Posts by DavidKelly

What’s Old Is New Again with BPM

Posted on by DavidKelly

In the old old days, just before the World Wide Web and the Internet were the next big things (the mid-late 1990s), the dominant emerging application architecture was something called client/server. In fact, there were a raft of client/server tools vendors pushing the envelope, trying to deliver scalable, client/server development tools that were manageable in a distributed environment. Of course, the Internet and WWW technologies changed all that, making distributed client/server products almost immediately passé. Initially, organizations paused as the Web exploded, and then moved their development efforts toward standardized application servers and Java.
That would seem like the end of the story for these tools-and it was for many. But not for all. In fact, Upside Research is seeing somewhat of a resurgence in these companies and products that were originally focused on solving complex distributed computing issues in the client/server era. In fact, not only are some of these companies still around, but after surviving a rather turbulent five years in the application development space they’re even starting to see success again with new products, new customers, and new approaches to application development. What’s more interesting, however, is the degree to which business process management (BPM) is playing a part in their product plans and customer needs.
A good example of just such a company is Unify Corporation, a Sacramento, Calif.-based company that just last month closed a new $4M round of investment and has seen its customer base for its BPM-oriented products double in the past 6 months. After its near-brush with client/server extinction a few years ago after failing to meet corporate and performance expectations in the hyper-fueled Internet era, Unify regrouped, focusing on it core customers (everyone from Citigroup to Corporate Express to Pioneer Electronics) and its extensive experience. Unify set out to maintain revenue and identify new product opportunities that leveraged its core expertise in scalable, distributed
application development.
Then a funny thing happened-Unify started getting messages from its customer that in spite of the J2EE/application server juggernaut, they still wanted robust application development tools that could help them build business-focused applications for J2EE and .NET. In fact, for many companies, new infrastructure alternatives such as J2EE ended up creating more complexity than the previous alternatives, and as Unify found out, organizations wanted process-oriented development tools to accelerate development, reduce skill requirements, and enable more dynamic applications.
As a result, Unify went back to product development and released the first version of Unify NXJ platform at the end of 2002, and an updated version at the end of 2003. NXJ is an application platform for process-centric transactional applications that builds on Unify’s experience with its Unify VISION client/server products and its ACCELL family of rapid application development tools.
More interestingly, the key to NXJ is its support for service-oriented architectures (SOAs) and business process management (BPM) capabilities. With NXJ, Unify tapped into the large number of companies that want help moving from server-centric computing to process-centric computing, and the SOA and BPM components of NXJ filled that need. NXJ includes a business process engine for automated workflow, business process management, and Web services orchestration.
The product also includes a graphical modeling environment that allows developers as well as business users to define and modify process definitions. In addition, NXJ has an integrated forms processing and reporting capabilities for automating the creation of robust user interfaces and business intelligence capabilities.
Unlike the structure of traditional applications, Unify’s NXJ sees them as a series of components wired together in a flow. Processes are defined externally, rather than hard-wired into the core application logic. In other words, in the NXJ world applications are simply the user interface (UI) to the business process. Of course, this is often a hard notion for many traditional IT shops and development organizations to understand or move their development methodologies toward (as we’ve seen with other BPM products). But it’s one that they’ll have to-sooner, rather than later if they want to remain competitive
with the rest of the world.
Upside Uptake
As we’ve noted before, BPM technologies and ideas are becoming more pervasive every quarter. Unify is a good example of how new, BPM-related solutions are being developed to support the need to unite business and IT when it comes to application design, development, deployment, management, and monitoring. Pure BPM solutions aren’t for everyone-not today, and not ever. But BPM technologies will continue to “diffuse” their way into an ever widening series of IT products, giving business users and managers more direct control over their applications and processes.
Unify Corporation’s NXJ is a solid alternative for organizations focused on application development that want to move toward business process management and service oriented architectures. Unify’s long experience in delivering distributed application development products and its new recognition of the importance of process-centric computing and workflow/service orchestration requirements makes NXJ a viable alternative to pure J2EE application development platforms. By moving business process management and service-oriented architecture to the front of the agenda, Unify is rising from the ashes of the client/server era with a viable application platform for today’s needs.

