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Most technology systems continue to be viewed by the business community as inhibitors of progress, rather than as innovative solutions capable of delivering agile operations, Business Process Management is being actively positioned as the exception to this rule.
Business professionals continue to struggle with business and technology alignment issues, and are actively searching for business-enhancing technology solutions that are fit-for-purpose and come without the need to undertake major time-constraining redevelopments whenever operational changes occur. BPM, in its various forms, has been available since before the millennium, and in Group’s opinion today’s leading solutions comprise of a mature set of tools, products, and services that are fit for mainstream business use.
KEY FINDINGS
Business Process Management (BPM), as a product in its own right, has emerged from the competitive influences of the diverse workflow, integration, and re-engineering camps to deliver solutions that allow the intellect of business users to be a key driver of success.
During the last two years solutions that operate under the BPM banner have become more functionally inclusive.
When used to its best advantage, high-calibre BPM provides a systematic approach to improving business and operational processes.
Cost-saving benefits may provide an initial attraction, but it is product quality and persistent usage that will drive the ongoing benefits of BPM.
There remains a requirement to address the functional divide between what the BPM software vendors are delivering and what business services users really need from core BPM products.
A Business Rules Management System (BRMS) approach to development will reduce the inefficiencies that exist within current development methodologies.
The emergence of rules as a subset of BPM is an indication of the growing maturity of the market.
Possibly the most important aspect of a rules repository, certainly in respect of the stated promise of BPM, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and BRMS, is the ability for the developer to re-use rules within multiple process deployments.
Group positions SOA and its associated integration services as having a crucial role to play in the BPM service delivery picture.
Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) promises to keep processes running smoothly, but information overload could end up being counter-productive.
BPM continues to struggle with standards and their agreed usage. Fundamentally if the sector cannot reach a consensus on the use of headline standards such as Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) and Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN), there is little chance of it progressing further down the scale. |
