A good number of BPMS vendors are setting up process exchange mechanisms, but the jury is still out as to their values to clients. I have not had many inquiries on this topic, so I am sensing that the vendors are building these exchanges in advance of the demand. I would like to start a conversation on these process exchanges by proposing a debate.
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Process Exchanges are Valuable:
Why reinvent the wheel? There are likely processes and/or process snippets that can be shared and reusable from organization to organization. This is particularly true within like industries for non-differentiating processes. Assuming the shared process can be used as a “jump start”, it makes sense that an inventory of reusable processes would be an asset for most organizations. This just helps organizations taste the benefits of BPM earlier than if they had to build these process/process snippets from scratch. Process exchanges will be valuable to those who use them. Most organizations would not mind sharing some of their processes as well.
Process Exchanges are No Big Deal:
They are just a mirage. This is a way that a BPM vendor can keep you captive and make you think that there is an advantage to their offering. Sure there might be some reusable techniques and small simple snippets to leverage, but real business benefit? Get real. No organization is going to build anything of real business advantage and give it away for free. Maybe the vendor may contribute some process snippets, but if they were of any value, wouldn’t they sell them to you? Wake up Alice, wonderland is in your head.
So what do you think? I think these exchanges will be moderately helpful, but not a boon to the business in any significant way. .
4 responses so far ↓
1 Sam Gong // Oct 28, 2009 at 8:01 am
I’ll say process exchanges are valuable, and I believe both positions illustrate how.
The quality and suitability of the business processes that a vendor or enthusiastic customer creates as give-aways will always be suspect, and I expect that the primary value here will be in free examples of elegant, generic internal processes or very loosely defined flexible vertical templates.
What’s more interesting to me is your point that no organization is going to build anything of value and give it away for free. This is a commentary on the marketplace for processes, which acknowledges there would be value in a platform that allows an exchange of potentially differentiating, high value-add business processes and complete process applications.
When the technology is mature enough to attract third party developers, I think we will see process-based offerings from SMEs that deliver the benefits of BPM solutions to areas previously addressed by off-the-shelf software packages. This model is especially attractive when the process application platform is available as a service. Once process portability is proven as a real technical possibility, the buyer’s maturity and the design quality of the solutions determine whether it becomes a true business boon or only moderately helpful.
2 Bob Twomey // Oct 28, 2009 at 1:54 pm
It’s possible that the value of the exchanges will come only if it is REQUIRED that any iterations (including “improvements”) of a shared process are subsequently made available to the exchange. If this is true, an organization might recognize that there could be future value by exposing an existing process to the collaborative thinking of the exchange participants, resulting in an improved process which was created on someone else’s nickel.
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4 Steve Bogner // Oct 29, 2009 at 11:39 am
I think it depends on a few factors. My focus is on HRIS consulting, and even though we try to get customers to standardize or adopt some best-practice sorts of approaches to the way they hire, fire, move and manage employees they always come down to the line of ‘we do it differently here’. 80% of the process may be the same as everyone else, but they insist on that 20% difference. Maybe it’s just the nature of HR processes or the HR function.
I have also noticed substantial differences between public and private sector companies, driven not so much by preference but by regulations and environment.
Sure, an exchange could provide a jump-start, but experienced consultants have that sort of stuff memorized/ingrained already. An exchange may lend some credibility, making it easier to get a process change started.
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