Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess whether the business process management (BPM) approach contributes to applying systemic characteristics in organisations.Design/methodology/approach – This is a theoretical and descriptive work based on a review of the literature on BPM and systemic approach.Findings – From the analysis of its stages, it was possible to find a strong correspondence between BPM and the systemic characteristics found in the literature.Practical implications – The paper presents practical implications to professionals as well as academics. The contribution to the body of knowledge on BPM derives from the identification of systemic characteristics in it, thus justifying its practical application to organisations in order to ensure better systemicity and adaptability. As processes are directed to the same goal, unnecessary and misdirected steps are redesigned or eliminated, concentrating resources on core processes and improving the organisation's performance. The paper also con...