Custom Processes: The Key to Effective Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)

For a business to truly transform and grow, everything inside the company needs to work together smoothly. This means having a clear strategy that connects your business processes, IT systems, applications, and the people involved through effective Application Lifecycle Management. Without this kind of alignment, it becomes very difficult to keep up with today’s fast-changing business world.

Business processes: Pivotal across Application Lifecycle Management phases

Business processes are a key part of every stage in the application lifecycle. For example, during the setup or implementation phase, future business processes (often called “to-be” processes) help guide how the technical system should be built. They also highlight where existing standard processes may need to be changed or customized.

Later, during testing, these business processes are used to create test cases that cover the full workflow—whether the tests are automated or done manually by people.

Since business processes reflect how the company actually works, they may include steps that aren’t handled directly by the application—some tasks might still be done manually or in other systems. These processes also help train new employees during roll-out by clearly showing what parts of the work are supported by the application and what isn’t. Additional resources like training videos can make it even easier for users to understand and use the system effectively.

Facilitating effective communication

For smooth communication between everyone involved in a project, it’s important that everyone shares a clear understanding and speaks the same “language.” That’s where business processes come in—they act as a common ground. While it’s smart to standardize processes, real business success often depends on how quickly you can adjust those processes and your systems to match new goals, customer needs, rule changes, or new technology.

The real challenge is finding the right balance—using standard processes and tools, following industry best practices, and still having the flexibility to customize where needed.

Ideally, everyone would use a single format like BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) to describe and discuss processes. This can help make things clearer and easier to manage. But focusing only on the technical side can miss important details, especially for team members who aren’t in IT. Business processes often look different from how they’re technically set up, especially when non-technical people are involved.

To bridge this gap, it’s helpful to include extra details in process descriptions—like rules, risks, or company policies—so they make more sense to everyone. Also, showing the reasons behind certain business needs (like specific laws in a country) gives useful context and helps everyone understand why certain steps are necessary.

Tailoring representation to stakeholder needs

Since different people are involved in a project, it’s helpful to present information in different ways. Some may find visual diagrams easier to understand, while others might prefer tables that match how they usually work. Letting people choose the format they’re most comfortable with makes it easier for them to engage and reduces pushback.

A Simple Example: Boosting Business Transformation with ARIS and SAP

New improvements in business tools like ARIS, which now work smoothly with SAP’s Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), show how valuable custom processes can be. With the help of a custom process API, businesses can now move their process details into SAP Cloud Application Lifecycle Management with ease.

Key process flows—like value flows and solution flows—can be added directly into SAP’s process editor. These flows help the IT team understand what’s needed for implementation. Plus, users can easily jump back into ARIS to find more detailed information and share updates with non-technical team members.

By giving users the flexibility to manage processes quickly and clearly, companies are better equipped to achieve smooth operations and stronger collaboration.In Conclusion: Custom processes designed around real business need not only strengthen your company’s position but also help you reach a higher level of process excellence.