Jim Sinur

The quest to have a business process platform to support business process management and business process improvement is just about over for the leading edge organizations, so now we will see a new set of activities for these leaders and the fast followers/followers are lining up for business process management technologies.

The Challenges for the Leaders:

The leading organizations will be faced with a internal consolidation into one or two business process platforms, one of which is likely to be a business process management system (BPMS). However, a platform and a technology, like a train, is useless unless there is solid and consistent rider ship. This means that organizations and the people that are involved will have to pick up process disciplines including business process modeling, measurement of business process outcomes, analysis of process performance, change management, leadership, planning, project management, governance etc, so BPM will continue to excel for them.

The Challenges for the Followers:

The fast followers have been watching intensely at the results of BPM efforts and they are ready to move into a buying mode, even if the best practices are still evolving. The followers will want best practices to be identified and they will be looking for “jump start” process templates and/or application vendors who have mature enough BPM capabilities. The followers will pick up best practice disciplines as they evolve through the boutique BPM solution providers and through community exchanges.

The Challenge for Laggards:

There are always those that resist change without falling taking into account the ramifications of ignoring major developments. I believe that this is a dangerous pitfall for these organizations in an era of extreme competition. Ignore BPM at your own peril.