an introduction to bpm & bpms bpms-2 by david mcgoveran the bpm...

S U P P L E M E N T

An Introduction to BPM & BPMS BPMS-2By David McGoveran

The BPM Market: Past, Present, & Future BPMS-11 By David McGoveran

Standards and BPM BPMS-17By Ismael Ghalimi & David McGoveran

The Role of BAM BPMS-19By Mani Chandy, Ph.D., & David McGoveran

Dashboards & Enterprise Performance Management BPMS-22By Steve Wooledge & David McGoveran

Implementation: Issues and Strategies BPMS-26By David McGoveran

Straight-Through Processing for Customer Orders BPMS-29By Tony M. Brown

Meeting the Challenge of Deregulation BPMS-30By Tony M. Brown

BPM: A Good Call for M&A BPMS-32By Tony M. Brown

Legal Firm Expands Customer Base BPMS-33By Tony M. Brown

webMethods Delivers Business Process Optimization BPMS-34By Tony M. Brown

Process Visibility: The Key to Customer Service BPMS-36By Tony M. Brown

Plain Sailing With Workflow BPMS-38By Tony M. Brown

Salvation From Data Hell BPMS-39By Tony M. Brown

Eliminating the Paper Chain for Home Loans BPMS-40By Tony M. Brown

BPM Enables e-Government BPMS-42By Tony M. Brown

Business Rules OK? BPMS-44By Tony M. Brown

Workflow Incorporated BPMS-46By Tony M. Brown

Vendor Guide BPMS-47

T he phrase “business process manage-ment” and the BPM acronym are

used in multiple ways. Most usages areimprecise and informal, with the resultthat discussing BPM often generatesmore confusion than clarity. In this arti-cle, we take the position that BPM prop-erly refers to a theory or strategy ofbusiness management that precedesand forms the foundation for a rapidlyevolving, extremely valuable, thoughimmature, technology solution. BPMtechnology solutions comprise multi-ple components, a suite of which maybe referred to generically as a businessprocess management system (BPMS).To understand the technology and whyit’s different from its predecessors, letalone how to use it, we must firstunderstand the business principles thatunderlie BPM.

In this article, we’ll review some infor-mal, albeit common, uses of BPM, pro-vide a more formal definition thatdeparts from some of the informal uses,and discuss some important BPM princi-ples. We then consider the technologyfor supporting BPM as a business man-agement strategy.

Business Process ManagementInformal uses of the phrase BPM are

not only common, but often incompati-ble, and are proliferating. The cause ofthis situation is threefold:

The phrase BPM isn’t new and hasevolved from a history of usage in relatedbusiness process fields such as businessprocess improvement, business processreengineering (BPR), and businessprocess innovation. The supporting tech-nologies have evolved from earlier tech-nologies for workflow management, EAI,process automation, process integration,process modeling, process optimization,and so on.

The rapid success of BPM-relatedtechnologies in recent years has motivat-ed both vendor marketing departmentsand industry analysts to define the term,each to their own advantage.

Because maturation of BPM disciplineand technology is likely to continue, withboth academic and industrial researchincreasing in pace, our understanding ofwhat should constitute the best formaldefinition will continue to evolve.

To analysts and most members of thepress, BPM is a rapidly growing marketcategory that has developed over the lastfive years, but which is merely a rebirthof old ideas. Many types of products andservices are included in this category,such as those for business process model-

AnIntroductionto BPM &BPMSBy David McGoveran

AnIntroductionto BPM &BPMSBy David McGoveran

B P M S - 2 • B u s i n e s s I n t e g r a t i o n J o u r n a l • B u s i n e s s P r o c e s s M a n a g e m e n t S u p p l e m e n t

B u s i n e s s I n t e g r a t i o n J o u r n a l • B u s i n e s s P r o c e s s M a n a g e m e n t S u p p l e m e n t • B P M S - 3

ing, BPR, business process automation,process integration, process analysis,process monitoring, workflow manage-ment systems, and process-driven devel-opment.

Many analysts either don’t differen-tiate between BPMS and workflow man-agement systems, or treat BPMS merelyas providing workflow managementintegrated with an EAI infrastructure orWeb services capabilities. There areboth business and technical aspects ofthis issue. Presumably, BPM productsand services belong to the BPM categorynot merely because the vendor hasdecided it’s good market positioning,but because they have something incommon. By the time you finish readingthis BPM supplement, that “something”should be a bit clearer.

There are many who think of theBPM discipline as being rooted in BPR.Most of the early uses of BPM referred tothe collective thinking associated withBPR and, to a lesser degree, with continu-ous process improvement and processchange. This can be seen in, for example,articles of the Business ProcessManagement Journal, the first issue ofwhich was published in 1995. Until Vol.2, 2001, when the BPM Journal espouseda “new vision,” most of the published arti-cles focused on BPR. Thereafter, it beganto broaden its focus somewhat, althoughit still “defines” BPM as—to paraphrase—”distilling and applying the wisdom ofreengineering to business processes.”

One might think that, because theBusiness Process Management Groupwas founded in 1992, BPM was a com-mon phrase dating at least from the early’90s. However, prior to 1996, when thegroup changed its name to “reflect abroader interest in sustaining processimprovements,” it was called theBusiness Process Reengineering StudyGroup. The 5,000-member group is “aglobal business club, exchanging ideasand best practices in business processand change management.”

Although workflow managementhas its roots in office automation anddocument processing, it has evolved toencompass many types of workflow.The relationship between businessprocesses and workflows is still beingexamined in the academic research liter-ature, but two views are dominant andneither treats business process and work-flow as identical.

The standard model of a workflow isas a special, well-defined, highly struc-tured, and repeatable type of businessprocess in which a “case” (an abstract doc-

ument) is modified as it flows through asequence of tasks. The workflow engineresponds to these changes to determinerouting. By comparison, a real-worldbusiness process definition isn’t as rigidlyconstrained and may not admit of thecase abstraction without overly convo-luted thinking. As such, it’s a generaliza-tion of workflow concepts.

The second view treats businessprocess as a conceptual entity, while theworkflow is its reduction to practice.This view has led many to use businessprocess management as a synonym for“advanced” workflow management. Thisview often motivates the merger of busi-ness process modeling and BPR method-ologies with those of workflowmanagement.

Several technical organizations havebeen important in this evolution:

• The Workflow and ReengineeringInternational Association (WARIA)was founded in 1992 and has as its char-ter “to identify and clarify issues thatare common to users of workflow, elec-tronic commerce and those who are inthe process of reengineering theirorganizations.”

