Breakaway BPM—A New Era of Business Process Management
Business process management—do you even know what the phrase means? If not, you are not alone. Business process management— or BPM—refers to the ability to define, model, streamline, analyze and improve business processes. Successful BPM initiatives usually involve a mix of technology, process definition exercises and ultimately some degree of operational change within an organization.
Slow to Evolve, Quick to Take Off
While business process management as a discipline is not new, it has been slow to evolve. First we had workflow. Then we had more workflow. Then we had EAI—or system-to-system workflow. Then a few vendors added graphical process design to a workflow engine, added support for multi-dimensional human-based process automation, and called it BPM. Then the education process began—how was BPM different than workflow, than EAI, than ERP? How was it different than painful business process re-engineering? Why should I care about BPM? And most importantly—why should I invest limited IT budget in yet another software package and associated services?
As with any new business or technology concept, there has been a period of skepticism, followed by tentative adoption by brave organizations willing to try something new, followed by the realization of early adopters that BPM actually is different— and oh, by the way, it works. Really works. It saves money, it increases productivity, it instills control and repeatability, and it makes an organization more agile. And it is easy to use. And the return on investment is clear. And word got out to other organizations, and then before we knew it—BPM had hit the mainstream.
As adoption of BPM spread, and in some cases matured to span an entire enterprise, solution and services vendors invested heavily in expanding the scope of BPM to include a full-spectrum of capabilities— process design, automation, analysis, simulation, integration—so that an entire process life-cycle could be addressed.
So while BPM was slow to evolve, it has been quick to take off—across industries, across entire organizations. And the adoption rate continues to accelerate.
As a business or IT leader in your organization, the time has come to not only know what BPM is—but to figure out how to leverage it quickly. Because most likely, there are others in your industry who have a head start on you and are moving beyond basic efficiency gains to leveraging process as an asset and a way to gain strategic advantage.
The early adopters of BPM have now become the organizations poised to "breakaway" from the mainstream—and these organizations will use process to drive innovation and to drive profitability. These organizations will be the leaders of the future.
The Era of Breakaway BPM Has Arrived
As more and more vendors enter the market and try to stake a claim to the BPM opportunity, a few leaders have emerged to create a new era of business process management— an era defined by solutions that combine flexibility with a full spectrum of process capabilities. An era defined by vendors partnering with thought-leading business and government organizations to look at processes in terms of their ability to drive organizational growth. The era of "breakaway BPM."
Organizations on the brink of breakaway BPM do not think in terms of design, automation, and control—they think in terms of how a particular process drives innovation, how it drives profitability, how it impacts core business objectives. Then they figure out what needs to happen to take that process to the next level—leveraging various components of the new service-oriented BPM technology "suites" to first improve and then optimize these core processes.
On the supplier side, breakaway BPM vendors merge human-centric and systemto- system capabilities into a single solution that enables both real-time and forwardlooking process visibility and improvement capabilities for roundtrip, complete lifecycle process management. Breakaway BPM vendors have the experience to accelerate results with industry and process-specific best practices and templates. Breakaway BPM vendors know how to break down perceived barriers—within and across organizations—to help customers unlock the true potential of their unique processes. Breakaway BPM vendors have referenceable success stories and know how to deliver measurable results above and beyond expectations.
On the end-user side, breakaway BPM organizations view process capital as an opportunity to differentiate, to gain market share, to improve quality, to empower people and to optimize existing infrastructure to surge ahead of other organizations in the market. Breakaway BPM organizations have realized results from BPM and have embraced it as a way of doing business that is no longer optional—but the top priority in their organization. Breakaway BPM organizations are gaining market recognition for their innovation and leadership.
Reality Bites—Too Many Priorities
How can you become a breakaway BPM organization? How can you steer your organization to: (1) invest in BPM; (2) to take initiatives beyond basic BPM; and (3) to embrace something as nebulous as "breakaway BPM"—especially when the reality is that you already face too many projects, too many priorities and there is not enough time or money to do it all?
The answer lies in a simple justification approach—an approach that simply maps out a short list of key business objectives, identifies the processes that influence those objectives and then rates the degree of impact each process has on directly improving a key objective. This approach will allow you to quickly identify the processes that drive your business success— the processes that will deliver both short-term and long-term financial and strategic value to the organization. These processes represent your most valuable process capital—and any improvement to them will deliver tangible results.
By taking this approach, you can rise above endless lists of tactical priorities, gain executive management buy-in and prove that an investment in BPM will have a direct impact on the success of your organization.
Once you have used this approach to justify the project, staying focused on these key processes and making them the centerpiece of your breakaway BPM initiative will almost certainly guarantee success.
Breakaway BPM Will Produce New Leaders Whether you have a head start on a BPM project or you are just learning what BPM is—your ability to take advantage of this new way of thinking about business processes is the same. Your current state just determines whether you should extend what you have today or skip the basics and leap forward to the latest innovations available to you. To quote Antoine de Saint-Exupery—"A plan without a goal is just a wish." Leaders don't emerge from wishes—leaders emerge from organizations that seize an opportunity, plan quickly and execute effectively. Breakaway BPM presents a clear opportunity— I encourage you to embrace it.
As the first breakaway business process management (BPM) vendor, Metastorm is a leader in BPM software and best practice methodologies for modeling, automating, integrating, and improving both human and systembased processes. Metastorm delivers a complete solution for roundtrip process improvement, focusing on the complex processes that are unique to organizations. Metastorm's 1200+ global client base in manufacturing, retail, financial services, business services, healthcare and government are achieving rapid ROI and Enterprise Process Advantage® in customer service, supply chain operations, risk management, and internal operations. For more information visit (
www.metastorm.com).