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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Business Process Manager

💰 $85,000 - $140,000

OperationsProcess ImprovementBusiness AnalysisManagementContinuous Improvement

🎯 Role Definition

A Business Process Manager leads end-to-end process improvement initiatives to increase efficiency, reduce cost, and improve customer and employee experience.
This role owns process discovery, analysis, design, implementation, governance and continuous optimization across functional areas, leveraging Lean, Six Sigma, BPM tools, RPA and data-driven insights. The Business Process Manager partners with stakeholders from operations, IT, finance and product to translate strategic objectives into measurable process outcomes and sustainably embed change.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Business Analyst with process improvement responsibilities
  • Operations Manager / Operations Analyst
  • Continuous Improvement Specialist / Lean Coordinator

Advancement To:

  • Senior Business Process Manager / Process Excellence Lead
  • Head of Process Improvement / Director of Operational Excellence
  • VP of Operations or Transformation

Lateral Moves:

  • Product Operations Manager
  • Automation / RPA Program Manager
  • Business Architect

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead cross-functional process improvement programs by conducting end-to-end process discovery, mapping current state, identifying root causes of inefficiency, quantifying improvement opportunities, and defining future-state process designs that align with business strategy.
  • Design, manage and execute process re-engineering initiatives using Lean, Six Sigma (DMAIC), BPMN and value-stream mapping techniques to reduce cycle time, eliminate waste, lower cost-to-serve, and improve quality and compliance.
  • Define, collect and track process performance KPIs (cycle time, error rate, throughput, cost per transaction, NPS, SLA compliance) and develop dashboards and scorecards to provide actionable management information for stakeholders and leadership.
  • Facilitate stakeholder workshops and process design sessions with business owners, subject-matter experts and IT to build consensus on process requirements, handoffs, roles and responsibilities, and to drive rapid, practical implementation plans.
  • Translate process requirements into user stories, functional specifications and acceptance criteria for development, RPA, or ERP teams and prioritize process-related backlog items in partnership with Product and IT.
  • Oversee implementation of automation (RPA, workflow engines, low-code) in collaboration with automation engineers and vendors, ensuring solutions are maintainable, scalable and deliver the forecasted process benefits.
  • Conduct cost-benefit and impact analyses for process improvement proposals, prepare business cases (including ROI, payback period and sensitivity analysis) and present recommendations to senior leadership for approval and funding.
  • Establish process governance frameworks, including process ownership models, operating procedures, process documentation standards, and continuous improvement routines to ensure sustained benefits and accountability.
  • Coordinate cross-functional pilots and phased rollouts of redesigned processes, monitoring adoption, measuring realized benefits, and adjusting controls, training and communication strategies to accelerate change adoption.
  • Manage change and adoption activities for process initiatives by developing stakeholder communication plans, creating training materials, conducting train-the-trainer sessions and ensuring front-line readiness.
  • Lead root cause investigations and corrective action processes for recurring process failures, leveraging data analytics, lifecycle analysis and corrective action plans to prevent recurrence and improve process resilience.
  • Partner with Data Analytics and BI teams to design experiments, A/B tests and process control charts to validate improvement hypotheses, detect process drift, and provide actionable insights for continuous optimization.
  • Maintain up-to-date process documentation (SOPs, process maps, RACI matrices, control plans) and ensure documentation is easily accessible, version controlled and integrated with knowledge management systems.
  • Serve as the internal subject matter expert for BPM tools (e.g., Signavio, ARIS, Visio), process mining platforms (e.g., Celonis), and automation platforms, driving best practices and tool adoption across the organization.
  • Negotiate with vendors and manage third-party consultants for process improvement, automation, and BPM tool integrations, ensuring deliverables meet quality standards, timelines and budget constraints.
  • Integrate regulatory, compliance and audit requirements into process designs and controls, partnering with Legal, Compliance and Risk teams to minimize operational and regulatory exposures.
  • Mentor and coach junior process analysts and continuous improvement team members, building capability across the organization through on-the-job coaching, capability programs and process maturity assessments.
  • Manage program timelines, budgets, resource plans and risk registers for multiple concurrent process improvement projects, escalating issues and negotiating trade-offs to ensure strategic objectives are met.
  • Translate organizational strategy into prioritized process roadmaps by assessing process maturity, identifying quick wins versus transformational initiatives, and aligning resourcing to the highest-value opportunities.
  • Lead post-implementation reviews and benefits realization assessments to quantify realized savings, process quality improvements and customer impact, documenting lessons learned and standardizing successful approaches.
  • Collaborate with HR and Talent functions to align performance metrics and incentives to process outcomes, ensuring behavior and measurement systems support the new process design.
  • Build strong cross-functional relationships and credibility by consistently delivering measurable improvements, communicating outcomes to stakeholders, and aligning process initiatives with business outcomes.
  • Design and maintain risk-based process controls, monitoring frameworks and escalation paths to ensure service continuity and safeguard critical process outcomes during periods of change.
  • Support M&A and integration workstreams by rapidly assessing, harmonizing and optimizing processes across acquired entities to achieve synergies and operational simplicity.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Assist procurement with vendor evaluations and contract reviews relevant to process tooling and automation.
  • Provide subject matter guidance to audit teams during internal and external process reviews.
  • Contribute to knowledge base articles, training curricula and process maturity playbooks to scale capabilities across the enterprise.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Process mapping and modeling (BPMN, SIPOC, value stream mapping) with strong experience producing clear "as-is" and "to-be" process maps.
  • Lean and Six Sigma methodologies (Green Belt required, Black Belt preferred); DMAIC, Kaizen, and continuous improvement toolkit application.
  • Process mining and operational analytics (experience with Celonis, UiPath Process Mining, or similar) to discover inefficiencies and quantify improvement potential.
  • Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and automation lifecycle understanding (UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism or similar).
  • Business case development, cost-benefit analysis, and ROI modeling to prioritize process initiatives and secure funding.
  • Data analysis and visualization skills: SQL for data extraction, Excel for modeling, and BI tools (Power BI, Tableau) for dashboarding.
  • Requirements engineering and ability to write clear user stories, acceptance criteria, and functional process specifications for IT delivery.
  • BPM and workflow platforms (Signavio, ARIS, Appian, Pega) experience with configuration, governance, or vendor management.
  • Project and program management fundamentals: scoping, planning, resource allocation, risk management and delivery tracking.
  • Compliance and control design experience: embedding regulatory requirements into process controls and audit trail design.
  • Familiarity with ERP systems (SAP, Oracle, Workday) and integration considerations when redesigning core transactional processes.
  • Basic scripting or data manipulation (Python, R, or VBA) helpful for prototyping analytics and automating process-quality checks.

