We live in an amazing time of innovation, where technology and automation have led to remote working being the standard, not the exception. But not without a downside.
Isolation isn’t healthy. And lack of visibility impedes profitability, increases risk, and presents a myriad of challenges.
Enter…Business Process Management tools.
Success in business has never been easy, and it’s not getting easier. It’s no surprise that it takes a lot of effort. The key is to maximize the return on that effort.
To do so requires a business to recognize that all businesses are built on a series of processes, otherwise known as workflows. A process is a structured interaction of information, people, and maybe computers. Each process has a beginning and an end and must occur within a schedule. If any of these components are missing, you really don’t have workable processes.
- Information – Whether a business is a service or product-oriented business, it succeeds or fails based on the availability, correctness, and timing of information. The incomplete or wrong information is a death knell.
- People – Humans are fallible, so effective business process management is the best way to manage risk and maintain control.
- Computers – When properly configured, computers are great at talking to other computers. But when you put people into the process, computers can be a weak point in a business. If you’ve ever been a victim of a ransomware attack, you understand.
Let’s for a minute steer clear of computers and talk about people. Like it or not, the reality is that businesses are about people. And people get overwhelmed; we forget stuff; we miss deadlines. And, by the way, we simply make mistakes. Lastly, our significant other or friends and families want to know why we’re always working instead of being with them. This is a significant problem in business today. The answer is a failure or weakness in our business process.
Today, there are varied BPM solutions with alternative approaches aimed at cutting costs, ensuring you don’t miss things, clearing your head of unnecessary information, and enabling you to focus on more important things.
Sounds good, right?
Well, the devil is in the details. All platform tools are not created equal. Companies like Salesforce and Docusign, on the periphery of the business process management space, are introducing lightweight workflow tools to extend the reach of their core technology. Companies like Monday.com and Process Street focus on task management. Zapier acts as a connector to automate tasks.
Where do you start? How do you decide what’s best for your business?
I suggest the tool that’s best for your business is the one that will enable you to do what you do better. It’s ultimately that simple. Not one that makes you change everything to fit the way they’ve designed their product. One that you can understand and implement without the help of expensive consultants.
Let’s look at several options.
- Integrify
- Nintex
- Kissflow
- Trisk
- Integrify is a low-code workflow automation platform that helps businesses build automated processes, design dynamic forms, create self-service portals, track performance via reports/dashboards, and review activity audit trails.
Designed to run on any device, it allows users to create and manage automated workflows with a drag and drop technology, which may be convenient. Integrify is a powerful tool, but with an unfriendly user interface. Process configuration is complex, with endless menus and submenus, resulting in lengthy user training. It can be challenging to include new people in the team and quickly teach them how to use it.
Price: by request
2. Nintex is a powerful and flexible tool but very complex for non-IT business users. The workflow builder is very powerful and feature-rich but also very tricky. Nintex enables enterprise IT professionals to easily create and manage simple and complex business processes. Helps customers and partners use their workflow management and automation software to transform their organization digitally. It has a large amount of information and settings, which, in turn, are located in various submenus, attributes, and options. To set up simple conditions in a thread, you need understand programming concepts such as variables, etc.
Price: starting at USD 25,000/year for an unlimited amount of users and workflows
3. Kissflow is a SaaS software provider for no-code and low-code work management. It is a digital workflow software that empowers leaders and their teams to manage all kinds of work on a unified platform through an intuitive mix of collaboration, coordination, and control.
Kissflow allows business users to create custom workflows, powerful applications, processes, or message boards using visual tools that are natively integrated and flexible.
Price:
- Starting at $10 per user/month – 50 users minimum.
- Free trial – by request
4. Trisk is a toolkit for B2B and B2B2C use cases. Using Trisk’s Studio, business people can create Workflows with Smartforms and Communications in a matter of hours or days, not months. Trisk’s unique if/then logic is intuitive and powerful, enabling the linking of conditional processes. Whether you’re automating one or more internal processes or exchanging information with clients, Trisk’s intuitive visual-based tools are powerful and easy to use. Trisk’s Garage is fully secure and fully indexed automated file storage. API friendly architecture connects to your other critical tools.
Trisk connecting Tech – Unique software, People – Full accountability, smart communications and remote collaboration, and Processes. Autopilot all kinds of business routines and achieve information reusability.
Unlike many other companies in this field, Trisk has a simple and intuitive interface. All processes are divided into manageable stages, not an endless chain of dependencies and connections.
The important point is that Trisk is an easy-to-use, dynamic and forgiving no-code platform. Go ahead, change it! You can easily do it on your own without the help of developers or consultants.
Price:
- Forever Free plan for up to 2 users available.
- $50 user/month from 2 to 100 users. (the more users – the lower price)
At this point, the choice of solutions is yours. All tools are not created equal. They don’t do the same thing or work the same way. Take the time to fully investigate.
The real choice is to automate or not to automate. If you want to scale your business, retain the best people, achieve maximum growth and profitability while spending more time with friends and family, do it. You’ve got nothing to lose.
