CFO Magazine

Web Services: A Work in Process

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Scott Leibs is a senior editor at CFO.

BPM Breakdown

Business process management has been dubbed the next "killer app" by Delphi Group, but to date the market hasn't agreed. Only 12 percent of the companies surveyed by Delphi are using BPM, although approximately two-thirds of those currently testing it do plan some sort of deployment within a year. BPM separates the business rules (or process logic) from the applications that run them, creating a clear boundary between what a company does (the process) and how it does it (the supporting applications). The Hurwitz Group Inc. identifies four main components to BPM:

1. Modeling. A map or other graphic representation of the process assets, multiple steps, sub- and parallel processes, fulfillment paths, and rules that shape event processing, exception handling, and error handling.
2. Integrating. Connecting process assets and automating transactions and data flow
   among applications and people.
3. Monitoring. Providing an "administrative console" that displays status and metrics.
4. Optimizing. Analysis of inefficiencies combined with the means to address them.

Aberdeen Group cautions that because a "business process" can be hard to define, companies must be wary of software firms that bill themselves as BPM providers; many have extended a specialized core competency into what they bill as a more broadly focused BPM offering, requiring prospective customers to shop very carefully. —S.L.

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