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BPM Market Navigates Q1 2004 With Sails High

Posted on by DavidKelly

The winds of change continue to blow through the corporate business and IT worlds, and according to the latest Upside Research, Inc. vendor survey, business process management (BPM) is sailing into the picture for more companies than ever before.

The first quarter of 2004 has been an important test for many BPM vendors, as they have continued to broaden their base and expand their enterprise-class deployments and capabilities, becoming more established players. Many of the vendors have been fortunate, and their financial results indicate a positive year for BPM. Upside Research recently conducted an informal survey of a number of BPM vendors, and the results support our earlier claim that 2004 is emerging as the year for BPM.

Overall sales have grown dramatically. Of the half dozen vendors that responded to this question, all reported growth rates above the 2003 industry average of 15-20%. Respondents indicated that quarter over quarter revenues grew by an average of 44%. And, several vendors saw large multi million dollar sales, indicating more enterprise-scale adoption of BPM.

Key verticals are responding to BPM. BPM vendors are seeing traction in a number of key verticals, indicating that these verticals view BPM as an answer to business challenges such as corporate governance, streamlining processes, and industry regulations. The majority of vendors identified financial services and healthcare as two key verticals. Other verticals seeing more traction from BPM are government and manufacturing.

Geographic breakdown of sales. While all vendors in the survey reported that the majority of their sales are coming from North America, many indicated that several markets are seeing growth, most notably Asia/Pacific Rim/Australia. Several vendors reported big customer wins in Japan and Australia, indicating that this area should continue to see growth over the next year.

Major factors for sales growth. There were a number of similar factors identified by vendors as contributors to their recent sales growth. Among them were:
– Compliance and regulatory pressures
– Cost savings and fast implementation schedules
– Measurable ROI from early BPM adopters
– Global business expansion

These factors have had a positive influence on BPM vendors’ ability to take the message up the corporate ladder and make a convincing sell to C-level executives.

The Upside Uptake
These results are promising for BPM. The solid growth numbers indicate that vendors are gaining traction in important accounts, and the word is spreading that BPM is a viable solution for process automation, cost savings, and regulation and compliance challenges. Upside Research believes that future quarters will continue this trajectory of growth being experienced, and estimates that the overall growth of the market will shift from 15-20% that was seen last year up to 25-30% for 2004. The growth in new markets is especially indicative of the potential for growth of BPM, as the solution becomes a global one, impacting companies around the world. And, with regulatory and compliance mandates continuing to plague corporate managers, BPM adoption will continue to grow as a proven, cost-effective solution.

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BPM and the Maturing SOX Market

Posted on by DavidKelly

Government regulations and mandates are nothing new. Even before the English put a well-known tax on tea in the 1700s, American companies have been complying (or in that case, rebelling against) government regulations.

While no one has rebelled against it, the Sarbannes-Oxley Act of 2002 is one recent regulation that is impacting almost all U.S. companies. A series of questionable business practices in a limited number of high profile companies through the 1990s and early 2000s led the government to significantly tighten the reporting requirements and certification of controls and procedures for public companies in 2002, resulting in the Sarbannes-Oxley Act of 2002.

Intended to restore public confidence in corporate governance, the Sarbannes-Oxley Act (also commonly know as SOX) required all public companies, and many private ones, to improve the transparency and accuracy of financial accounting. For example, the act required CEOs and CFOs to sign off on their companies’ financials and to certify their financial controls and procedures. As a result, over the past couple of years public companies have been working to meet these new requirements through increased definition, accounting, and reporting of their financial processes.

SOX compliance includes different aspects (such as Section 302’s quarterly reporting requirements and 404’s annual reporting requirements with its evaluation of internal controls), but it all boils down to being able to define your financial processes, report on them, and manage change (and compliance) over time.
For many companies, SOX is a perfect opportunity to move towards a business process management platform. While initial requirements, such as defining processes and reporting on them, don’t require true business process management capabilities, the fit is obvious: by using a BPM solution to define and monitor their financial and reporting processes, organizations are automatically ready to take the next step of using a BPM product to manage change over time. Using a BPM solution as the underpinning for SOX compliance provides organizations with increased flexibility and potential competitive advantage in being able to reduce the cost of compliance over time (through automation) as well as the ability to ensure compliance even when financial or business structures are changing.

