In a recent blog post here on ebizQ, I quoted Phil Gilbert of Lombardi and his prediction that major changes were coming in business process management (BPM).
Buried in his quote about change (repeated here) is an interesting definition of BPM (see words in bold):
"BPM is the scalable program by which a company develops and maintains a capability for change. By "capability for change" I mean: having a corporate culture that will actively embrace change, without fear, and work to make that change good. Today, most cultures actively reject change, until forced by market conditions into it. And while companies are finding that the technologies of a BPMS ((roughly characterized as model-based design, business rules, business intelligence, business activity monitoring, and workflow) help, they don't solve the cultural problem of people embracing change."
I agree if by the "busines rules" phrase he means to include a business rules engine (BRE). A BPM product itself does not have to have business rules but only alllow you the flexibility add your own. (On the other hand if it has business rules already, it gives you a headstart on making the most use of BPM.)
The bigger issue is that to cause the changes Phil forsees, BPM software has to become broader and deeper and shake the feeling by IT staffs that it is really just workflow.
Next-generation BPM products will naturally have their own business intelligence (BI) capabilities built in but the better ones long turn will also support integration with leading BI products. I wrote about this trend here under the banner of intelligent process automation (separately I heard from Dan Vesset of IDC that he is still using the term).
What other functionality would you like to see in the BPM software of the future? I think they all need a world-class transaction engine/monitor for example so that the ideal BPM software supports the entire spectrum of business processes from workflow through straight-through. Let us know what you think by email or by posting a comment.
-- Dennis Byron
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