5 BPM Trends for 2007

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'Tis the season for experts, pundits, bloggers and editors to make predictions for the New Year. We at BPMEnterprise.com consider ourselves members of every single one of those groups, and thereby offer you these five predictions (shamelessly cited from other sources) on what to expect in the realm of business process management (BPM) for 2007 -- along with the questions that arise for us on each.

Prediction #1: Process Improvement Will Be Job No. 1.

Source: CIO Insight

“Process improvement” has joined the common vernacular. According to a survey by CIO Insight, it has been cited by 66% of executives as the top priority for their IT organizations. What's driving that? Seeking productivity gains and reducing costs are the most common answers. The same respondents say that the IT department -- above all others -- has changed its business processes the most dramatically in the last two years.

The question we'd like to ask: An additional question in this survey asks, “How much more can your company automate the business processes of the following departments?” For every single department listed -- from customer service to manufacturing to HR to marketing -- more than half the respondents says that “much more” or “more” of the departments could be automated. Automation isn't always the answer for process improvement. Shouldn't somebody let these tech execs know that going into the New Year?

Prediction #2: Designing for Agility: Business Analysts Step Up.

Source: Neal McWhorter, Enterprise Agility as cited by Intelligent Enterprise.

Finally, the modest, behind-the-scenes business analyst is coming into his or her own. This go-between who explains the business side to tech and the tech side to business will, according to McWhorter, “be able to design a complete business specification without connection to any particular IT implementation.” That's an important distinction. Business process design as a separate discipline means the analyst will no longer be beholden to the CIO who may have handed out the job in the first place.

The question we'd ask: Don't these folks deserve a snazzier title than “business analyst”? Sorry, but for us that conjures up a bespectacled staffer who spends way too much time in front of Excel, poring over data. Might we suggest “Process Jedi”?

Prediction #3: Web 2.0 hits BPM.

Source: Sandy Kemsley as cited by Savvion.

Web 2.0 is finally reaching enterprise software, and it's about time too. As Kemsley explains, we're starting in the latest products platform-independence, zero-footprints, rich user interfaces and those cool Ajax features that we've all come to love. Kemsley expects tagging and process syndication to show up in the New Year. Tagging allows anybody in the organization to add information and commentary to an object in the process model; that, in turn, could be searched on by anybody else. Syndication lets participants subscribe to the process in order to be informed about the process as it unfolds. Both changes reflect a growing awareness that people throughout the business need to participate in the fashioning of the process.

The question we'd ask: Is business really ready for BPMtube?

Prediction #4: The coming year will see more importance attached to the issue of process discovery from existing assets rather than modeling process from a green-field site.

Source: Mike Thompson, Butler Group, as cited by Manufacturingtalk.com

This prediction was a true revelation for us. Why is it that BPM efforts must start with a blank sheet of paper? Why not apply tools or methodologies to expose the existing processes for tweaking rather than transformation?

The question we'd ask: Is there a vendor in existence today that really cares to address this potentially less-profitable endeavor?

Prediction #5: Software prices will go down, service rates will go up.

Source: Stuart Mullins, Conversion Services International, as cited by SearchDataManagement.com

Mullins observes that now that Microsoft has entered the business intelligence market and open source applications in the BI and BPM space have become more common, we can expect software prices to drop. However, he says, you can expect the costs to be offset by an increase in prices for consulting and integration services.

The question we'd ask: Customers aren't so very common that every vendor out there doesn't have to brawl for every bit of business it can find. And let's face it: With six-figure prices the norm, these product companies have quite a bit of room to wiggle around during deal closing. Will we really see a broad flattening of software prices happening in the next year or will it simply be customers finding individual good deals?

Useful Links

CIO Insight
http://www.bpmenterprise.com/msD

Neal McWhorter, Enterprise Agility, as cited by Intelligent Enterprise.
http://www.bpmenterprise.com/9ds

Sandy Kemsley as cited by Savvion
http://www.savvion.com/newsletter/dec_2006.html

Mike Thompson, Butler Group, as cited by Manufacturingtalk.com
http://www.manufacturingtalk.com/news/bup/bup105.html

Stuart Mullins as cited by SearchDataManagement.com
http://www.bpmenterprise.com/CGU