Realizing this opportunity, a number of BPM products have added support for SOX, including companies such as Handysoft, which has even built separate SOX-specific applications based on their BPM platform. In fact, Handysoft recently released version 2 of its SOXA Accelerator, highlighting the increasing maturity of BPM-based SOX solutions. Handysoft’s SOXA Accelerator 2.0 provides a number of new features, including compliance dashboards (making it easy for corporate managers to understand the status of the financial reporting systems), and SOX frameworks from major audit firms. Additional updated capabilities include new rollup and certification capabilities for section 302 and 404 compliance that allow business unit managers or executives to determine if material changes have taken place, as well as increased visibility and reporting options that provide pre-configured reports and key performance indicators for more rapid understanding of financial reporting status.

Upside Uptake
Upside Research believes that Handysoft’s SOXA Accelerator 2.0 is a sign of the maturing BPM/SOX market. It provides solid support for the required regulation compliance, but it can do much more. What’s more important is that companies begin to realize that they can take SOX compliance to the next level that by investing in a product such as Handysoft’s SOXA Accelerator (or other BPM/SOX solutions), they can lay the foundation for a dynamic business process management solution that provides benefits beyond compliance.
Modeling, auditing, and reporting on your financial processes is simply the first step-although it’s the big one for SOX compliance. Smart organizations will realize that once they’ve implemented it via a BPM solution, they’ll have the ongoing capability to dynamically modify, monitor, and manage those processes over time. More importantly, a BPM-enabled SOX solution provides the foundation for extending business process management beyond the financial reporting arena and linking it even more closely with other business processes, providing a way to reduce costs, institutionalize best practices, and provide a dynamic platform for increasing revenue.

While Upside Research believes that SOX solutions like Handysoft’s SOXA Accelerator are good, they are only the first step. Organizations must move beyond the mandated SOX reporting functions to utilizing the true business process management capabilities that underlie BPM-based SOX solutions. And, as with any technology solution to a business problem, organizations should not view the SOX solutions as a band-aid to fix their corporate financial processes, but rather an opportunity to review and create best practices around financial reporting.

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SOA and BPM

Posted on by DavidKelly

Service-oriented architectures (SOAs) are nothing new. They’ve been around (in one guise or another) since at least the early 1990s. In fact, the latest development in service-oriented architectures-Web services-has now been around approximately four years. So, what’s the big deal about IBM’s SOA announcement on April 21st? Quite a bit, if you’re interested in business process management (BPM) and can wait until later this year for the rest of the story to play out.

In fact, what wasn’t in the announcement is probably more important that what was in it. IBM basically announced new software and services that enable customers to move toward a service-oriented architecture. Specifically, new versions of WebSphere Studio Application Developer Integration Edition (WS AD) and the newly renamed WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation (WS BISF) 5.1.
Both include new, BPM-oriented support. For example, WebSphere Studio Application Developer includes a visual process designer and debugger for creating BPEL4WS 1.1 process flows, while WebSphere Business Integration Server includes native deployment support for BPEL4WS processes. In addition, WebSphere Application Developer also includes automated migration of version 5.0 process flows into BPEL4WS flows. These are solid, BPM-oriented additions to the WebSphere product family.

What IBM didn’t announce is a variety of future product changes, expected later this year, that will further support SOA and BPM. For example, support for WebSphere Business Integration Modeler and Monitor is expected in the second half of the year, as well as a future announcement on their Common Event Infrastructure, a unified approach to managing events at both the system (a la Tivoli) and business levels (and a key ingredient of a good BPM platform).

Upside Uptake
While service-oriented architecture is yet another buzzword that organizations have to digest, the process of turning business and IT functionality into discrete services that can be composed, combined, and dynamically managed is no doubt the fundamental direction that most organizations are (or will be) moving in over the next five years. This is particularly important for any organization interested in BPM because services-oriented architectures provide a dynamic foundation that makes true BPM not only easier, but more effective.

