Business process management (BPM) is a management approach focused on aligning all aspects of an organization with the objectives, goals and needs of its customers.  It is an all-encompassing management approach which encourages business effectiveness and efficiency while attempting to attain innovation, flexibility, and integration with technology. This management approach is striving to improve processes continuously. Some may refer to this as "process optimization." This goal of this exercise is to assist an organization in its ability to be more fluid when it comes to change than a functionally focused, traditional top to bottom management approach.
The processes are those which are significant to an organization as they typically produce revenue.  These processes, however, are generally a large part of the company overhead.  Many consider these processes to be assets of an organization just as important as the real estate the company head quarters sits on.  In order to continue to be valuable to its customers, those assets need to be improved over time. Although there are other improvement processes to follow, BPM takes it a step further by stating that this approach can be supplied through technology to ensure the practicality of the managerial approach during times of change. Actually, BPM is a method to incorporate a change capability to an organization.  This change can be either human or technological.
To assist in the process improvements, there are computer programs available that enable the business process to be executed by the computer; Business Process Management Systems.  The system will either use connected applications to perform business operations or, when a step is too complex to automate, will ask for human input. Directly executing a process definition can be more straightforward and therefore easier to improve. However, automating a process definition requires flexible and component-based infrastructure.  This would generally rule out modifying older computer applications as the architecture of these applications is not easily changed.
There are many different types of computer applications available for BPM, however they continue to evolve.  Some say that the term BPMS may change.  Today it references the notion of supporting the managerial approach via enabling technology. The BPMS should enable all interested parties to have a firm understanding of an organization and its efficiency. The BPMS should facilitate business process change. This will assist in the automation of activities, collaboration, and integration with other systems where appropriate. For example, the volume and difficulty of daily responsibilities often requires the use of technology to model effectively. These models assist in the automation and solutions to business problems. These models can also become executable to assist in monitoring and controlling business processes. As such, some people view BPM as what connects Information Technology to the Business and eliminates the silos.
Because BPM allows organizations to depict business processes through technology it does not only assist in the automation of business processes or solving business problems.  BPM allows a business to take action on shifting customer needs quicker that the competition which will increase their competitive advantage.