BPM versus BSM … How to Choose the Right Tool?

BPM versus BSM

A Business Process Management (BPM) Toolset manages enterprise tactical and operational procedures by modeling the enterprise architecture and processes to be monitored, audited, and optimized to best practices. However, Business Service Management (BSM) tools manage services by modeling its IT infrastructure to be monitored, audited, and optimized to best practices.

BPM capabilities include strategic business planning, enterprise modeling, process execution, performance monitoring, activity monitoring, change management, information management, workflow management, and other technology management like CRM, ERP, SCM, and SRM. However, BSM capabilities include service performance monitoring, data analysis, root cause analysis, problem solving, resources prediction and optimization, and SLA management.

Example on vendors of BPM products are IDS Scheer, Proforma, iGrafx, MEGA International, Telelogic, IBM, Casewise, Microsoft, and EMC. And examples on vendors of BSM products are IBM Tivoli TBSM, BMCSOFTWARE, Managed Objects BSM, Systar, Mercury, HP, EMC/SMARTS, and Micromuse.

How to Choose the Right Tool?

According to the features listed in different vendor sites of BPM and BSM products, and with the help of Gartner’s report evaluating products of different vendors according to certain criteria’s and market share. I can summarize main software requirement that we need for both BPM and then BSM respectively.

BPM product Software Requirements:

The tool should be capable to provide all the listed software requirements:

1. To support modeling, automation, and improvement of BP’s of engineering directorate.
2. To make control in engineering directorate processes.
3. To get optimal performance from resources and processes.
4. Pre-defined cross industry, industry specific and application package models.
5. To be able to integrate the system with service level management (SLM) systems like (Netcool/Omnibus Event Management Tool).
6. To be able to integrate the system with IT and Engineering Infrastructures like (ERP, CRM, SCM, etc)
7. To be able to integrate the system with various modeling methods and frameworks like (ITIL, eTOM, etc). And to various interfaces like (XML, BPEL, etc)
8. To support Standards of ISO and QM methodologies like (Six Sigma, Lean, EFQM, etc).
9. To contain or be able to integrate with BI Tools.
10. To support OLAP for organization of Data.
11. To support different technologies like (SOA, SAP, etc).
12. To support integration with different types of data sources and databases like (Oracle, Access, Sybase, etc)
13. To support integration with different vendors BPA products like (Microsoft Visio, etc)
14. Adherence to architecture standards and industry specific frameworks like (ToGAF, DoDAF, IEAF, etc) and IT Infrastructure Library.
15. Additional benefit, tool assistance with visualization and other features such as simulation and Activity Bases Costing (ABC).

BSM product Software Requirements:

The tool should be capable to provide all the listed software requirements:

1. Allow modeling any service in the IT or Telecom infrastructure (Ericsson nodes).
2. Allow integration to other infrastructures and systems like trouble-ticketing system and database.
3. Allow combining IT and Telecom best practices processes like ITIL and eTOM and automated technology management.
4. Allow defining and monitoring service Resources, KPI’s, KQI’s, dashboards, and SLA.
5. Allow real time tracking of SLA Allow dynamic KPIs.
6. Advanced numeric rules of calculation
7. Support aggregation and retrieval on different database types like Sybase, Oracle, etc.
8. Allow visualization of services, service status/health from external sources
9. Can be integrated to different sets of BPA toolset products like ARIS BPPM, IBM Websphere, etc.
10. Allow Service definition from Configuration Management database (CMDB)/inventory.

Few simple questions arise here; Can we integrate both BSM and BPM systems? Do both contain a business intelligence set? Do they both add customer satisfaction? The answer to all is "YES". And it’s then the decision of a company to adopt one or both systems depending on their industry type, specialization, and the products and services they provide.