• Workflow Management Coalition(WfMC) is the international, stan-dards-setting organization of workflowvendors, users, analysts and universi-ty/research groups. In recent years, ithas increasingly characterized its workas relating to BPM.

• The first group to address BPM directlywas BPMI.org, founded in 1999, whichhas as its mission “to promote anddevelop the use of business processmanagement (BPM) through the estab-lishment of standards for processdesign, deployment, execution, mainte-nance, and optimization.” Theapproach the organization takes tobusiness processes is predominantly asan extension of the workflow para-digm, both in terms of terminology,standards compatibility, and conceptu-alization, and which emphasizesprocess-to-process correlation.

Principles of BPMThe phrase BPM first became popu-

lar in the context of business manage-ment strategies relating to businessprocess in the mid-’90s. However, itsmeaning has changed over time, slowlyusurping its predecessors. As a manage-ment theory or strategy, BPM can becharacterized by a number of princi-ples. Although a great deal has beenwritten about BPM technology and its

benefits, little has been written aboutthe business principles that implicitlyunderlie both the successful use of thattechnology and the vision of its future.These principles have a firm groundingin the history of business process andmanagement theories.

In this section, we consider these busi-ness principles, taken together, to be thecurrent, formal meaning of BPM, and sowill attempt to elucidate an explicit defi-nition. A little history of business processthinking will help the reader understandthe relationship between current BPMand its predecessors, from which it inher-its much. As a pedagogical device, we’lluse this history to introduce the princi-ples, with the warning that no particularimportance or meaning is implied by theorder of presentation.

As a working definition, we treatBPM simultaneously as a theory and asso-ciated group of methods, both for themanagement of business from a processperspective and for the management ofbusiness processes. The first part of thisdefinition entails a strategic businessmanagement position statement withfar-reaching consequences. In particular,BPM is a commitment to expressing, under-standing, representing, and managing a busi-ness (or the portion to which the theoryis being applied) in terms of an inter-dependent collection of business processesresponsive to an environment of internaland external events.

Adopting this idea simultaneouslyforces us to treat our business processesin a comprehensive, dynamic mannerand to recognize business activities thataren’t a part of some business process asbeing both unnecessary and undesirable.In this view, a business process is an inter-dependent set of business activities anddecisions that mediate their inter-rela-tionships, regardless of how repeatablethat process is, how spontaneously it’sdefined or redefined, how well it’s docu-mented, or how aware human partici-pants are of its existence.

Every business process is identifiablewith at least one objective and its degreeof success is either qualitatively or quan-titatively measurable. Because the busi-ness is understood in terms of its businessprocesses, it’s through the managementof business processes that the business isto be managed. The ideal BPM approachisn’t one of forcing an organization tobehave in a certain formal way, butrather of understanding that behaviorthrough BPM concepts and principles.This is a knowledge discovery process, attimes requiring considerable effort.


The second part of this definitionalso entails an operational position state-ment. By “management of businessprocesses,” we include process analysis,process definition and redefinition,resource allocation, scheduling, processmanagement, measurement of bothquality and efficiency in the context ofprocesses, and process optimization.Furthermore, process optimizationentails collection and analysis of bothreal-time measures (monitoring) andstrategic measures (performance man-agement), and their correlation, as thebasis for improvement and innovation.Improvement and innovation areexpressed in terms of business processcreation, process change, and inter-process relationship change, and thedetermination of which of these to do,which taken together is itself a businessprocess. This business change processenables selective closed loop control atthe discretion of management initiativesand therefore business agility.

The importance of business processemerged over a century ago in the workof Frederick W. Taylor, who eventuallypublished Principles of ScientificManagement. Well-known for its evangel-izing of time and motion studies, it wasalso perhaps the earliest work thatsought to improve business efficiency byidentifying certain business processes towhich the techniques would be applied.Taylor’s methodology was clearly one ofthe earliest examples of BPR. It also putforth two of the most fundamental andenduring principles of BPM. Contrastthe following two principles with the19th century view (still appallingly per-vasive) that every business activity in abusiness process is executed by a super-visor commanding the use of people andother resources:

The efficient execution of a businessprocess depends on the smoothfunctioning of a collaborative team.

The members of the team (e.g.,supervisor and supervised) musthave synergistic objectives andwork ethics, appropriate skills, andrewards commensurate withcontribution, productionconstraints, and marketconstraints.

Peter Drucker’s 1954 treatise,“Management by Objectives and Self-Control,” laid out the basic principles ofmanagement by objective (MBO).Subsequently elaborated by G. S.

Odiorne, it clearly built on the lessons ofTaylor. MBO is essentially a theory ofmanagerial delegation, providing aframework for defining business func-tions that can be delegated with a meansfor determining success or failure of theexecution. Peter Drucker’s oft repeatedmaxim that, “you can’t manage what youcan’t measure,” is taken to heart by BPM.MBO provides us with the basis for twomore BPM principles:

Every business activity in abusiness process has a well-defined, detectable set of qualitativeand quantitative conditions thatdetermine when that businessactivity may begin (successfullycompletes).

Every business activity in abusiness process has a well-defined, detectable set of qualitativeand quantitative conditions thatdetermine when that businessactivity achieves its objectives(successfully completes).

The very definition of MBO providesthe relationship between managerial anddelegated business activities. Managerialactivities include identifying activitiesthat can be delegated and determiningthe parameters under which the taskshould be performed. These parametersinclude the context or constraints forthe task’s initiation and execution,resources available for or required by itsexecution, objectives it must fulfill to besuccessful, and metrics or measures bywhich success or failure may be deter-mined. Additionally, determining howdelegated activities are necessarily inter-related (i.e., what comes before and whatcomes next) to satisfy higher-level objec-tives is a key managerial activity. In termsof business process, we can recognizethese managerial activities as essentialaspects of process definition. In addition,however, some inter-relationshipsinvolve managerial discretion deter-mined, for example, by the quality of thedelegated activity. Furthermore, in anagile business, even necessary inter-rela-tionships may change periodically and sorequire that the process definition itselfmake explicit recognition of managerialdiscretion.

In terms of BPM, MBO makes it clearthat a business process can be decom-posed into a delegation or managementhierarchy. Each level of business processdescription consists of delegated activi-ties interspersed with managerial activi-

ties. The process may be partitioned intosets of connected activities that we call aresponsibility set. Each responsibility setis defined as being the responsibility of aparticular managerial role. In crossingfrom one responsibility set to another,the responsible managerial role changes,resulting in a handoff of responsibility.

