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BPM guide: Business process management best practices for CIOs
BPM guide: Business process management best practices for CIOs
By SearchCIO.com Staff
SearchCIO.com
Business process management (BPM) refers to a systematic approach to improving an
organization's business processes. BPM activities seek to make business processes more
effective, more efficient and more capable of adapting to an ever-changing environment.
BPM is a subset of infrastructure management, the administrative area of concern dealing
with maintenance and optimization of an organization's equipment and core operations.
Enterprise CIOs can use business process management best practices, often in
conjunction with SOA, to get a better handle on their business' operations, personnel, IT
resources and more.
This BPM guide is part of SearchCIO.com's CIO Briefings series, which is designed to
give IT leaders strategic guidance and advice that addresses the management and
decision-making aspects of timely topics. For a complete list of topics covered to date,
visit the CIO Briefings section.
Table of contents
Why and how should you approach a BPM program?
How can you measure the ROI of a BPM project?
How can BPM and SOA work together for a successful BPM program?
What sort of BPM tools are available?
More resources
Why and how should you approach a BPM program?
Table of Contents
Enterprise IT budgets in 2009 are nearly flat, and CIOs must drive business process
improvement while creatively using existing resources to advance their organizations'
agendas. So says the latest research from Gartner Inc., a Stamford, Conn.-based
consultancy, as well as interviews with CIOs, who put business process improvement
atop their agenda for 2009.
Organizations are not slashing their IT budgets wholesale -- "in fact, they are using IT to
change the way the company works, to make it more effective and efficient," said Mark
McDonald, a group vice president at Gartner and author of the study. "CIOs are
essentially going to have the same resources as last year to address a whole new range of
problems."
Learn more in "Business process improvement tops IT '09 agenda, say Gartner, IT
execs." Also:
BPM gets kicked up a notch with business event processing(SearchCIO.com)
Tom Brady, CIO of a clinical network for administering chronic biologic drugs, explains
how business event processing aids his firm.
Balanced Scorecard founder: In recession, think risk management(SearchCIO.com)
Risk management is among the key performance indicators to measure for strategic
success, says Robert Kaplan, co-developer of the Balanced Scorecard methodology.
Business process management politics: Sit IT, business down(SearchCIO.com)
It's ultimate fighting, with IT vs. business over business process management. But as
growing usage shows, there's victory for all once projects streamline workflows and cut
costs.
How can you measure the ROI of a BPM project?
Table of Contents
Enterprise organizations should assess smaller projects and can realize fast ROI in three
or fewer months when implementing business process management software, experts and
users say. And that could be a boon to CIOs seeking ways to increase efficiencies across
the business during this recession.
"People start off doing BPM to solve some big problem -- don't start there," said Derek
Miers, founder of BPM Focus, an organization that explores the impact of BPM software
on business strategy.
"Find something that is going to self contain, some small-scope project," Miers said.
"You can succeed at a small project [with which] you can deliver value and do quickly,
like in six to 10 weeks. The business will go, 'Wow, can we have some more of that?'"
Get more information in "BPM software: How to find fast ROI on smaller projects."
Also:
File transfer software improves business process (SearchCIO.com)
Companies seeking to save money are looking hard at streamlining business processes.
At Christie's auction house, a managed file transfer solution does just that, with strong
ROI.
How can BPM and SOA work together for a successful BPM program?
Table of Contents
Choosing between BPM and SOA is akin to the chicken and the egg debate. Without
defined business processes, enterprises can't create reusable services for the business, and
without a services layer, business processes can't easily be made reusable.
So which should come first?
The short answer is both -- meaning organizations should define business processes and
create a service-oriented architecture (SOA) in tandem. "Those doing larger deployments
of [BPM tools] are learning that they have to really create a services layer at the same
time they create processes," said Janelle Hill, BPM analyst at Gartner.
Find out more in "How BPM and SOA work together for business process
improvement." Also:
SOA success stories involve business process management(SearchCIO.com)
SOA and Web services work great for application integration, but the real payoff comes
when you integrate business process management best practices. Still, there are
challenges.
A move to cloud computing should involve SOA and BPM (SearchCIO.com)
Enterprises preparing for cloud computing should involve SOA and BPM in the process
to achieve transformational change.
What sort of BPM tools are available?
Table of Contents
Just when the notion of delivering BPM Software as a Service (SaaS) seems to be
generating some buzz, veteran BPM player Pegasystems Inc. is proposing a twist on the
SaaS model it believes corporate customers will find more palatable.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based provider is launching a BPM Platform as a Service that
essentially turns corporate IT departments into their own BPM SaaS providers. The on-
premise hosted model offers two boons in one, boasts Pegasystems, providing the
efficiency of a SaaS offering without the anxieties of sending proprietary business
information off into the "cloud."
"The customers we work for have not asked for a hosted BPM solution because business
process management is so close and critical to their proprietary information," said Russell
Keziere, senior director, BPM marketing, at Pegasystems.
Learn more in "BPM Platform as a Service turns IT shops into SaaS providers." Also:
IT support costs trimmed via workforce realignment, remote access tool(SearchCIO.com)
The Salvation Army is turning to workforce realignment and clientless remote access
tools to stave off layoffs, cut costs and increase efficiencies during this recession.
Six Sigma, ITIL, other business processes cut IT costs in lean times(SearchCIO.com)
Business processes such as Lean Six Sigma and ITIL are better ways to reduce your IT
costs than just blindly making cuts, say Forrester experts.
HP business service automation software improves strategy(SearchCIO.com)
HP improves and integrates its business service automation software portfolio, promising
a more strategic way to see into and manage the IT brain.
More resources
Table of Contents
Resource center: Business process management (SearchCIO.com)
Resource center: Return on investment (SearchCIO.com)
BPM guide: Business process management strategies for enterprise
CIOs(SearchCIO.com)
07 May 2