Process orchestration software is designed to coordinate and streamline complex business processes across various moving parts or endpoints. These tools are pivotal in tying together multiple processes, enabling businesses to leverage existing people, systems, and devices to achieve ambitious goals in end-to-end process automation.
These software solutions are capable of visualizing, automating, and maintaining long-running, intricate processes while coordinating the execution of tasks across a diverse set of endpoints, including but not limited to robotic process automation (RPA) bots, APIs, human work, or microservices. This capacity addresses and resolves issues of process complexity and endpoint diversity, distinguishing process orchestration from adjacent categories, such as business process management software that focus on more limited cases of managing processes.
Process orchestration tools differ in their capabilities and features. Some products in this space offer advanced integrations and functionalities compared to traditional business process management (BPM) tools, which are often more suited for stable, lower-stakes back-office processes. In contrast, process orchestration tools are equipped to handle frequently changing, high-stakes, and business-critical processes, including customer-facing operations.
These tools play a crucial role in the modern business landscape, where digital transformation has heightened the demand for fast, high-quality digital experiences, and processes have grown in complexity due to market disruptions and regulatory requirements. The sophistication of process orchestration software allows for the management of critical processes that directly impact customers and are essential to the delivery of products and services.
To qualify for inclusion in the Process Orchestration category, a product must:
- Enable the visualization, automation, and maintenance of complex, long-running business processes
- Facilitate coordination and execution of tasks across diverse types of endpoints
- Support integration with a wide array of systems, including but not limited to RPA bots, APIs, human tasks, and microservices
- Offer scalability to handle varying volumes and peaks in process instances, aligning with business activities
- Adapt to business changes, including implementing new strategies and complying with regulatory changes
