Business Process Management (BPM) Software Solutions
Choosing a BPM 'Suite'

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Business process management software solutions – often called "suites" – are one of the hottest areas in business process management (BPM).

At the moment, about two dozen companies offer business process management suites, which feature a jumble of tools, templates and frameworks. The arena is complicated even more by the growing presence of business process management server vendors like Microsoft, IBM and SAP, whose products link closely to BPM suites. As more and more vendors enter this growing marketplace, business process management suites will add new features and new capabilities, further complicating the issue.

Clearly, these are the early days of business process management suites. Some confusion is natural. As the marketplace evolves, business process management vendors will get a clearer picture of what features and tools businesses need, but until then, BPM vendors can only project their own ideas of what companies need and want in their suites.

Nevertheless, companies need to install business process management solutions to stay ahead of the competition. So, how does a company sort all this out?

First, it is important for the company to know the basics of a business process management suite. This includes:

• The difference between a workflow solution and a suite.
• What a suite does.
• The key elements of a suite.

Second, it is also important to develop an approach for choosing the business process management suite that will best fit the company's needs.

Workflow Solutions

The workflow solutions developed during the last decade or so consisted primarily of a workflow engine, a language and a basic graphical modeler. The modeler generated code, usually in the form of a proprietary language that used process patterns to describe workflows. Basically, the engine interpreted the code and executed the workflows. It also tracked which resources were involved and consumed during the task execution. Workflow engines were ideal for developing automated solutions for processes where work handling and task handling were required.

Unfortunately, that approach presented two problems. First, the languages used by the solutions were new and required knowledge of other languages, like Java, Perl, and SQL, which not many people knew. Second, the other parts of a workflow solution, such as user interfaces, system interfaces and the object model, were not addressed in a workflow solution. In other words, the workflow engines could not control business processes during run-time execution. Something more evolved was needed – business process management suites.

What a Business Process Management Suite Does

In essence, a business process management suite lays a foundation for a more flexible approach to business process management. Regardless of the present state of a process, a company can operate the process more efficiently, maintain it more easily, modify it more quickly and measure its performance more objectively using an integrated suite of software specifically designed for that purpose.

Business process management suites automate and control business processes as they are executed. Available with a variety of capabilities, BPM suites include tools that help deploy business process operations. Business process management suites generally include tools with the ability to model business processes, link processes to human interfaces and manage the actual execution of process operations. Some suites also include tools that capture business rules, using them to control business processes as they are executed.

Business process management suites are unlike anything that has come before. They make it easier, faster and cheaper to update the system. Major changes to the system can build on this foundation, reducing future costs. More importantly, while business process initiatives have resulted in significant improvements in processes, few have provided the groundwork for future redesign efforts like business process management suites.

The problem right now is the marketplace. Many developers, seeking to maximize sales portray their BPM suites as the best product for every situation. As time goes by, smaller vendors will undoubtedly enter the market with niche strategies. They will focus on providing business process management suites designed for specific horizontal markets, such as insurance or financial services. These BPM suites will feature templates, frameworks and software components geared specifically for that marketplace, facilitating deployment by providing users with a roadmap for solution design. Until then, companies must make do with what is available.

Key Elements of a Business Process Management Suite

Today's business process management suites offer a powerful set of features and options. Key elements in a typical BPM suite are the engine and the organizational structure. Business process management suites also include support for process modeling, business rules, integration with other software, and ongoing maintenance. Other elements include support for process adaptability, tools for monitoring in the system, and industry- or domain-specific templates and/or frameworks. These make the suite useful for rapid modeling of specific types of business processes.

The engine is the heart of the business process management suite. Most engines are organized around client-server or multi-tier architectures. The core engine resides on a server that provides infrastructure support to developers, employees and managers who access the server via Web browsers. Some engines also feature a process modeling client for use by developers and business analysts.

BPM engines oversee workflow management activities. Responsible for executing, controlling and monitoring all business processes, the engine handles employee interaction, routes work to employees, and ensures that work is completed. It also spearheads integration of third-party applications, and the manipulation of process-related data, which is often stored in an enterprise-level database server, like SQL or Oracle. In addition, the BPM engine is responsible for allocating resources, ensuring thread-safety and de-allocating resources at the end of a task.

Process modeling is another element of a BPM suite. The key factor in process modeling is the degree of accessibility provided by the environment and the amount of IT specialist support required. Many suites allow a company to develop its own basic processes. Once that is completed, developers are required to extend and further develop the process descriptions, making the process deployable by authorized personnel. Many suites provide support for subprocesses, shared data space, forms, time, and process optimization and simulation.

Some vendors also offer templates or frameworks, which provide a head start in developing specific types of applications. Some suites even support complete applications focused on a specific vertical or horizontal application. Others provide vocabularies and metrics for specific types of processes, such as the Supply Chain Council's SCOR framework, which is for businesses working on supply chain systems. Templates and frameworks can substantially reduce development time and costs.

An Approach to Choosing a Business Process Management Suite

In their promotional materials, BPM vendors make their suites sound ideal. All the business process management suites have a broad range of features. They all provide superior benefits. And they all handle a wide variety of applications. With the market wide open, vendors are trying to satisfy a broad range of needs. However, this complicates the choice of a BPM suite.

A five-step approach can guide companies in making make their selection:

1. Define the process needs. While most business process management suites provide the basics, they differ in the richness of their features and capabilities, including support for things like business rule management, content management, human interaction, and so on. By the same token, a particular process may have a certain level of need for each of these capabilities. Defining the process needs helps determine the level of the company's needs and simplifies the selection process.

2. Look for a business process management suite that defines the modeling needs. Most BPM vendors claim that their suites reduce the need for programming to build production solutions and enable business analysts to play a more direct role in modeling and implementation. But they do so in different degrees. Some provide a single modeling environment shared by business analysts and executable process designers. Others provide separate tools for each step. Regardless of what approach is taken, collaboration must occur between business and IT. Look for a system that matches the company's capabilities and culture.

3. Research business process management suites and vendors. Several industry reports by respected analysts and consultants provide information on the many of today's existing suites. Some of these are available free from industry sources. Others are available at a small cost. Obtain one or more of these reports, review them carefully to see what each suite/vendor has to offer, and then develop a list of appropriate suites.

4. Check out similar implementations. Once a list has been developed, ask the vendor for implementation references. Check these out thoroughly. Right now there are no industry-wide standards that can help compare vendor claims. Researching these implementations is the best way of judging if a suite does what its vendor claims it does. Then eliminate the ones that do not measure up. That should result in a short list.

5. Develop a detailed RFP. Create a detailed request for proposal (RFP) to send to the short list. As part of the RFP, include what one firm calls a "small focused proof-of-concept application," if that makes sense for the company. The application will provide a true test for the suite and the vendor.

In summary, business process management suites are constantly evolving. Eventually, BPM suites will provide a more definitive solution for a company's needs. For now, however, if a company wants to find the best solution available, the company will have to do due diligence to match its needs with a suite's capabilities.