations. IT enables radical changes to business processes thus dramatically improving their efficiency and effectiveness through the speed, information processing capabilities and connectivity of computers and Internet technologies. Analysis and modeling tools assist organizations to devise their existing processes and optimize them as well as to test and deploy software that implements these processes.

XML (Extensible Markup Language)

One of the best Business Process Management tools is XML. XML focuses on sharing structured data across different information systems, mostly over the Internet. With the support of XML, Business Process Management systems are altering the way work-flow components are implemented and executed.Used both to encode documents and to serialize data, XML structures the information, cutting it off from any functional dependency on the software that operates on it. In doing so, XML assists in the formation of a supporting infrastructure to bond the firm’s capabilities to create, deploy, and execute the entire scope of work-flow management.

BPEL (Business Process Execution Language)

BPEL for Web Services is another Business Process Management tool. BPEL is designed and developed collaboratively by Microsoft, IBM, and BEA Systems to coordinate and synchronize Web Services so they can be engaged in collaborative and transactional behavior. The use of BPEL for the proper specification of business processes and business interaction protocols extends the Web services interaction model, enabling it to support business transactions. BPEL processes function exclusively through Web Service interfaces.

BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation)

BPMN is another Business Process Management tool primarily aiming to provide a standard notation for drawing business processes in a work-flow. This standardized graphical notation needs to be immediately understandable by: (1) the business analysts who create and refine the processes, (2) the technical developers, who implement the processes and (3) the business managers who monitor and manage the processes. Therefore, BPMN aims to serve as common language to bridge the communication gap that occurs between the design of business processes and their implementation.