Last week I had the pleasure of listening to Phil Gilbert, Lombardi Software's CTO at the Lombardi European Partner Conference in south-west France.
During his keynote, Phil quoted a VC friend as saying "We look for companies doing Oracle ERP installations because we know they will probably go bankrupt soon and then we can buy them on the cheap. As a VC, ERP installation projects are our pipeline".
Clearly we are in an uncertain world right now. So, if large ERP implementations are high risk and the level of volatility in the world is such that we have to do things differently, have we reached the time where pureplay BPM vendors like Lombardi are in the ascendance?
Posted by: peter in Savvion, SAP, Peter Borner, PegaSystems, Lombardi, K2.net, iterative approach, governance risk compliance, Global 360, Credit Crunch, change, bpm, Appian on
Oct 29, 2008
As a regular reader of Dennis Byron's excellent BPM in Action Blog, my interest was peaked by his latest entry (http://www.bpminaction.com/blog/2008/10/bpm_viewpoint_what_new_aiim_st.php) where he discusses the new AIIM study on BPM (http://www.ebizq.net/news/10483.html).
As a centre of excellence for BPM our aim is to deliver value as early as possible in any engagement. Typically we look for processes to attack in the initial iteration that can start to deliver an ROI within 90 to 120 days. This is clearly in line with Dennis' advice in his blog post. My view is that, learning to walk before you run is a key success factor in all BPM projects. After all, a lean, agile, reliable approach that has early success will never be a job loss or balance sheet writedown issue!
If have published a number of solution briefs for those of you looking to introduce BPM into your business. You can find them here: http://www.axispoint.co.uk/dl-white-papers
Posted by: peter in Savvion, SAP, Peter Borner, PegaSystems, Lombardi, K2.net, Global 360, Credit Crunch, change, bpm, Appian on
Oct 20, 2008
Organisations can derive these benefits from technological solutions, but can they meet these short term needs (downsizing for lean-ness and moving towards centralised control for agility) whilst also addressing long term strategic aims that prepare them to exit recession better equipped for the future than they were when they entered?
I believe that they can. This is having one's cake and eating it, and a solution to this dilemma is Business Process Management.
BPM is getting a lot of attention. Forrester Research estimates that BPM license, services and maintenance revenue will grow from the $1.2 billion we saw in 2005 to more than $2.7 billion by 2009 "an adoption trend vendors and practitioners alike can't ignore".
BPM has come a long way from the workflow systems of the 1990s; those old workflow systems managed document-based processes where people executed the workflow steps of the process.
Today's BPM systems manage processes that include person-to-person work steps, system-to-system communications or combinations of both. In addition, BPM systems include integrated features like enhanced (and portable) process modeling, simulation, code generation, process execution, process monitoring, customisable industry-specific templates and UI components, and out-of-the-box integration capabilities along with support for web-services-based integration.
All of these ingredients translate to increased interest today in BPM suites because they bring businesses a higher level of flexibility for business processes while reducing risks and cost. Think of BPM suites as offering a way to build, execute and monitor automated processes that may go across organisational boundaries.
But the key here is higher level of flexibility and reduced cost. Lean and agile. Just what we need now, in turbulent times, and to set ourselves up for the future.
