Over the past few years, a large number of organizations have initiated some type of Business Process Management strategy.

Business event management (BEM) and complex event processing (CEP) are two of the newest features to be provided in the business process management suite (BPMS) market. These expanded capabilities illustrate how the core capabilities of BPMS tools can provide the foundation for increasingly sophisticated integration solutions.

How much adaptability and agility do you need in your business? The answer to that question can drive the strategy of business process management (BPM) and service oriented architecture initiatives in your organization (SOA). The question itself is not easy to answer which is why most organizations do not achieve the flexibility they hope to achieve. Sometimes the granularity of the services cannot or are not defined at the right level.

Recently I had the chance to visit Tibco’s headquarters in Palo Alto for an in-depth briefing on the company and its place in the BPMS landscape.  For most people, Tibco is synonymous with message bus-based integration – the company’s name stands for The Information Bus Company – but like others who have evolved from EAI, Tibco today is trying to build its reputation around BPM, SOA, and Business Optimization (i.e., BAM and analytics).

Like so many other things, development (as in R&D) will have to be rethought over and over again as we move deeper into the new century. More people, more markets, more competition; new technologies, new aspirations, new opportunities – nothing is stable for very long anymore.

Have you ever been involved in a process improvement or redesign effort that didn’t require a meeting?  Neither have I.  Meetings are a necessary mechanism for exchanging information, confirming progress, creatively developing deliverables or solutions, making decisions, and growing as a team. In fact, a recent survey of corporate, government, defense, education and non-profit sectors show that we spend anywhere from 25% to 50% of our time in meetings (depending on our role and responsibilities).

How are the business and IT environments changing to meet the challenges of today’s fast-paced global business landscape?  They are both striving to become more agile.  IT is being focused more on increasing profits, revenues and efficiency than just reducing costs.  The business is examining ways to improve customer satisfaction and competitive advantage by collaborating throughout the value chain to deliver more innovative and competitive products and services.