What’s important in this announcement is that fact that IBM’s latest WebShere releases (both the development tools and runtime environment) support BPEL and move BPM toward a core functionality expected in fundamental IT infrastructure components. IBM’s future announcements (and product directions) are also critical to the future of BPM and SOA. While IBM is a large company that may not always be the first to deploy new technologies (though they certainly adopted Linux moderately quickly), the fact that it is driving its customer base toward SOA and BPM standards and technologies is important because it furthers the acceptance of these technologies and reduces potential risk from their adoption. That’s why Upside Research believes that IBM’s SOA announcement is important to BPM vendors and any organization interested in building a more dynamic IT and business application architecture.

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BPM Market Consolidation – Tibco Swallows Staffware

Posted on by DavidKelly

This morning, Tibco Software Inc announced it had reached an agreement to purchase UK-based Staffware plc for approximately $217 million.

While Tibco is well known for its message bus software and has a strong EAI heritage, particularly in high-end applications and industries like financial services, it has had difficulty over the past couple of years moving beyond its integration heritage. Likewise, while Staffware’s workflow (and to a less extent, BPM software) has strong penetration on the UK and Europe, it has struggled over the past couple of years to create a viable strategy for the U.S. market.

Upside Uptake
This move is another indication of the maturing of the BPM market, and probably not the last acquisition of a BPM company that we’ll see this year. From a pricing perspective, Staffware did well, reaping $217m against revenues of approximately $76M for 2003, and boding well for the valuations of other BPM companies.
Upside Research believes that this is a solid acquisition for Tibco, and a reasonably good exit strategy for Staffware, especially at that price. On the surface, each company complements each other nicely from a geographic and technology perspective, and both are accustomed to high-end, enterprise sales cycles and deployment requirements.

Despite a broad array of integration/workflow/BPM technology, Staffware’s software growth had stalled somewhat over the last year and it was unable to gain a strong foothold in the U.S. market despite repeated attempts. Instead, they remained fairly dominant in the UK and Europe, complementing Tibco’s U.S. strength. Despite Tibco’s acquisition of process-oriented vendor InConcert a few years ago, it has not been able to make a name for itself in the business process arena-remaining in most people’s minds as the enterprise message bus and EAI company.

However, there are some questions. Staffware’s enterprise projects tend to involve significant services component and many engagements require a repository and content management capabilities-capabilities that may go beyond the Tibco/Staffware technology stack. Also, in order to be successful, Tibco will need to par down the extensive Staffware process and integration options, while clearly delineating when and where customers should Tibco integration capabilities vs. Staffware. And while Staffware has heavily marketed its newer, iProcess business process engine, it’s not clear how many companies have actually deployed it. Despite repeated attempts, Upside Research has yet to talk to fully deployed Staffware customer actively using the iProcess engine.

Another challenge for a successful acquisition will be Tibco’s ability to move from its traditional message bus, IT-oriented perspective to the sales and deployment of higher-level business process solutions. While there’s no doubt that Tibco has an enterprise pedigree, the Tibco’s challenge is to move its sales force and marketing message to a more business oriented level.

Given the magnitude of this deal, along with the geographic considerations and product line questions, Upside Research believes that in the short term (through the end of 2004) this acquisition may actually benefit the other BPM companies more than Tibco/Staffware. However, if Tibco is able to address the issue raise above, provide prospects with a solid technology roadmap for the combined product set, and articulate a higher-level business process oriented message, it could become a leader in the BPM market in 2005.

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BPM Movement Gaining Speed in U.S

Posted on by DavidKelly

In a previous Upside Update, Upside Research marked 2004 as the year to watch BPM. A notable development that substantiates this prediction is the decision by the Business Process Management Group (BPMG) to boost its presence in the U.S.

The Business Process Management Group (founded in 1992) is a global business club exchanging ideas and best practice in business process and change management. BPMG has over 6,500 members across all business sectors. Through case studies, seminars and research they provide members with the opportunity to interact with BPM vendors and learn about the latest developments in the market.

“We feel that the demand is there [in the US] for more research, data, and training on BPM,” stated Stewart Ashton, chairman of the board of BPM Ventures, the company that owns BPMG, in a recent interview. Ashton outlined BPMG’s plans for increasing its presence here in the states, and launching a BPM training program, that will include a certification process and working to establish working standards for BPM design and development

Currently, BPMG is establishing a Boston-based office in Burlington and has several training and ‘Technology Showcase’ events planned in North America. In addition their training team is providing direct support for organizations seeking certification in BPM.

