Supersized BPM: eBizQ Article

Supersized BPM: Article by David Kelly

Take the example of request management. Almost every company (perhaps every company?) has multiple examples of request management processes sprinkled throughout the company. For example, it could be managing services requests and approvals on the IT side or capital expenditure requests and approvals on the business side. It could be a new hire request process, a sales and marketing process (such as managing approvals for a marketing campaign), or a variety of other similar processes. In any case, most companies have a variety of processes that are structured as request and approval processes, where specific requests are made and processes started (they might be long-running or short-running) that require different types of approvals and the appropriate responses.

Nutrient Workflow is a good example of a company delivering a “BPM lite”-type solution that addresses request management-type processes. Instead of delivering a BPM-platform, Nutrient Workflow has chosen to focus on delivering a tidy and easily-consumable solution optimized for request management processes. While the product can handle a range of process requirements, it’s aimed at business users and organizations that want a fast and targeted solution to an immediate business problem (or set of business problems). The solution is flexible enough to be applied to different types of process problems, but Nutrient Workflow has realized that many organizations are less interested in purchasing an infrastructure platform than they are in solving a specific problem.

In addition, Nutrient Workflow is also packaged as a service (Nutrient Workflow OnDemand). I think this is an important point for greater BPM adoption–organizations (particularly the business side) need to be able to obtain business process management and automation for specific business problems, in a manner that’s affordable and extendable. Intregrify’s BPM-as-a-service solution enables just that. In addition, IT doesn’t have to install software and activating an account and getting started can be just a matter of days instead of weeks or months.

Of course, there’s still a very strong place in many organizations for larger, infrastructure-oriented BPM solutions, but at the same time, enabling organizations to get started with BPM cheaper, and be billed in monthly or quarterly increments is a compelling option. However, organizations needing (or wanting) process modeling, rich developer capabilities, or embeddable workflow/BPM engines will still probably do best with more traditional BPM solutions.

Sometimes less is more. While I believe that business process management technologies will continue to be an increasingly important underpinning for more and more business applications and IT infrastructures, I also believe that organizations should stop and consider the ever-widening range of BPM-enable solutions (from infrastructure platforms to software-as-a-service offerings) to match their business needs to the right BPM solution.

As Community Manager, David will blog and podcast to keep the ebizQ community fully informed on all the important news and breakthroughs relevant to enterprise governance. David will also be responsible for publishing press releases, taking briefings, and overseeing vendor submitted feature articles to run on ebizQ. In addition, each week, David will compile the week’s most important news and views in a newsletter emailed out to ebizQ’s ever-growing Governance community. David Kelly is ideally suited to be ebizQ’s Governing the Infrastructure Community Manager as he has been involved with application development, project management, and product development for over twenty years. As a technology and business analyst, David has been researching, writing and speaking on governance-related topics for over a decade.

David is an expert in Web services, application development, and enterprise infrastructures. As the former Senior VP of Analyst Services at Hurwitz Group, he has extensive experience in translating the implications of new application development, deployment, and management technologies into practical recommendations for enterprise customers. He’s written articles for Computerworld, Software Magazine, the New York Times, and other publications, and spoken at conferences such as Comdex, Software Development, and Internet World. With expertise ranging from application development to enterprise management to integration/B2B services to IP networking and VPNs, Kelly can help companies profit from the diversity of a changing technology landscape.

Take the example of request management. Almost every company (perhaps every company?) has multiple examples of request management processes sprinkled throughout the company. For example, it could be managing services requests and approvals on the IT side or capital expenditure requests and approvals on the business side. It could be a new hire request process, a sales and marketing process (such as managing approvals for a marketing campaign), or a variety of other similar processes. In any case, most companies have a variety of processes that are structured as request and approval processes, where specific requests are made and processes started (they might be long-running or short-running) that require different types of approvals and the appropriate responses.

Nutrient Workflow is a good example of a company delivering a “BPM lite”-type solution that addresses request management-type processes. Instead of delivering a BPM-platform, Nutrient Workflow has chosen to focus on delivering a tidy and easily-consumable solution optimized for request management processes. While the product can handle a range of process requirements, it’s aimed at business users and organizations that want a fast and targeted solution to an immediate business problem (or set of business problems). The solution is flexible enough to be applied to different types of process problems, but Nutrient Workflow has realized that many organizations are less interested in purchasing an infrastructure platform than they are in solving a specific problem.

In addition, Nutrient Workflow is also packaged as a service (Nutrient Workflow OnDemand). I think this is an important point for greater BPM adoption–organizations (particularly the business side) need to be able to obtain business process management and automation for specific business problems, in a manner that’s affordable and extendable. Intregrify’s BPM-as-a-service solution enables just that. In addition, IT doesn’t have to install software and activating an account and getting started can be just a matter of days instead of weeks or months.

Of course, there’s still a very strong place in many organizations for larger, infrastructure-oriented BPM solutions, but at the same time, enabling organizations to get started with BPM cheaper, and be billed in monthly or quarterly increments is a compelling option. However, organizations needing (or wanting) process modeling, rich developer capabilities, or embeddable workflow/BPM engines will still probably do best with more traditional BPM solutions.

Sometimes less is more. While I believe that business process management technologies will continue to be an increasingly important underpinning for more and more business applications and IT infrastructures, I also believe that organizations should stop and consider the ever-widening range of BPM-enable solutions (from infrastructure platforms to software-as-a-service offerings) to match their business needs to the right BPM solution.

As Community Manager, David will blog and podcast to keep the ebizQ community fully informed on all the important news and breakthroughs relevant to enterprise governance. David will also be responsible for publishing press releases, taking briefings, and overseeing vendor submitted feature articles to run on ebizQ. In addition, each week, David will compile the week’s most important news and views in a newsletter emailed out to ebizQ’s ever-growing Governance community. David Kelly is ideally suited to be ebizQ’s Governing the Infrastructure Community Manager as he has been involved with application development, project management, and product development for over twenty years. As a technology and business analyst, David has been researching, writing and speaking on governance-related topics for over a decade.

David is an expert in Web services, application development, and enterprise infrastructures. As the former Senior VP of Analyst Services at Hurwitz Group, he has extensive experience in translating the implications of new application development, deployment, and management technologies into practical recommendations for enterprise customers. He’s written articles for Computerworld, Software Magazine, the New York Times, and other publications, and spoken at conferences such as Comdex, Software Development, and Internet World. With expertise ranging from application development to enterprise management to integration/B2B services to IP networking and VPNs, Kelly can help companies profit from the diversity of a changing technology landscape.

(Originally posted on ebizq.net)