Managerial activities constitute themanager’s response to one or more prioractivities by authorizing and initiatingsubsequent activities. A managerialactivity forms a decision point (or node)in the business process, determininghow to combine the results of prioractivities and which subsequent activi-ties will be authorized and initiated.Some decisions are relatively fixed, andso may be captured in advance as rules,procedures, and the like. Others involvejudgment and so require interactivedecision-making. Either way, decisionnodes are the primary managerial con-trol points in the business process shortof process redefinition.

If a delegated activity can be decom-posed into a set of activities and decisions(which themselves form a process) sothat further delegation of responsibili-ties is permitted, a multi-level delegationhierarchy can be created. This decompo-sition can proceed consistently throughmany levels only by satisfying an impor-tant principle of BPM:

Every non-atomic business activityis equivalent to an interconnectedset of simplified business activitiesand decisions (a more detailedbusiness process) to which BPMprinciples apply.

Thus, a business process can beunderstood as a business activity andevery non-atomic business activity canbe understood as a process involvingactivities and decisions, thereby enablingthe decomposition of a business processinto a hierarchy of processes whoseresponsibility sets conform to the man-agement hierarchy relevant to thatprocess:

The decomposition of any businessprocess into a hierarchy ofprocesses should conform to thehierarchy of managementresponsibilities.

Dr. William Edwards Deming’s workraised the bar considerably with a formof business process improvement, whichcame to be known primarily as totalquality management (TQM) and the


predecessor of Six Sigma. Among otherthings, popular applications of Taylor’sand Drucker’s work often led to adestructive approach to increasingprocess efficiency, ignoring quality andtimeliness in favor of volumes. Surelyneither Taylor nor Drucker would haveapproved of this effect and would haveagreed with Deming that a focus onquality must pervade every aspect of theprocess. TQM demands that we preventpoor quality and not let it propagate.Quality-related errors should be prevent-ed by good process design, which meansidentifying what works and what does-n’t. We’re always able to identify whathas occurred in the business processthrough quality measurements that aremeaningful at all levels up the manage-ment hierarchy:

The definition of every businessactivity includes quality measuresdefined in a business processcontext so as to preserve semanticconsistency when “rolled-up” alongthe management hierarchy.

But quality management is impossi-ble if all we know is how well or howpoorly a business activity was per-formed: It’s not enough to recognizesymptoms of a problem. We must alsohave ways of identifying the proximatecauses. In process terms, this leads to oneor more chains of causes that result fromthe specific process path taken of all pos-sible alternatives:

Every alternative means ofachieving or failing to achieve theobjective of a business process (i.e.,all the permissible paths throughthe process) and the possiblecauses of error, including reducedquality, are identified.

This principle forces us to completelydefine the possible effects of a businessprocess rather than merely that portionthat normally achieves the desired objec-tive. It provides us with a way of corre-lating poor quality and the specificevents that have led to it. This doesn’tmean we have to complicate the businessprocess definition with all the possiblechains of activities and decisions. Instead,it forces a design that enables what soft-ware quality engineers call coverage: Theprocess definition takes into account allthe possible ranges of ending conditions,given the permissible ranges of startingconditions.

With the work of James Champy and

Michael Hammer, BPR was born.Although businesses had obviously beenredesigning their processes for decades,Champy and Hammer gave the disci-pline a fresh motivation, and moderndefinition, method, and perspective.They insisted that a wholesale redesignand replacement of existing businessprocesses was often necessary. A thor-ough analysis of the business process as itexisted (resulting in the “as-is” model)and a redesign to improve logistical effi-ciency (resulting in the “to be” model)were required, followed by transition tothe new redesign. In the light of (and per-haps despite) inherent difficulties, BPRhas often had incredible success, quitepossibly a tribute to the great inefficien-cy of most business processes.

Unfortunately, BPR is a very costly,time-consuming, and disruptive effortfor many businesses, especially withrespect to precisely those businessprocesses that could most benefit fromredesign. Additionally, few businesseshave any formal documentation of theirbusiness processes and even fewer haveaccurate documentation, in part becausemost business processes are dynamic,ever-changing and adapting entities.These facts conspire to make it difficultto capture an accurate, complete snap-shot of the business process “as is,” so thatboth the transition plan and the redesignwill be moving targets. This increases therisk of an unfavorable result. Even worse,the rules imposed by formal businessprocess models to create provably betterredesigns are often too constraining inpractice, attempting to force human par-ticipants to behave in ways that limit cre-ative response to unforeseen errors andenvironmental events:

Although inefficient, existingbusiness processes often includefactors that have evolvedinductively to maintain robustnessand take advantage of localresources.

In building on both the positive andnegative experiences with BPR, BPMfocuses on managing existing businessprocesses. It recognizes that businessprocesses and their components don’texist in a vacuum, nor are they typical-ly implemented without subtle sideeffects and inter-process entangle-ments due to coupling between objec-tives, activities, resources, schedules,triggering events, and so on. Controlimplies considerable (often tacit)knowledge and means for acquiring,

maintaining, and applying that knowl-edge:

A business must gain control of therelevant portions of a businessprocess and its inter-processdependencies in order to addressany optimization goals. This is aknowledge management problem.

In the final analysis, Hammer (TheAgenda, 2001) has stated that he “waswrong” about the approach and now rec-ommends a more incremental approachthat teases his reader with BPM-relatedideas. Research has shown that the BPRapproach is often inappropriate, but isvaluable in certain processes with highvariability. BPM takes a measuredapproach to the rate at which a processshould be changed, since this, too, is aprocess to be managed and optimized.Recognizing that business drivers andobjectives change, perhaps rapidly, it’simportant to evaluate the cost and bene-fit of any business process change. Anoften-overlooked aspect of such evalua-tion is an estimate of the life expectancyof the change (i.e., before the sameaspect of the process needs to bechanged again) and the rate of return onthat change. By incorporating this analy-sis, even if informal, high opportunityfor return changes will be fosteredwhile low opportunity for returnchanges will be deferred.

In effect, BPM treats continuousprocess improvement and BPR as a spec-trum determined by the scope of processchange. It enables wholesale redesign of abusiness process when and only whenthe process environment is sufficientlystable enough to foster a high opportuni-ty for return and the existing processmeets certain inefficiency conditions. Atthe same time, it must be recognized thatmost process improvement has focusedon logistic and operational efficiencies,sometimes focusing on local, functionaloptimization rather than simultaneousoptimization of multiple, strategicallyessential business processes. It’s well-known from systems theory and opera-tions research that such a strategy iscounterproductive: The collection oflocal optimizations is rarely globally opti-mal and therefore is to the detriment ofstrategic goals. Thus, local processchanges must be subservient to strategicobjectives. This is only possible if strate-gic objectives are consistent:

Every business process changemust be evaluated in terms of its


global effects on related businessprocesses, and must provide apositive opportunity for return.

