The Benefits of BPM when Going Green

I have posted on this subject before and thought it would be good to revisit the subject as it is very topical and important.

“Going Green” in the context of IT seems to be very focussed on how businesses can reduce their operational costs WRT their physical infrastructure e.g. datacentres, server consolidation/reduction, virtualisation, cooling and power consumption improvements etc. 

 An aspect that is recognised as being able to contribute to cutting costs (in support of Going Green) is the optimisation of the business working practices.

This however is not always clearly understood and as readily quantifiable as the more accepted case for physical infrastructure changes.

 In a recent article published on eWeek a case study from Tetra (a global Aquarium and fish food manufacturer) is used to explore how after adopting BPM, the streamlined process allowed its engineers, scientists and other knowledge workers across the globe to collaborate about changes to their product line online. This reduced the travel, paper consumption and also allowed them to realize their enviornmental benefits. 

Green BPM, How well understood is the ROI?

I came across an article in which the author raised some interesting points about how process automation can contribute to ‘Green IT’ initiatives.

The author suggests that Goverments should mandate the use of workflow for these initiatives and identifies these potential benefits:

• Reduced paper use
• Collaborating and efficiency gains (by improving processes)
• Carbon footprint reduction

I agree that there is great potential in automation for these type of initiatives but as a pragmatist I would suggest that organisations do not always fully understand how and when to address automation and the the Green IT agenda to ensure quantifiable business benefits.