Jim Sinur

It is rare to have an activity that not only cuts costs for survival, but can also grow value simultaneously. There is a difficult balance between growing value for constituents (customers, partners, employees, vendors) and reducing costs and doing more with less that is demanded by this economy. There is a mind-set, out there, that says that downtimes are a great time to invest for the next “up cycle”.  Please see  http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/01/09/downturns-are-an-opportunity-to-make-businesses-better/ There is also a mind-set that says cutting costs is imperative to compete and even survive.There is an interesting balance between these philosophies that is well serviced by BPM. Please see http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/02/04/the-top-five-benefits-that-bpm-delivers-today/  BPM is flourishing because of this two pronged approach.

BPM Saves Costs:

The numbers I have consistently seen for BPM efforts are in the 15%+ ROI arena with implementation schedules measured in weeks and months; not years. Even lighter weight efforts that involve process discovery are delivering quickly (with or without technology assists). As BPM moves to cross functional “end to end” processes and/or value chains, the time scales move up and so do the benefit numbers. I have searched for failures and have found few. One BPM effort ran over schedule and another caused downstream conflicts because of functional sub-optimization. This kind of downside is pretty rare for BPM, but I keep listening for evidence to the contrary.

BPM Increases Value:

I have heard of several implementations that delivered significant value as well as cost savings. This is common and organizations are able to improve their community reputation with better processes that engage individuals in a way that satisfies their needs and even delights them. There are examples in the retail world where goods are delivered at a lower cost with little need to make major adjustments to changing demands because if near real time feedback. I expect organizations to differentiate themselves in new ways as we crawl out of the current economic challenges we have been facing. New emphasis on community interaction and unstructured process will drive even more innovation and resulting value increases. I keep listening for innovative and high value BPM efforts and have not been disappointed..

The evidence shows that these can be balanced and that it is not a “zero-sum” game. When we announce our Gartner BPM Awards Program in mind May, we expect to see more proof of both working in tandem.