BPMG’s arrival on US soil joins the ranks of a number of existing resources for companies in the throes of BPM initiatives. One of the primary benefits of these types of forums is its ability to connect users with other users that have experienced or are experiencing similar situations relating to BPM initiatives. From the vendor side, these resources provide a targeted audience to deliver their messages, and are thus supported by numerous BPM vendors.

Upside Take
While BPMG’s addition to the list of resources for a BPM user is a positive impact on the BPM scene, the idea of organizing a BPM certification program is a more important one, because it relates to another trend Upside Research has seen in recent months. Many of the companies we have spoken with who are currently implementing BPM are approaching their IT staff in a new business-focused light.

When selecting IT members to assist with a BPM rollout, managers often look for business-process skills. In fact, a few of the companies we’ve recently interviewed have shared that their current and future open requisitions for IT hires require a business-related background to ensure that business goals are reflected in IT development projects.

BPM is one of the most likely areas to benefit from this fusion of business and IT acumen. A challenge for many companies, however, is finding ways to help their existing IT staff acquire more business-focused skills prior to launching a corporate-wide BPM initiative. Upside Research believes that the training program BPMG has outlined is a good fit for these companies. Sending IT to training that will help them broaden their business process skills while also teaching fundamentals of good BPM design and best practices will help ensure that a corporate BPM initiative starts off on the right foot.

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Fuego 5.0 Raises the Bar

Posted on by DavidKelly

As we outlined in the last two Upside Update newsletters, Upside Research believes that 2004 will bring BPM products that are more business focused. With a surprisingly strong offering in its new release of Fuego BPMS 5.0, Fuego is set to up the ante in the BPM game, as well as providing a proof point for some of our predictions.

Incorporated as a US-based company in 1999, Fuego has emerged as a “pure play” BPM company, focused primarily on helping companies automate and manage their processes. Its previous offerings have been solid products that have delivered practical BPM solutions to a variety of companies. However, like most sophisticated BPM products, the Fuego solution required quite a bit of work to try out-even for prototyping purposes. For example, as with many BPM products, organizations interested in trying it out would typically have to involve DBAs to set up access to a database and/or the appropriate directory structure.

Fuego 5.0 is set to change all this. In 5.0, Fuego has not only abstracted and simplified the configuration, development, administration, and management aspects of modeling and deploying a business process, but they have also enabled almost any organization to download and model a BPM solution without extensive training. Fuego has also eliminated the risk of potential customers wasting their time by enabling them to turn their prototypes into production ready processes. With the release of 5.0, organizations can now download a free, fully functional evaluation copy of Fuego Process Orchestration Studio, Fuego’s new modeling, development, and testing interface for process development. With the Orchestration Studio, users can actually build and model processes they can run on a single machine. The Studio includes a full runtime capability (albeit for debugging and testing purposes only) and its self contained nature eliminates the need for developers to setup databases or directory structures. If the results of an organization’s prototyping efforts are favorable, users can move their process to a runtime environment by purchasing either the Fuego Express Engine (departmental) or Fuego Enterprise Engine.

In addition, Fuego has updated its traditional CIL development language with Fuego Business Language (FBL), eliminating the need to learn CIL as well as a fair amount of the coding that was traditionally required. Designed to make it easier for business analysts to model processes, the Orchestration Studio extends FBL capabilities by providing automated support for graphically developing process logic, through new procedures and screen flows that business users can use to design their processes.

Upside Uptake
At Upside Research, we were able to easily download, configure, and use Fuego 5.0 seamlessly from the Web, in contrast with the cumbersome configuration routines we’ve experienced with other BPM products. Upside Research believes that Fuego BPMS 5.0 is an innovative BPM solution that has significant advantages for both business analysts and IT developers. Fuego 5.0 has several new features that position Fuego in the forefront of pure-play BPM vendors.

Upside Research is impressed with the free availability and download of the Fuego Process Orchestration Studio (the development environment) and believes that this is a good strategic move that other BPM vendors will have a tough time responding to. The fact that Fuego Process Orchestration Studio can now be downloaded and used freely to develop production-ready processes is important because it means that it’s easier than ever for organizations to get started evaluating BPM solutions.

