BPM reaches maturity

Traditionally, strategic enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, like SAP, JD Edwards and BAAN, entered large enterprises and changed them “by force”, due to their critical role in the business.

This is according to Craig Leppan, business development manager at Ovations, a business transformation solutions provider.

ERP systems became so key to sales, ordering and planning, as well as ultimate business outcomes, that they dragged along other necessary organisational changes such as enterprise architecture, change management and process improvement, he says.

“If other aspects of the business didn't adapt to ERP implementation, the very business survival, or failure, would be affected, and typically heads would roll,” says Leppan.

Enterprise BPM, however, does not have these privileges. “Firstly, there may be departmental BPM efforts starting with all the intentions of process change and business improvement; however, these intentions are often ignored by the incumbent ERP system, which BPM has not managed to integrate or add value to.

“Secondly, IT architecture may have a different view than departmental BPM, which requires a system view that scales outside the internal Web site to external channels, including mobile.

“Finally, the 'new way' introduced by a BPM system may be worked around by staff, who are accustomed to the classic interactions with legacy systems or even modern ERP systems. The sheer pain of changing the way staff used to do things may just not seem worth the effort.”

So what is enterprise BPM, and what does it demand of and promise to business and IT?

Leppan will answer these questions at the ITWeb BPM Summit, using Gartner research and local case studies to support his arguments.

The third annual ITWeb BPM Summit takes place from 17 to 18 April, with a post-event workshop on 19 April, to be hosted by international BPM expert Steve Towers.

For more information about this event, click here.