Definition

business process

A business process is an activity or set of activities that will accomplish a specific organizational goal. Business process management (BPM) is a systematic approach to improving those processes.

The Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI), a non-profit organization, exists to promote the standardization of common business processes, as a means of furthering development of Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) and Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN). Both languages were created to facilitate communication between IT and line-of-business (LOB).

Related glossary terms: CIO (Chief Information Officer), business integration, systems thinking, clean room technique (clean room design), work breakdown structure (WBS), B2E (Business2Employee or Business-to-Employee), Total Quality Management (TQM), Compliance: Glossary, C-level, infrastructure management (IM)

This was last updated in September 2005

Posted by: Margaret Rouse

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