Fuego 5.0 also includes new simulation capabilities that are important for pre deployment analysis, enabling analysts to test their process models prior to release. In addition, the simulation can be used post-release to compare results with the anticipated results, and iteratively plan for the next release.

While it’s still early in the year, Upside Research believes that Fuego 5.0 is an important milestone in 2004 BPM developments. Let’s see if the other companies can catch up.

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Upside Research Identifies BPM Trends for Market Growth

Posted on by DavidKelly

NEWTON, MASS-March 2, 2004—David A. Kelly, president of analyst firm Upside Research Inc., announced his predictions about the market for Business Process Management (BPM) solutions in 2004. In a series of research briefs, Kelly outlines what he feels are significant indicators that “2004 will be the year for BPM.”

“Over the past two years, we’ve seen the business process management (BPM) market continue to grow, as more and more organizations look for BPM products to automate and manage their business processes,” says Kelly. “BPM products have evolved into more sophisticated offerings, with broader coverage and increased support for business developers and users.” Kelly believes this metamorphosis from emerging technology toward mainstream enterprise solutions sets up BPM to make significant inroads in global corporations this year.

Among the trends in BPM for 2004, Kelly highlights the following in his research briefs:
Increasing modularity. According to Kelly, in many cases in the past, BPM products have been all-inclusive, requiring significant investments in one company’s BPM architecture and vision. “Upside Research believes that 2004 will bring some (but not complete) relief in this area,” predicts Kelly, “as product vendors continue to open up their BPM architectures to support standards and 3rd-party tools. Primarily, we’ll see more flexibility in modeling, reporting, business rules, and possibly simulation capabilities, as well as deployment.”

Kelly cites vendors such as Fuego, Handysoft, Metastorm, and others contributing to this trend. Movement on standards. Kelly highlights the current standards battle being waged in the BPM market over standards such as BPMN and BPEL. “As with any early standard, don’t expect standards to work across products—it’s much too early, except in limited cases,” cautions Kelly. “In addition, vendors such as Collaxa are starting to offer support for standards such as BPEL, potentially offering ways to avoid BPM vendor lock-in.”

Increased reporting/business monitoring capabilities. Upside Research believes there is significant demand from corporate customers for increased reporting and monitoring capabilities. According to Kelly, “Upside Research expects many BPM products to make significant advances in this area in 2004, in tandem with their increased push toward creating more business-usable and business-relevant products.” Kelly states that vendors including Intersystems, Lombardi, and Pegasystems are all offering increased functionality in this area.

In summary, Kelly states, “2004 will be a good year for BPM. With the glimmerings of at least a mild economic upturn in the air, BPM solutions will be more important than ever before.”

The complete 2004 Predictions are available to Upside Research clients and subscribers to the Upside Update, an e-newsletter that offers analysis and insight into the latest BPM and application infrastructure trends.

About Upside Research, Inc.
Launched in 2003, Upside Research is a research, consulting, and content development firm focused on helping enterprises manage technology adoption, solution development, deployment, and management from a business perspective by putting application development, business process management (BPM), integration, and enterprise infrastructure challenges in perspective.

For more information or to schedule a briefing, contact Upside Research by at info@upsideresearch.com,
(617) 969-6886, or www.upsideresearch.com.

###
Media Contact:
David Kelly
Upside Research
(617) 969-6886
dkelly@upsideresearch.com

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The Year of BPM (Part 2)

