The Fundamentals

All in all, the news from our survey is positive. Companies tend to select software that aligns closely with their needs, and they tend to be pleased with the fruits of their BPM initiative. Twenty percent of survey respondents said their software implementation process involved no customization of the application; they changed their processes to fit the software, rather than changing the software to fit their processes. Fifty-six percent customized the software a little bit but chose the product carefully to minimize the amount of effort their implementation would require. Only 23 percent reported that their initiative involved a lot of customization to the software.

Few companies are taking full advantage of all of their software's capabilities, but most are getting a lot of mileage out of the application. Four percent are using less than a quarter of their product's total functionality, and all of those expected before implementation to use more, but they are a tiny minority. Fifteen percent of survey respondents reported that they're using more than 90 percent of the software's total functional capabilities, and 36 percent are using between 75 percent and 90 percent of their application's features.

To optimize use of the software, many companies undertook fairly costly and time-consuming projects (see What Does a BPM Initiative Really Entail?) Half of all respondents spent more than $100,000 on the software, and 4 percent spent more than $1 million. Fifty-five percent of budgeting and financial planning systems cost more than $100,000, as did 45 percent of operational planning and forecasting systems, 54 percent of external financial reporting applications, 35 percent of management reporting and dashboard products, and 60 percent of financial analytics systems. Most companies spent considerably less on consultants than on the software, but 5 percent spent more than $1 million on implementation consultants and 3 percent spent that much on help with the planning and software selection process. For 29 percent of survey respondents, implementation costs came in higher than expected, but for 18 percent, the system's setup actually cost less than plan.

The median length of a BPM software implementation project is five months. Over the course of those months, the project consumes a median 176 days of finance staff time, 88 days of the IT staff's time, and three days from staff within the company's business units. For 32 percent of respondents, the project consumed more finance staff time than expected, and 31 percent of projects used more IT staff resources than expected. However, half of respondents said finance staff time came in exactly on target, and 51 percent of projects met expectations for IT staff time.

Fifty-four percent of all survey respondents expected before implementation to use their software more fully. Still, most are satisfied with the outcome of the project. Fifty-five percent said the resulting system meets their expectations. Seventeen percent said it far exceeds, and 13 percent said it slightly exceeds, their goals. Twelve percent of implementations have failed to fully meet the software buyer's expectations, but only 2 percent of companies are very disappointed in their system. More important, the vast majority (86 percent) of respondents feel the BPM system they are now using is worth the cost and effort of the purchase and implementation process.

What factors affected implementers' satisfaction with the process? The most notable standout in our analysis is the degree to which companies use consultants -- but the effect may not be what you'd expect.