The objectives of business processesthat are entangled must bemutually consistent.

Almost all business processes havenon-deterministic elements, such as cer-tain built-in latencies used for synchro-nization and recovery, or those activitiesimprovised by an experienced humanparticipant in resolving exception condi-tions. These elements are often essentialfor both global optimization and robust-ness in the face of a changing businessenvironment. They’re the essence ofagility. Every business process has astrict ceiling on how efficient it can

become without being redefined bychanges to its objectives. Therefore, aBPM strategy that focuses on opera-tional and logistic efficiency offersdeclining returns on the invested opti-mization effort. By contrast, a business isalways faced with new opportunitiesand threats, reflected as changes to thecompetitive environment. No matterhow often they’re addressed, additionalopportunities and threats arise. Theopportunity for return obtainable byaddressing these changes in a timelymanner (as contrasted with the poten-tial lost opportunity costs from merelyaddressing logistical efficiency) is ulti-mately unbounded:

Business process changes must notsacrifice agility for efficiency.

The business value of so-called excep-tion processing shouldn’t be underesti-mated. Business people often conceive ofan idealized business process as consist-ing of the ideal set of activities and deci-sions that result in fulfillment of theprocess objective. Of course, real busi-ness processes often encounter error con-ditions, some foreseen and some not.There will be activities and sometimesentire processes implemented to resolvethese errors. While traditional businessprocess modeling often captures the def-

inition of some of this exception process-ing, it’s almost impossible to capture itall. Traditional business process model-ing treats exception processing as trig-gered by, but distinct from, the businessprocess proper. These omissions have anegative effect on redesign and opti-mization, and a primary goal of someBPR practitioners is simply the elimina-tion of exception processing.

BPM takes the position that excep-tion processing is inherent within andintegral to the definition of every busi-ness process, and recognizes that not allexception processing can be givendetailed clarification. Under BPM, opti-mization strives to improve the qualityof the business process by minimizinghow often exception processing isevoked or, where possible, to convert

exception processing into alternativemeans to achieve the business processobjective. Only in this latter case canexception processing cease to be part ofthe definition of the business process. Ingeneral, BPM recognizes that categoriz-ing the most costly errors and associatedexception processing is an ongoing, veryimportant task.

The value of exception processing isusually underestimated. While propri-etary business processes are, by nature,unique intellectual property and com-petitive differentiators, the non-propri-etary, idealized business processes tendto evolve toward a public definition anddon’t directly afford competitive differ-entiation. However, the exception pro-cessing associated with non-proprietarybusiness processes is often extremelyproprietary and determines the competi-tive success of the business. Too often,we mistakenly treat the products andservices as the subjects of competitivedifferentiation, but these are merely theresult of business processes. As HarvardBusiness School’s Michael Porter wouldbe quick to point out, the competitivedifferentiation from standard, best prac-tice business process definitions must beoptimized and preserved:

The business sub-processes forexception resolution, together with

proprietary business processes, areof critical importance, effectivelydefining a business’s primarycompetitive differentiation andsustainable advantage.

Summary Comments This brief introduction to BPM

should give you some understanding ofthe approach. Many authors may dis-agree with this characterization or offerother definitions, but I have yet to find asolid position stated. Following the prin-ciples cited here will certainly lead youdown the path to BPM. And it starts thedialog so that better recognized writerson management and technology thanmyself can respond, hopefully, to thebenefit of us all.

Business Process Management SystemsA BPMS is a suite of integrated soft-

ware facilities designed to enable BPMas defined and described in the previ-ous section. While many vendors havenot yet addressed all the issues raised inour current definition of BPM as a busi-ness management theory, they’re wellon the way to doing so. As is often thecase in a developing market, whichfacilities have been developed to sup-port which aspects of BPM is deter-mined by a combination of publicperception of critical requirements andthe background and available assets ofthe particular vendor. Indeed, someimportant vendors in the market don’toffer an integrated system, but havefocused on delivering sophisticatedcapabilities for one or two specificBPM facilities or even services.

In this section, we’ll examine the ven-dors and provide a broad description ofwhat they offer. We’ll then discuss thekey functional elements of a BPMS, andfinally turn to the relationships ofBPMS technologies to, and the overlapwith, business process analysis and mod-eling (BPA/M), business intelligence(BI), online analytical processing(OLAP), enterprise performance man-agement (EPM), business activity moni-toring (BAM), business rules engines(BREs), enterprise event management(EEM), portals, business-to-business(B2B) processes, EAI, enterprise servicebuses (ESBs), enterprise applicationservers (EASes) and enterprise platformsuites (EPSes), Web Service, and inte-grated development environment (IDE)technologies.

Vendor CategoriesVendors offering a BPMS, or as some

BPM refers to a theory or strategy of business management

that properly precedes and forms the foundation for a

rapidly evolving, extremely valuable technology solution.


prefer, a BPM suite, can be categorizedinto a few groups. Although not fool-proof, knowing which group a vendorbelongs to can often provide clues as tohow the vendor is likely to think of BPMand address BPMS requirements. Almostall BPMS vendors, however, espouse atechnology perspective and so only indi-rectly address the business managementprinciples BPM represents. This is arather unfortunate situation since adopt-ing a clearly defined process-orientedbusiness management strategy is essen-tial to a successful implementation of aBPMS (see the article, “BPMSImplementation: Issues and Strategies,”in this supplement). However, there aresigns this situation is changing.

The eight most prominent categoriesof BPMS vendors can be easily identified:

• BPMS pure-play: BPMS pure-play ven-dors set out to design a BPMS (or prod-uct that’s closely relatedarchitecturally) from the beginning,and treat this as their flagship product.

• EAI vendors: EAI vendors found theaddition of process integration andprocess automation a natural evolutionof their software stack. It was then ashort conceptual leap to recognize theneed for the message flow equivalentof workflow management services anddashboards for activity monitoring andperformance management, althoughmany are still evolving to a businessprocess perspective.

• Workflow vendors: Much like EAIvendors, vendors of workflow manage-ment systems have been able to enterthe BPMS market with little effort. Aworkflow may be thought of as a par-ticularly well-structured businessprocess.