Soft Skills

  • Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills—able to gain alignment across senior leaders, operations, IT and support functions.
  • Excellent facilitation and workshop leadership—comfortable running cross-functional design sessions and resolving conflicting requirements.
  • Analytical problem-solving with a data-driven mindset and attention to detail.
  • Clear, persuasive written and verbal communication; ability to tailor messaging to executive and operational audiences.
  • Change management and coaching capability; skilled at driving adoption and behavior change in distributed teams.
  • Strategic thinking with practical bias-for-action—balancing long-term transformation with deliverable short-term wins.
  • Resilience, adaptability and prioritization skills in a dynamic, multi-project environment.
  • Collaborative team player who builds trust, mentors others and fosters a culture of continuous improvement.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Industrial Engineering, Operations Management, Information Systems, Finance, or related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree (MBA, MS in Industrial Engineering, Operations Research, Data Analytics) or equivalent professional experience.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Business Administration
  • Industrial / Systems Engineering
  • Operations Management
  • Information Systems / Computer Science
  • Data Analytics / Statistics

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 5 - 10+ years in operations, process improvement, business analysis, or program management roles.

Preferred:

  • 7+ years leading cross-functional process improvement programs with measurable outcomes.
  • Certifications: Lean Six Sigma Green/Black Belt, Certified Business Process Professional (CBPP), PMP or Scrum certifications highly desirable.
  • Demonstrated experience implementing RPA, BPM, or process mining solutions and working with ERP/IT teams to deploy changes in production.
  • Proven track record of delivering quantifiable cost savings, cycle-time reduction, and service quality improvements across complex enterprise processes.
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