December 4, 2002 Who Will Build Intelligence into Your Business Processes?Enterprise application providers are losing mind share to business process management marketby Mark Smith The drive to build more productive and effective organizations has business management on a mission to find new methods to measure and monitor business activities and processes. These projects and their potential business impact are critical for organizations across all industries that need to align to shareholder expectations. A recently completed research study, Business Process Intelligence, co-sponsored by Intelligent Enterprise and The Data Warehouse Institute, shows the three most important business issues are improving efficiency, managing or reducing costs, and increasing the focus on revenue opportunities. To address these business issues, the study found that organizations are investing in a wide range of initiatives (such as Six Sigma, industry benchmarking, and internal efficiency initiatives) and are looking at existing and new technologies with the right functional capabilities to meet their needs. The insight from this research of more than 900 qualified respondents provided real information from global corporations about how they currently measure and monitor their business activities and processes and how they plan to accomplish these tasks in the future. Currently, more than 63 percent of respondents are leveraging business intelligence (BI)/data warehousing and enterprise application approaches and investments, 44 percent are concentrating on business process management (BPM), and 31 percent are focusing on application server and EAI technologies. This breakdown isn't as surprising as the shift away from enterprise application vendors (such as PeopleSoft, SAP, and Siebel Systems Inc.) as the focus for measuring, monitoring, and managing business activities and processes. BI/data warehousing (62 percent) and BPM (46 percent) are the top two approaches that organizations are planning to implement moving forward, while enterprise application vendors slipped to 44 percent, a more than 19 percent decline from the respondents' current approaches. This research study, along with enterprise applications vendor satisfaction issues, shows a sea change in how global corporations are balancing the value of their investments in enterprise applications (such as ERP, CRM, SCM). They are now looking to BI and BPM providers for gaining access to information via analytics and an operational and process context that can drive individual actions and responses. Reality CheckThis direction is completely opposite of what you hear from enterprise application vendor executives and sales personnel (from PeopleSoft, SAP, and Siebel) who paint a rosy picture of what is possible with their vision and products. Although they are talking to your business issues and pain points, their application solutions are still years away from providing the level of functionality required to achieve the new business mandate. In fact, most of them have BPM technology partners that perform the actual process level integration, but arrogance prevents them from promoting these partnerships effectively. Although functional capabilities and usability were considered more important requirements than vendor size or industry standards, specific BPM vendors were less well known than Microsoft, with its heavy marketing and advertising promotions. This lack of mindshare is challenging as BPM vendors (such as IDS Scheer Inc., Popkin Software, Savvion Inc., Staffware plc, and Vitria Technology Inc.) have more functionality but are at a size and distribution channel disadvantage to the larger enterprise application vendors. Most of the BPM vendors have focused on automation, and many of them are now realizing they need more sophisticated measuring and monitoring capabilities to provide the intelligence required for managing these processes. As a result, many have added more capabilities and vendor partnerships to come up with new solutions. A couple of new and innovative discovery and analysis vendors (such as Identitech Inc. and SeeRun Corp.) have begun to ship products that will raise the potential of measuring and monitoring business activities and processes to another level through innovative visual techniques that simplify exception-based monitoring and alerting. SummaryOrganizations that need to gain more efficiency and manage or reduce costs are looking to BI and BPM vendors to address their requirements. A focus on product functionality and usability is beginning to drive a shift away from enterprise application vendors. Don't get lost in marketing promises and pie in the sky products; focus on vendors and solutions that have technology that they can deliver today to meet your business needs. If you don't, your ability to address your organizations' business and financial drivers won't be achieved in a timely and effective fashion. RESOURCES
Business Process Management Vendors: Mark Smith (mark.smith@ventanaresearch.com) is the CEO and SVP of research at Ventana Research, an advisory services and research firm providing insight and education on best practices and technology in performance management. |
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