Monday, December 14, 2009

The State of Business Process Management (BPM)

Good friend Rashid Khan, the inventor of the term BPM (Business Process Management) continues his educational blog on the industry, see here.  From one of his entries I found valuable:

"So what is the state of the BPM industry today? Here are some revealing facts:

  • No pure-play BPM vendor is big enough or strong enough financially to go public, though several continue to threaten for several years now that they will soon. It does not happen, even while every year the analysts continue to forecast rapid growth in the industry and among the leaders.
  • We keep hearing every other year that the big players such Oracle, Microsoft and SAP will make major inroads in to the BPM market, but that also has not happened.
  • Gartner, after having pushed BPM, simulations, “round-tripping”, and SOA, is now on to a new gig called “Pattern Based Strategies” to further confuse their already confused customers, which is always good for their business. (see http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/11/18/how-will-bpm-deal-with-pattern-based-strategies-pbs/ )
  • All this while Gartner admits that the most important “hot questions” their clients ask are basic BPM 101 questions such as “1. What are the benefits of BPM?” and “2. How should I get started?” (see http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/10/26/what-are-the-hot-questions-in-bpm/ ) Makes one wonder why companies are paying Gartner money for answering such basic questions, unless they are totally confused!
  • There is no slowdown in the number of new entrants to the BPM market, which indicates that the market is still largely open with no strong leaders, and no sign of consolidation, contrary to all predictions. "

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