• BPA and BPR vendors: Existing busi-ness process analysis vendors gainedmuch of their market through theinterest in BPR. These vendors oftenhave considerable process analysis, def-inition, and simulation experience, andsome have extended their productofferings to include process executionand monitoring capabilities.

• EAS and IDE vendors: These vendorsincreasingly find migration to the BPMmarket attractive. The first step usuallyinvolves adding graphical rules-drivenor process-driven capabilities and inte-gration (especially for Web Servicesand Enterprise JavaBeans) to the IDE,enabling rapid development of process-based applications. Moving beyond thistechnical process view requires addingbusiness process analysis and design,

and a true process engine driven byprocess definitions that can workexternally.

• Enterprise application vendors:Enterprise applications suites (e.g.,ERP) have included both embeddedworkflow management and some EAIcapabilities in their products to enablecustomization and integration. Withrecent market pressures, they’ve begunto expose the functionality of thesefacilities and to enhance and redeploythem, increasingly satisfying therequirements of a BPMS.

• BRE, BAM, and EEM vendors:Products from these vendors play a sig-nificant role in a BPMS. Some areextending their products to providemore complete BPMS functionality. Afew vendors have used rules engines toimplement a rules-driven approach toprocess execution. (In other articles inthe BPM supplement, the relationshipof BPMS to BAM and EPM is dis-cussed.)

• BI and OLAP vendors: These vendorsare emerging as BPMS vendors in thecontext of business, corporate, or EPMand dashboards for this purpose.They’re beginning to recognize thatsupport for BPM or workflow manage-ment is necessary functionality inmeeting performance managementrequirements. They can be expected toexpand support for process beyondanalytical flows.

BPMS FacilitiesIt’s next to impossible to describe all

the ways in which vendors have attempt-ed to implement a BPMS. For this reason,we’ll concentrate on describing the com-ponents of an idealized BPMS as repre-sented in the accompanying poster, The2004 BPMS Reference Architecture.Conceptually, these components can beunderstood as belonging to six groups. Insummary, these are:

• User interfaces• BPA/M facilities• Run-time components• BAM and EPM• Infrastructure• System management.

In the following, neither system man-agement nor the user interfaces (i.e., B2Bportals, process administration, processmonitoring, workflow clients, businessprocess and activity monitor, EPM dash-boards, and business activity monitoringdashboards) are described. Their func-tion should be obvious.

BPA/M Facilities A BPMS incorporates a suite of

BPA/M tools, shown at the far left of the2004 BPMS Reference Architecture.These are the facilities by which users ofa BPMS, rather than those who must sup-port its use, interact with the system.They should be seamlessly integrated sothe business user can move betweenthem without losing context. The defini-tions produced via these facilities arestored in a repository, where they may beaccessed either directly or indirectly bythe run-time system.

• Business process modeler: The businessprocess modeling tool is the primaryprocess design and change interface tothe BPMS. In addition to the tradition-al business process analysis (BPA) func-tionality of capturing, designing, andmodifying business processes and theirproperties, the operational and inter-face properties of the business func-tions with which they interact need tobe addressed. These include resourcerequirements. Although some processdesign methodology will undoubtedlybe assumed, the modeler shouldn’timpose restrictions during the captureof a process, either in terms of com-plexity or structure. It should permitusers to define and selectively enforceprocess standards, and provide help indeveloping a transition plan betweenprocess designs. Various views of aprocess should be possible, dependingon authorization, functional responsi-bility, and level of detail desired. Thislast requirement is crucial if processindependence and process abstractionare to be supported.

• IT orchestration modeler/mapper: TheIT orchestration modeler is used todefine and maintain technical flowssuch as message and data flows, datatransformations, transaction manage-ment of IT resources, and so on. It’s thistool that’s used with a process-drivenIDE as may be found, for example, inan application server or applicationplatform suite product. In an idealBPMS, it supports mapping betweenbusiness process definitions and tech-nical orchestrations. In addition, busi-ness functions are mapped to serviceclasses. This may be done either explic-itly or implicitly (by defining theresource capabilities that can then beautomatically mapped to resourcerequirements).

• Business transaction modeler: The abil-ity to relate business transactions tobusiness process events and to specify


transactional properties is important toa business, even if business personneldon’t use the technical language oftransaction processing. The businesstransaction modeling component pro-vides the ability to capture and main-tain business requirements for audit,consistency, and error recovery(whether traditional rollback, compen-sation, exception processing, or someother technique).

• Technical transaction modeler/map-per: A business transaction must ulti-mately be translated into animplementation model that maps it toa coordinated collection of flows,events, and defined technical transac-tions with various atomicity, consisten-cy, isolation, and durability (ACID)properties. This tool is used to createthose definitions and mappings, andmaintain them.

• Business metrics modeler: Businessprocesses and business functions are oflittle value to business managers unlessthey can be associated with businessmetrics or key performance indicators(KPIs). The ability to capture the defi-nition of familiar business metrics andrelate these computationally to rawmeasurements (as produced, for exam-ple, by the process engine or particularbusiness functions) is therefore essen-tial in a BPMS. The distinction betweenbusiness metrics and raw measure-ments is essential. For example, expect-ed time-to-completion of a businesstransaction is of business interest,whereas mean queue times, meanactivity service times, and most proba-ble path to completion are too techni-cal and detailed. Business metricsdefinitions have an impact on whichraw measurements are made and howlong they’re kept.

• Technical measures modeler/mapper:A business metric or KPI must ulti-mately be translated into a set of physi-cal or technical measures and theoperations used to obtain those meas-ures. This tool is used to specify thetechnical measures required and themethods by which business metrics arederived from them, and to maintainthose specifications.

• Business process simulation and ani-mation: Discrete business process simu-lation is an invaluable aid in the design,optimization, and troubleshooting ofbusiness processes. It should permitaltering the distribution of alternatepaths, adjusting costs for activity-basedcosting (ABC) analysis, and the distri-bution of data values that control

process path branching and merging.Visual highlighting of potential bottle-necks or inconsistencies, and identifica-tion of best-of-alternate process designsaccording to user-specified criteria areextremely valuable capabilities of asimulator. It should be possible to drivea simulation from user- entered, gener-ated, or historical data. Visual presenta-tion of a simulation as it progresses(a.k.a. animation) and of simulationresults are highly desirable.

• Simulation engine: Simulation validitydepends on accurately representing theoperational characteristics of theprocess engine. The more finely tunedto match the target process engine andthe typical mix of processes it runs, themore accurate and meaningful theresults are likely to be.

