The Impact of Business Intelligence Vendor Consolidation on BPM Decisions
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What should companies seeking to implement BPM do in light of the continuing wave of consolidations?
The need for organizations to evaluate the viability of a vendor in the marketplace is always critical -- and never more critical than in the current environment. A vendor improves its viability not only with increased size, but also with diversification. This provides a better chance for the vendor to have continued success, even when increased competition or structural changes threaten its market position in one area.
But vendor viability does not ensure that an enterprise is getting the best product in support of BPM. Vertical expertise is key, yet vendors cannot cover all verticals. Companies should ensure that their industry is one to which the vendor is committed and ask for evidence of domain expertise in measuring and optimizing performance for the key processes the company will be targeting in its BPM initiative.
In addition, organizations need to inquire about the business methodologies that the software supports. Companies should choose a performance management framework -- e.g., the Balanced Scorecard, Six Sigma -- before shopping for software. BPM decision-makers should ask a prospective vendor to refer them to companies that are already working with the vendor to implement BPM according to the same methodology that their organization has decided to use.
Finally, although many vendors talk about achieving "enterprise performance management," companies learn from experience that enterprise solutions are built up one business process at a time (see the sidebar 6 Steps to the Right BPM Software, below). This incremental approach has proved repeatedly to have the highest chance of success.
6 Steps to the Right BPM Software1. Identify the key business objectives. BPM is first and foremost a business initiative. 2. Identify KPIs to measure progress to objectives. The quantity of KPIs is not the main thing. Choosing relevant KPIs and taking responsibility for capturing the data for these metrics is key. 3. Focus on a business process with high impact to selected KPIs. When starting on BPM, an organization wants the first step to be a success. This paves the way for additional phases tackling additional processes. 4. Gain the support and participation of relevant business and technology stakeholders. As with any BI initiative, BPM implementations' business and technology changes go hand in hand. Business and technology stakeholders must be accountable for project goals. 5. Implement an analytic application to track, analyze, and model potential operational changes. The big payoff comes when BPM moves beyond pure measurement to business process change. 6. Measure and evaluate improvement, then refine. Incorporating a learning environment of continuous improvement is the essence of BPM. |
Henry Morris is group vice president for applications and information access software research at IDC, a worldwide research firm.