Posted on by DavidKelly

In the last edition of the Upside Update, we began our look at the BPM developments-to-watch-for in 2004. This week, we’ll round out that look with several additional important changes to watch for as BPM vendors release new versions and enterprise organizations deploy increasingly sophisticated BPM solutions.
So what else is in store? Upside Research believes we’ll see the following developments in the BPM market over the next year:
– More simulation. While the number of organizations actually using BPM simulations capabilities is quite small, expect to see more and more BPM vendors offering simulation, or connections to simulation products. Many BPM vendors have started to add the ability to simulate processes into their products, if only as a way to respond to a checkbox requirement for potential BPM RFP’s. While this is certainly a good capability, it’s only useful when organizations take the time and have the energy to actually use it to help refine or debug process models-something that we believe very few organizations will actually do in the next few years. However, over time, simulation will become an important component of BPM solutions, and organizations should be considering a BPM product’s long-term (not necessarily short-term) simulation road map.
– More reporting/business monitoring capabilities. A bit more direct and immediate than the need for more simulation capabilities is the need for increased business monitoring and reporting functionality. Upside Research expects many BPM products to make significant advances in this area in 2004, in tandem with their increased push toward creating more business-usable and business-relevant products. Without adequate (and easy-to-use) business process monitoring capabilities and reporting options, BPM turns into business process automation. And simply automating processes, without enabling dynamic, rapid change to business processes will not deliver the results that organizations are looking for from BPM.
– Significant BPM successes/large deployments. Last, but not least, Upside Research expects to see more significant BPM deployments in 2004. There’s no doubt that we’ll continue to see a variety of departmental BPM implementations, but the more interesting barometer will be how many organizations use BPM solutions to fundamentally affect the running of business-critical core processes. While we don’t expect to see a huge number of organizations deploying sophisticated and dynamic BPM solutions, there will be a handful of successful, large-scale uses of BPM technology in 2004 that will continue to define the potential and move BPM toward the mainstream adoption phase.
The Upside Uptake
2004 will be a good year for BPM. As the car commercials all say, there’s never been a better time to buy a BPM solution-if you have the right need. With the glimmerings of at least a mild economic upturn in the air, BPM solutions may be more important than ever before. Over the past three years so many organizations have been asked to do more with less, that as the economy improves and business grows, many organizations may have a hard time keeping up without ways to automate and manage their business processes more effectively. With any luck, next year we’ll be looking back at 2004 as the year that BPM turned the corner.

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The Year of BPM (Part 1)

Posted on by DavidKelly

Although it’s still early, 2004 may well be the year for BPM. Over the past two years we’ve seen the business process management (BPM) market continue to mature, as more and more organizations look for BPM products to automate and manage their business processes. BPM products have evolved into more sophisticated offerings, with broader coverage and increased support for business developers and users. So, as we look to the New Year, what will it bring for BPM?
In this special, two-part Upside Update we’ll take a closer look at some of the key developments in the BPM field that Upside Research predicts you can expect to see in 2004. Our prognostications for BPM will continue in a future newsletter-so stay tuned. To begin, let’s look at the first three BPM developments to watch for 2004:
– Increased focus on business. Even though business is the first word in BPM, current products have not necessarily been business focused. Many products, including “pure-play” BPM products, have remained oriented toward IT developers and/or the IT group. Development, deployment, and management of the more sophisticated products require extensive training, consulting, or IT expertise. And while some products, such as Metastorm’s e-Work, are particularly well-suited for power business users, others remain at the IT/science-project level. Upside Research expects to see this start to change in 2004, as BPM vendors invest in making their products less IT-focused and more business oriented. Expect to see greater business-level development, modeling, and management capabilities, and additional business-oriented interfaces for functionality such as reporting or simulation.
– More modular products. In many cases, BPM products have remained soup-to-nuts solutions, requiring businesses to invest in one company’s BPM architecture and vision. Upside Research believes that 2004 will bring some (but not complete) relief in this area, as product vendors continue to open up their BPM architectures to support standards and 3rd-party tools. Primarily, we’ll see more flexibility in modeling, reporting, business rules, and possibly simulation capabilities, as well as deployment. However, don’t expect to see any flexibility in run-time process engine support-that’s the heart of most BPM solutions’ revenue stream.
– Movement (not agreement) on standards. Upside Research believes that we’ll see further movement in BPM standards, as more vendors roll out support for BPMN and BPEL. As with any early standard, don’t expect standards to work across products-it’s much to early, except in limited cases. In addition, vendors such as Collaxa are starting to offer support for standards such as BPEL, potentially offering ways to avoid BPM vendor lock-in.
The Upside Uptake
In short, 2004 may well be the most successful year for BPM products and solutions. In order for the industry to continue to succeed, 2004 needs to be the year when BPM makes the leap from IT-oriented science project to a proven and deployable solution that can deliver ongoing (this is critical) business benefits. Stay tuned for some additional BPM highlights in the next edition of the Upside Update.

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