• Dashboards: Facilities to monitorprocess instances (in-progress businessprocesses) and the metrics they pro-duce are needed by business managersand technical and system administra-tors. On the poster, we show threetypes of such dashboards: BAMDashboard, EPM Dashboard, andProcess Monitor Dashboard.

• Dashboard designer: Dashboards mayneed to be designed for a wide varietyof specific user roles. The facility maymake advantageous use of personaliza-tion and content management tech-nologies.

• Business process administrator:Authorized users need to be able tostart, stop, pause, redefine, or alter aprocess or business function instance.They may also need to modify (i.e.,repair) a message (including produc-tion or control data), or may need tomanually assign or reassign resources.The ability to perform these functionson a live process instance is one meas-ure of the agility a BPMS is likely toprovide.

• Business analyzer and report genera-tor: Many of the questions that busi-ness personnel seek to answer requireconsiderable computation and analy-sis. Sometimes, the analysis involvescomplex statistical or other mathemat-ical models that the user need notknow, but only wishes to use. Reportgeneration (often with sophisticatedgraphs) is needed to view the analysis,preferably with Web distribution.These facilities are common in OLAPsystems, although the business analyz-er component of a BPMS should becustomized for use in a businessprocess environment. Libraries of pre-programmed analytics and wizards for

understanding particular businessprocesses would be a valuable addi-tion. These facilities are often consid-ered components of a BAM and EPMproduct.

Run-Time ComponentsThe run-time components are the

heart of the BPMS. Without these, aBPMS cannot execute a process defini-tion or enable the management of indi-vidual runs of the process (i.e., processinstances). The technical architecture,features, and functions of these compo-nents largely determine operationalavailability, performance, efficiency, andflexibility.

• Process engine: The BPM processengine is clearly the central componentof a BPMS, without which it would be,at most, a planning or documentationtool. Its purpose is to implement a busi-ness process, managing the real-timeinvocation (or activation) and termina-tion (or completion) of business func-tions. Ideally, it won’t dictate the formof those processes or the nature of thebusiness functions (although it shouldcertainly encourage standards andgood design). Note that we show a tra-ditional workflow engine as being asubset of an ideal BPM process engine,indicating that it should be able to han-dle structured workflows and more.

• Distributed BPM coordinator: For B2B,business-to-consumer (B2C), global,cross-division, or multidepartmentbusiness processes, a federated or dis-tributed process engine is required.This has obvious implications forprocess engine capabilities regardingremote process invocation, communi-cation, and coordination. In some cases,process engine-to-process engine con-versations are coordinated by a so-called public or global process, or by acollaboration. Each conversant in theconversation (there may be many, forexample, in a trading hub) may have anindependent, preferred view of theprocess and distinct security policies,possibly seeing the external portion ofthe process as a subprocess. The coordi-nator is simultaneously a kind of super-visor and a firewall.

• Resource manager: In an ideal BPMS, ageneral facility is needed to enableindependence between business func-tion definition and its implementation.It’s this resource independence thatenables business users to focus on busi-ness objectives as a first priority,improves robustness of the business


process definition, and enables effi-cient, run-time management of theavailable resources. Business functionsmay be implemented by mechanical,electronic, software, or manual means.The resource manager must select aspecific resource with the capabilitiesthat match definitional and run-timerequirements, and then orchestrate theexecution of the requested businessfunction. The resource must be avail-able at the time the business functionis invoked or activated, and be returnedto the pool of available resources whenthe function is inactive, completes, orterminates. Often, a task can be paral-lelized and load balanced across a set ofavailable resources at execution time. Ifa preferred resource is unavailable, theresource manager should automatical-ly select an alternative. For example, atask that’s performed ideally by auto-mated means may have to be per-formed by manual means.

• Scheduler: The scheduling of businessfunctions is an important task within aBPMS. Were unlimited resources avail-able, were there no timing dependen-cies, and were there no externalconstraints, business functions couldbe executed as soon as any precedingbusiness functions complete. However,these conditions are rarely the case.Authorizations, loads, and capabilitiesmust be considered, and some func-tions are performed by agents overwhich we have no control.Additionally, business processes andtransactions often have externallyimposed timing constraints or are trig-gered by external events. These factorsmake the scheduling of business func-tions a complex technical problem,similar to job shop scheduling. A BPMSwithout such a component won’t per-form efficiently, nor will processes beperformed in a timely manner.

• Rules engine: A rules engine can aug-ment both the process engine and theresource manager. One method of rep-resenting a process’s permissible transi-tions, and therefore the decisions thatcontrol flow between activities, is asrules. Activity initialization and com-pletion conditions can also be repre-sented as rules. Matching of resourcerequirements for a business functionto the capabilities of a class of resourcecan be accomplished in a flexible man-ner with a rules engine. The rulesengine can help the resource manageroptimize resource assignment,although performance is sometimescritical. Note, also, that a rules engine

plays an important role in BAM andEPM, especially relating events, metrics,and responses.

• Hardware interface manager: Thisfacility enables a BPMS to supportactivities involving the control ofmachines using computerized numeri-cal control (CNC), robotics interfaces,process control interfaces, and so on, ina business process. This enables theoperation of loading cranes, canal locks,manufacturing equipment, valves, andmuch more.

• Interface manager: A BPMS is of littlevalue if the process engine cannot com-municate with business functions asimplemented. It must be able to com-municate both control flow and dataflow in a coordinated fashion, thoughthese may be separately defined andquite distinct. (This is far from trivial.Few interfaces are designed for any-thing other than data flow!) If theBPMS is integrated with a suite of inte-gration components, it’s this BPMScomponent that’s responsible for theoperational aspects of that integration.Communication with transports,adapters (whether to middleware,applications, or presentation software)and technical orchestration engines ishandled by the interface manager.

• Worklist manager: Interacting withhuman resources requires somemethod of task delivery. Either a pushor a pull method may be used.Traditionally, human-oriented work-flow management has required logged-in users to select tasks from a list ofthose awaiting execution. Lists areoften prioritized, with escalation asnecessary to meet expected or requiredschedules. Today, task selection mayinvoke an automatically generatedapplet or form, or perhaps an interac-tive function within an enterpriseapplication. Support for manual activi-ties that involve external resources(either disconnected software systemsor mechanical operations) should beprovided.

• Repository: A BPMS requires a sophis-ticated DBMS or repository for dataand metadata. There are many dataobjects that the repository must store,including business process definitions,integrity rules, instance histories, mes-sages and data flows, business metricdefinitions and data, business analyticand report definitions, along withsaved data, transaction definition anddata, security and policy definitions,access histories, simulation data, errorevents and resolutions, and so on.

