Business Process Management offers the ability to improve business processes significantly..
The same technology that supports BPM also can be used to implement composite applications and service-oriented architecture. Vollmer explores these additional capabilities and shows how they are changing the business landscape.
Ken Vollmer is a principal analyst in Forrester’s Enterprise Applications research group, covering trends, issues and strategies related to all forms of integration, including application integration (AI), business process integration (BPI), business process management (BPM), enterprise application integration (EAI), and electronic data interchange (EDI).
Forrester defines business process management as “…the designing, executing, and optimizing of cross-functional business activities that incorporate people, processes, and systems.” The evolution of BPM started with EAI ten to fifteen years ago. Then Business Process Integration tools were added, making the first suites. Today Business Process Management solutions are tightly integrated suites with functionalities that include:
- Rules engines
- Web services
- Business activity monitoring
- Sophisticated process modeling
- Workflow
- Portal capability
- Life-cycle management tools
- Mobile support
- Simulation
The BPM solutions currently available make the whole process lifecycle much easier to handle. The model is that of a closed loop, which begins by defining the problem using standards-based graphical modeling, process simulation, and business rules. From this, code can be generated to execute a project. The project then can be monitored and optimized. According to Vollmer, the solutions available now are much more advanced than the solutions of only two years ago. Today, what you define as the process model can be immediately turned into production code. The model that IT creates can be directly connected to real activities in the business world.
Vollmer and Forrester define SOA as “an integrated software infrastructure and design approach to the development and integration of service-oriented applications.” Using SOA makes hooking everything together easier, quicker, and with a lower cost. Vollmer said that he hears that creating business functionality is taking 60% less time than before. Vollmer said the crossover point from start until there is a positive ROI is about a year. The business value of using service orientation includes:
- Shorter ROI
- Lower maintenance
- Faster response to opportunities and threats
- Increased flexibility
- Existing assets used in new ways
- Enabling loose coupling
- Support for composite applications
BPMS allows loosely coupled applications, which allows for a simpler, robust architecture. This also allows the creation of composite applications, defined as “… new functionality created within a service-oriented-architecture that is made up of components from existing applications and combined with new business logic.”
Composite applications are agile and can be created at lower cost. By leveraging existing assets, they allow faster delivery of functionality at lower risk.
Vollmer related the case of a large financial institution. Management implemented a $50K proof-of-concept project. It was completed in 1/3 the time at 1/3 the cost. They went from $3 million in bookings to $10 million in one year, spent 1/3 as much and got the work done three times faster.
There are composite applications issues, however. One is a paradigm shift for applications development. IT departments are changing the way they work, actually developing applications by working directly with the business users. Programmers have to be able to communicate well with the business people. This also will probably affect outsourcing, making it much less desirable.
If you are not already pursuing BPM, you need to start now, according to Vollmer. Check out the opportunities you can get from composite applications. Don’t build capability. Buy it. And begin preparing your IT organization for the coming changes.
