The Workflow Management Coalition (WFMC) defines a business
process as "A set of one or more linked procedures or activities which collectively
realize a business objective or policy goal, normally within the context of an
organizational structure defining functional roles and relationships." A
business process is actually, "a recipe for achieving a commercial result.
Each business process has inputs, method and outputs. The inputs are a
pre-requisite that must be in place before the method can be put into practice.
When the method is applied to the inputs then certain outputs will be
created."
A Business Process Management System is one that enables us
to define, automate, execute, manage and improve business process in an
enterprise. Find more on Business Process, Business Process Management and
Business Process Management Systems in my article at the following link: Business Process
Management: Bridging the Gap between Business and IT.