Although the repository appears intwo places on the 2004 BPMSReference Architecture, a single virtualrepository consisting of an arbitrarynumber of physical (but necessarilysemantically consistent) repositories isintended.

These technical, run-time compo-nents, if not properly integrated, wouldbe a daunting collection to use and man-age. But if bound together internallywith a common architecture and set ofprogramming interfaces, they form acohesive, collaborative unit that can beused to enhance the integrity of anenterprise.

Business Activity Monitoring and EnterprisePerformance Management

The ability to monitor events, analyzemeasurement data, detect trends, andcompute KPIs is essential to the conceptof process management. Without them,there’s no ability to intelligently opti-mize business processes or to createeffective new business processes inresponse to strategic events. These facili-ties are shown on the far right of the2004 BPMS Reference Architecture. Thesemantic layer, analytics engine, andrules engine are common to both BAM(which focuses on detection andresponse to real-time events) and EPM(which focuses on detection, response,and prediction of trends relating to busi-ness performance).

• Semantic layer: This layer handles themapping between views expected bybusiness users, on the one hand, andtechnical descriptions and referenceson the other. This is a conceptual layerthat permits business users to monitorbusiness processes in terms of businessmetrics, business objects, balancedscorecards, and other familiar businessobjects.

• BI/analytics engine: The execution ofcomplex packaged, rules-driven, orscripted analytics is often necessary forthe computation of business metricsand KPIs from low-level or technicalmeasures.

• Portal management and personaliza-tion: Every business user is likely torequire personalized presentation ofbusiness metrics. This can be accom-plished through portal managementwhen dashboards are deployed as por-tals.

• Event management: BAM requires theability to detect both business and tech-nical events, interact with a rules engine

B P M S - 1 0 • B u s i n e s s I n t e g r a t i o n J o u r n a l • B u s i n e s s P r o c e s s M a n a g e m e n t S u p p l e m e n t

and an analytics engine to classify theevent and determine an appropriateresponse, and ultimately to execute theresponse. Response execution mayinvolve initiation of processes, raiseevents, triggering alerts, and so on.

• Enterprise information integration:EPM and BAM require access to a widevariety of data sources. Conceptually,this is the function of an enterpriseinformation integration (EII) product,although most BPMS products (andstand-alone BAM and EPM products)will provide integrated access to a lim-ited number of data sources.

• Content management: Most businessdata is embedded in documents. Theincorporation of content managementfunctionality within a BAM facilityenables the detection of a broader spec-trum of data events.

Infrastructure The following technology interfaces

can be either simple or sophisticated, butsome version of them must exist if theBPMS is functional. Note that the audit,error, security, and policy facilities aregrouped together on the poster.

• System manager: A BPMS requires anIT support facility for installation, con-figuration, and system management.The system manager should have allthe usual desirable properties of anenterprise-class software system man-ager or administration component. Asystem administrator’s job is difficultenough without adding complexityhere, so usability and reliability areparamount. The goal is the eliminationof manual administrative tasks, “error-proofing,” and online guidance.

• Audit facility: The ability to audit abusiness process is a common businessrequirement and indispensable in mostbusinesses. The audit manager keepstrack of what was done and what deci-sions were made, when, by whom, andwith what resources. Audit conditions,once defined, shouldn’t be circum-ventable. Audit points are closely asso-ciated with, and ideally should bedefined by, business transactionboundaries. Audit trail querying andreport generation must be supported.

• Error facility: Although many errorscan be anticipated and businessprocesses established to handle them,there will always be unanticipatederrors. These must be managed in aconsistent, auditable fashion, even ifthe handling is manual and ad hoc. Aguided facility to define classes of error

and associated responses is desirable. • Security and policy facility: As noted

earlier, not all agents are authorized toperform every task or activity, to useany resource at any time, or to use anyamount of a resource. A BPMS mustnot violate these business policies, andmust enforce security. It may be neces-sary to support encryption, digital sig-natures, public key infrastructure(PKI), biometrics, and the like, as wellas single sign-on, non-repudiation, andso on. The BPMS must have a securitymodel with respect to its access, use,and administration, as business process-es may represent the crown jewels of abusiness’s intellectual property.

• Integration infrastructure: At one endof the spectrum, integration infrastruc-ture consists of a set of direct-connectadapters that provide point-to-pointintegration between the BPMS andmeans used to implement businessfunctions or activities. At a minimum,a BPMS requires a way to communi-cate with people for manually imple-mented business functions, and thereare certainly many business needs thata simple BPMS with one such applica-tion or middleware adapter couldaddress. At the other end of the spec-trum, integration infrastructure maybe a full suite of business integrationcomponents. Clearly, a BPMS bestoperates in the context of a completeintegration layer. This may be a tradi-tional EAI stack, Web services over anESB or a variety of other architectures,and is shown along the bottom of the2004 BPMS Reference Architecture.

• IDE: As BPMS usage matures, users willundoubtedly want to develop applica-tions that take best advantage of BPMScapabilities. To this end, a suite of devel-opment tools is needed. In its simplestform, such an IDE enables the develop-ment of new adapters and Web servicesthat are process-aware. An IDE forprocess-driven design and developmentof process-enabled, event-driven, andrule-based applications or applicationcomponents is highly desirable. An inte-grated process-object methodologyshould be learned before such tools areused. A process-driven IDE is sometimesprovided within application server andapplication platform suite products.

ConclusionsToday’s BPMS products have pro-

gressed from simple workflow-like capa-bilities with minimal support forBPA/M and BAM a few years ago to sup-port for more complex processes with

both manual and automated activities.BPA/M support has greatly improved,and both BAM and EPM support are pro-gressing. All this is highly encouraging.

Nonetheless, we have severalimprovements to look forward to in thecoming four or five years. The followingare particularly important:

• A broader range of business processeswith less need to translate them intohighly structured equivalents

• Separation between business views andtechnology-dependent views in designand monitoring

• An integrated approach to exceptionprocessing and resolution

• Improved federated and distributedcapabilities for better enterprisewideand B2B support

• Collaborative business processes• Coupled (a.k.a. entangled) business

processes• Robust business transaction support• Intelligent resource managers and bet-

ter resource independence• Proven, standardized design and devel-

opment methodologies• Detailed implementation methodologies• Integrated BAM/EPM with closed-

loop optimization• Higher levels of performance, reliabili-

ty, and availability• Libraries of standard, but easily cus-

tomizable business process definitions(templates).

