The need to automate existing business processes was felt in the late 70’s and early 80’s.¹ Workflow systems were then introduced to take care of automating the business processes and limit manual interference with the business processes. In the late 90’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications were emerging due to integration of the workflow systems. The drawback of the ERP applications was that each ERP application had to operate based on multiple workflow engines. Thus, leading to complications in handling an ERP based application. The emergence of Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) ensured that the need to use multiple workflow engines could be eliminated to operate an ERP based application.  Since early 2000 the combination of EAI and workflow elements is used to automate the business processes. This combination gave rise to what is called as Business Process Management (BPM) solutions.

Business Process Management techniques help in improving the operational efficiency of an organization in line with its business oriented goals. BPM in practice means different to individuals based on its usage. Which has led to myths evolving around what BPM might be? The clarifications to the myths which will explain what BPM actually is about are listed as follows:²

• As BPM is associated with automating the business processes, it has been assumed that it is a project leading to process improvement. BPM is not a project but it is a practice which if followed continuously would lead to process improvement.
• Organizations believe that implementation of BPM would lead to radical change in the way business tasks within an organization are executed. In reality BPM does not radically change your existing business process but would tweak your existing business process. Tweaking of business process continuously over time would lead to the adoption of optimized business execution practices in an organization.
• It is considered that BPM is a process standardizing model and it is an emerging technology. In reality BPM helps in standardizing execution of business oriented tasks and emerging technologies on which BPM operates help in improvement of the business processes.      

BPM is in its growth phase and various companies are adopting BPM practices. The primary reasons to implement BPM are to increase their operational efficiency. Investing in BPM is considered to be a smart move according to Gartner a leading industry analyst.

The demand for BPM has also led to increase in BPM vendors and variety of BPM suites. If your company is yet to figure out on implementing BPM then look into the article “BPM when to start.” Articles such as “Quick guide to select a BPM suite” and “Quick guide to select a BPM vendor” will ensure you get your evaluation right before selecting a BPM vendor and buying a BPM suite.

References:

1. Bptrends. (2007). An introduction to bpm suites. Retrieved July 28, 2009, from http://www.bptrends.com/reports_toc_01.cfm
2. M. J. Melenovsky. (2006). Gartner. Business process management as a discipline. G00139856. Retrieved July 23, 2009, from http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=494883&subref=simplesearch

Comments

Raju Arora

0

 

 

Thanks for the information shared here. that was an interesting and informative. I had a good experience by participating in the Cloud Computing and SOA Conference in 2009 which is most influential Business Technology Conference covering latest innovations and trends of Cloud Computing, SOA and its technologies. I learnt lot of new technologies in Cloud Computing. And I am planning to attend 2010 edition as well. I found the information about the conference from http://www.btsummit.com

Friday 16 July 2010, 12:04

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