ROI for BPM: Document Generation Provides Best Bang For Your Buck

BPM is a hot sector because of the return on investment it provides. But document generation—a specialty process technology within the BPM space—by all accounts is far ahead of the pack when it comes to ROI. This has to do with the fundamental differences between most real-world processes and document-generation processes.

Within almost any enterprise, real-world processes are constantly evolving, but process modeling has to be based on a fixed target. In other words, process modeling must be based on a snap shot of a process at a certain instant in time, but during the time it takes to model the process, the process has already begun to evolve. Evolution amounts to cracks forming in the original model, which results in band-aid processes being deployed to compensate. Eventually, the whole thing becomes unwieldy, brittle, and may end up breaking down altogether.

Document-generation processes, while they also evolve, do so in predetermined intervals. For example, in the wake of a legislative session, laws may change, which might give way to changes in document-generation process models. However, in almost every instance, ample time would be provided for revision to process models before new laws go into effect.

Beyond document-generation processes being inherently more predictable and stable than other types of processes, the increases in productivity with document generation are off the chart. Caltrans, for example, a government agency in California that manages a multi-billion dollar road building/maintenance budget, reports that it reduced the time it takes to generate a single cooperative agreement (contract) from several months down to just a few hours using HotDocs. Many of the world’s largest banks, insurance companies, and enterprises of every size and type report similar results.