Top BPM trends for 2025

Process automation, low-code development, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud hosting. Want to know what BPM trends will shape the industry in 2025 and beyond?

In this blog, we predict the top BPM trends in 2025.

With digital transformation accelerating, businesses are rushing to automate business processes to survive – and thrive - in the next few years.

Subsequently, conversations about BPM in the boardroom have increased as businesses seek to keep ahead of the competition by implementing technology solutions to increase efficiency, improve productivity, and boost revenues. The global business process management market was valued at $15.4 billion in 2022, and is projected to reach $65.8 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 15.8% from 2023 to 2032.

BPM trend #1 - Automation on the ‘To Do’ list of every CEO

Organisations will adopt BPM platforms to optimise business processes and enhance efficiency in the next 12 months. This is supported by research from McKinsey & Co who found 70% of organisations are at least piloting the automation of processes in one or more business units or functions.

Automation will be an agenda item at board meetings everywhere as CEOs and CTOs seek cost-effective ways of optimising and automating manual tasks in their organisation.

The rush towards process transformation is visible in all areas - even businesses that rely on paper forms are going paper-lite by scanning documents or automating data capture.

Others are going one step further and breaking free of paper by moving to electronic forms in the online world.

#2 - Organisations rethink their cloud strategy!

This prediction swims against the tide!

We saw earlier that the BPM market is projected to reach $65.8 billion by 2032. A key reason for the growth is the increased adoption of cloud-hosted solutions with migration from on-premises often associated with cost savings.

However, Gartner have revealed that companies are overpaying by up to 70% for their cloud infrastructure.

Consequently, an increasing number of organisations are exiting the public cloud and embracing on-premises, private cloud, and hybrid solutions to reduce cloud expenses, meet compliance mandates, and improve data security.

For instance, Citrix report that 42% of organisations surveyed in the USA are considering or have moved at least half of their cloud-based workloads back to on-premises infrastructures. At the same time, Techopedia revealed over 43% of IT leaders surveyed found that moving applications and data from on-premises to the cloud was more expensive than expected.

Meanwhile, David Heinemeier Hansson, the co-owner and CTO of 37signals, has written a blog post on LinkedIn documenting how the makers of the Basecamp project management tool have shifted their seven cloud apps from AWS into their hardware at a professional data centre. In the article, David says their cloud bill is now $1.3 million compared to $3.2 million with AWS, a saving of $1.9 million.

We anticipate cloud repatriation (also referred to as “cloud exit” and “reverse cloud migration”) will gain traction in the next few years as organisations look to save money on subscription fees.

#3 - Growth in Low-Code Application Platforms (LCAP)

Low-code platforms have increased in popularity in the last decade as organisations empower citizen developers and business users to build digital applications quickly.

For anyone with little or no coding experience, low-code platforms replace the need for programming by using drag-and-drop form designers, point-and-click workflow engines and pre-built industry templates and data connectors to launch processes quickly.

According to Gartner, 70% of new applications developed by organisations will use low-code or no-code technologies by 2025, up from less than 25% in 2020.

Despite the excitement, the low-code/no-code movement is not without criticism. Forester has warned buyers that "hype haunts low-code platforms".

#4 - Artificial intelligence continues to gain prominence

Artificial intelligence makes BPM smarter by adapting and improving workflows over time.

AI integrates advanced cognitive capabilities and machine learning (ML) into traditional, linear workflows to continually evaluate datasets, predict the future, and suggest data-driven improvements to operational performance.

The last few years have seen BPM vendors build or acquire AI and machine learning (ML) capabilities and integrate the technology into their platforms in expectation of widespread adoption in the future.

Process Director, for example, has included machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities since version 5.0.

Generative AI (GenAI) has yet to deliver on its anticipated business value for most organisations. However, Gartner expects Composite AI to create more adaptable and scalable solutions utilising machine learning and natural language processing technologies.

While the jury is still out on the future of AI, it will certainly continue to be a hot topic in 2025, reaching an ever-increasing audience.

#5 Case management is now mainstream

Traditional BPM focuses on predictable processes represented by sequential steps in a flowchart, but many processes are inherently unpredictable.

Step forward case management to combine the advantages of human collaboration and decision-making with the process automation of traditional BPM. It allows business users to build, route and monitor human-directed casework that contains modular items consisting of multiple forms and processes that would otherwise be hard to relate to one another.

Like traditional BPM, the destination is known with case management, but the route depends on how the case evolves. From the decisions taken to new documents uploaded, any number of activities may change the context and affect how the case progresses and reaches the end event.

Whilst this can be achieved with giant monolithic workflows, they become impossible to manage and predict, often with duplicated or unnecessary steps for certain scenarios. A case allows you to bring together much smaller and more manageable workflows, as required for each specific scenario.

BPM vendors have spent the last 5-10 years integrating case management capabilities into their platforms and the last few years have seen it enter the mainstream.

Driven by the need for increased collaboration and better user experiences, we expect it to continue to grow in the near term.

#6 Better customer experience (CX) and more collaboration

Traditionally BPM focused on re-engineering manual processes to transform operational performance.

Driven by consumer products, clients have high expectations and now expect BPM systems to deliver better CX, not just operational improvements.

Citizen developers expect to build apps with low code development tools quickly.

System users expect a responsive, interactive experience with digital forms that are easier to use on all device types. They also want to manage processes (and associated data, tasks, events, and documents) in an intuitive interface. Managers need quick access to real time information via user-friendly dashboards.

All users require messaging/discussion boards and document management (authoring/sharing) to collaborate in real time with colleagues.

With case management and cloud technology supporting remote working/collaboration and low code facilitating better CX, the trend will continue in 2025 and beyond.

#7 - Increased spotlight on compliance and regulations

BPM will continue to support highly related organisations meet compliance mandates with tools to navigate regulatory complexities, maintain audit readiness, and reduce risk.

Are you planning to automate business processes in 2025?

Since the pandemic, many organisations have implemented (or plan to) business process automation solutions to meet business objectives such as reduced costs, increased efficiency, and better productivity.

This trend will continue over the next few years despite shrinking budgets and concerns over the economic outlook in the UK.

Accelerate your business transformation journey with our automation solutions and process experts. Talk to us today and get 2025 off to a great start. Call us on 03300 100 000 or complete this form.