Skills and Strategy Gaps Hindering Automation and Digital Transformation Projects, reveals Global BPM Survey 2025

A new global survey of over 4,500 Business Process Management (BPM) professionals has raised red flags about the current state of organizational readiness for process automation and digital transformation projects. The Global BPM Trends Report 2025 reveals that skill shortages and lack of foundational requirements are major barriers impactingautomation and transformation efforts across industries.

The findings come at a time when automation and transformation are widely seen as critical levers for achieving operational resilience, cost efficiency, and customer-centric service delivery.

According to the report, nearly 60 percent of BPM professionals surveyed across North America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe rated their proficiency in BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation)—the globally recognized standard for process modeling—as average or below average. The lack of proficiency in BPMN prevents standardized and accurate process documentation—a key prerequisite for any process automation/ transformation initiative. Poor process documentation often leads to fragmented implementations and failed automation pilots.

In addition to skills, the report highlights a broader absence of structure. Almost 50 per cent of respondents said their organizations do not have a formal Business Process Improvement (BPI) methodology in place.These planning deficits are leading to misaligned investments, delayed execution, and unrealized returns across automation and transformation programs.Without a structured approach to identifying, mapping, and optimizing business processes, automation and transformationprojects risk not delivering the desired output.

Implications for Industry: Automation at Risk of Underperformance

The data paints an alarming picture. While organizations are investing heavily in automation technologies—from Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to AI-enabled platforms—the foundational capabilities required to execute these projects successfully are often missing.

The consequences are significant:

• Wasted investments in underused or misaligned tools.

• Operational disruptions caused by poorly implemented automation.

• Employee disengagement stemming from unclear processes and objectives.

• Missed opportunities to scale early automation successes into enterprise-wide gains.

These findings echo broader market concerns that the rush to automate—driven by digital pressure and competitive demands—is outpacing organizations’ ability to manage that change effectively.

“As the BPM market expands alongside the growing push for automation and digital transformation, skills shortages and the absence of foundational strategies are proving to be major roadblocks,” said Mark Khabe, Co-Founder of PRIME BPM. “These survey findings offer data-backed insights into the critical gaps that BPM leaders must address—by upskilling teams and strengthening internal capabilities to maximize the business value from their transformation and automation projects.”

Getting Automation Right: A Step-by-Step Strategy 

Here’s a 5-point strategy to guide organisations towards scalable, sustainable transformation.

1. Start from the Basics 

As Bill Gates said:“Automation applied to an inefficient process will magnify the inefficiency.”

Many automation initiatives are skipping essential steps — and it’s costing them. Before moving forward with automation, organizations need to take a step back to map and evaluate the existing processes to identify inefficiencies, such as rework, unnecessary approvals, or data duplication. Automation should be applied only after streamlining these workflows.

2. Balance Efficiency with Effectiveness 

While repetitive, manual tasks are prime automation targets, not every task is worth automating.

For example, automating a help desk process may increase efficiency, but at the expense of human interaction, customer empathy, and resolution quality. The goal should be to balance both process efficiency and effectiveness.

3. Think Big, Start Small 

Start with the tasks that will quickly showcase results. This will help with both maintaining the momentum and getting buy-in for the program. Identify the ones that are high volume, high frequency, manual, repetitive, with multiple handover points and with low customer touchpoints. Automating such tasks will quickly deliver quantifiable results, such as decreased turnaround, reduced man-hours, increased productivity, reduced errors, etc. Once you have success with initial projects and your automation efforts mature, you can progressively move to the ones with greater customer touchpoints.

4. Identify the Best-Fit Automation 

Automation is not one-size-fits-all. Define clear goals — whether cost savings, productivity, or customer responsiveness — and match them with the right automation solution.

• RPA (Robotic Process Automation) is great for task-specific, rule-based functions.

• Workflow automation handles multi-step processes.

• End-to-end platforms support broader transformation initiatives.

Choose your tool based on whether you need spot-fixes or system-wide change.

5. Build the Right Team 

Build a team with diverse capabilities and roles, right from business process analyst, change management expert, automation expert to subject matter expert and security infrastructure technology analyst, to drive end-to-end automation. It is also important to engage the IT team early to understand the current technology stack to avoid any integration challenges at a later project stage. Evaluating the security requirements right at the initial stage is also crucial to prevent efforts from backfiring.

The Global BPM Trends Report 2025 signals an urgent call to action: As automation continues to define modern business strategy, organizations must bridge the gap between expected and execution.

Upskilling, adopting structured methodologies, and aligning strategy with execution will be essential to ensuring that automation efforts deliver real value.