The vision and promise of BPM andits related technologies, as realized in aBPMS, is an exciting proposition withmany potential business benefits.However, as with strong commitment toany enterprise strategy and technology,adoption should be a studied, measuredactivity, demanding appropriate incre-mental return for incremental invest-ment. That spells BPM success. bij

David McGoveran is anindependent industryanalyst and consultantat AlternativeTechnologies,specializing in businessprocess managementsystems (BPMS),database managementsystems (DBMS), and

related enterprise technologies. He is also seniortechnical editor for Business Integration Journal.e-Mail: [email protected]: www.alternativetech.com

About the Author

The business process management (BPM) market has tendrils that stretch decades into the past with process manufacturing andcontrol systems, workflow management, application integration, business process re-engineering (BPR), and so on. However, it

didn’t become a widely recognized acronym until the late 1990s. As Michael Hammer, the father of BPR, points out, “ . . . the term[BPM] had no meaning in the past.” As a technology, BPM generally referred to business process modeling, although a few usedBPM as an undefined extension of business process re-engineering.

With the advent of sophisticated process engines and EAI infrastructure in the late 1990s, the concepts of managing the entirelife cycle of a business process through technology and of managing a business in terms of its business processes finally becameviable. By all accounts, industry analysts began tracking what we know today as the BPM market (BPM products and services) around2000. Predecessor categories to BPM, including business process re-engineering, workflow management, and document management,were tracked previously from the early 1990s. During the last five years, BPM has matured both as a market and as a category ofproducts and services.

Analyst definitions of BPM technology are now in reasonably close agreement, but their definitions of what should be includedin sizing the market vary tremendously. For example, when evaluating the market contribution of EAI vendors with a BPM offering,some analysts include revenues generated from integration services. How much of this revenue is accrued to the BPM marketdepends on how encompassing you consider BPM to be, and whether it’s distinct from EAI, business process integration, and the like.

From the pure EAI perspective, BPM is a class of middleware used to accomplish business process automation and businessprocess integration, and so is indistinct from EAI. When one considers the fact that Web services are playing an ever increasing rolein integration, and that Web services orchestration can be understood as a particular approach to process-centric integration, one isfaced with the question as to whether EAI encompasses BPM, BPM encompasses EAI, or is it completely distinct. Similar problemsarise with respect to the markets for CRM, supply chain management, compliance management, business process outsourcing, anddocument management. All these are highly responsive application areas for BPM, so much so that BPM may subsume them in thesame sense that the enterprise software market subsumes ERP. If these relationships are taken seriously, the BPM market opportunitygoing forward is in the high tens or even low hundreds of billions in U.S. dollars.

Some analysts perceive BPM as having little to do with application integration except for a strong synergy. BPM enablesfocused, business-driven application integration and an integration infrastructure enables BPM. Other analysts focus on the fact that abusiness process management system (BPMS) can be understood as a natural, though perhaps significant and even disruptive,evolution of workflow management systems (WfMSes). Still others view BPM as a revitalization of the business process re-engineering and process change markets enabled by e-business and the growth of EAI (and especially process-centric integration)technology and standards.

The important message is that BPM consumers must understand BPM market assessments and forecast in the context of theanalyst’s perspective. Regardless, it’s almost universally agreed that the BPM market opportunity is very high, that its compoundannual growth rate (unrestrained by a bad economy) is among the highest for any software category, and that the potential ROI andrate of return has few peers. In 2000, most estimates of the BPM market were in the tens or perhaps low hundreds of millions inU.S. dollars. By some analyst forecasts, the BPM market will be between $4 and $6 billion U.S. dollars in 2005.

To take the pulse of the current BPM market, Business Integration Journal invited key industry analysts to answer a fewquestions. Business Integration Journal is grateful to Jim Sinur of Gartner, Ian Charlesworth of Butler Group, Nathaniel Palmer of theDelphi Group, Hollis Bischoff of META Group, and Ken Vollmer of Forrester, for participating. Their interviews are summarized here. >

The BPM Market:

Past, Present, & Future

By David McGoveran

B u s i n e s s I n t e g r a t i o n J o u r n a l • B u s i n e s s P r o c e s s M a n a g e m e n t S u p p l e m e n t • B P M S - 1 1


Gartneron the

BPMMarket

Jim SinurGartner, Inc.

www.gartner.com

G artner has been tracking the work-flow market since the mid-90s, and

changed the practice to BPM in 2000.They define BPM as the management ofbusiness processes, end-to-end, regardlessof what’s included. The technologyenables end-to-end processing of busi-ness events, including managing the nec-essary resources.

Gartner divides the market into visu-al/administrative BPM, collaborativeBPM, application-specific or preconfig-ured BPM, integration-focused BPM, andpure-play BPM. So far, Gartner hasfocused on tracking the pure-play andintegration-focused BPM vendors, defin-ing pure-play as vendors of technologythat links processes together.

Sinur says that the pure-play BPMmarket (of which there are about 95vendors) was about $455 million fornew license revenues and the overallpure-play BPM market was about $1.2billion. While Gartner hasn’t releasednumbers for 2003 (the report is due inMay), Sinur expects these numbers tohave grown by about 20 percent. For2006, they are forecasting $3 billion fortools and $6 billion for solutionproviders around those tools.Compliance issues are among the pri-mary drivers of the market.

The return on relationship (ROR)from BPM projects for the next five yearsis estimated conservatively at 10 to 15percent on average. However, says Sinur,the ROR for projects that go after the“low-hanging fruit” with obvious cost-cutting benefits is closer to 20 to 30 per-cent. Examples of processes that fit inthis category include mortgage under-writing, pharmaceutical drug certifica-tion, customer service, and CRMfunctions. Informally or manually man-aged business processes tend to developas much as 50 percent exception process-ing as process entropy (a.k.a. processdecay) kicks in. Gaining control overexception processing is an obvious prob-lem to attack with BPM.

So far, Gartner thinks that about 40percent of the current market has beenpenetrated, but the opportunity goingforward is enormous. There are about110 vendors total in BPM and all are mak-ing money, so it’s pretty clear that themarket hasn’t reached 100 percent pene-tration. There’s been some consolidation,but not nearly as much as was expectedduring 2002 to 2003.

The early adopters of BPM were big:insurance, banks, healthcare (due toHIPAA), and government. Medium-sizecompanies (revenues in the hundreds of

millions of dollars) are now adopting,which is pulling some additional playersinto the market, with some indicationsthat even smaller firms are starting totake notice. The verticals seeing thegreatest benefit, in order, are insurance,government, healthcare, discrete manu-facturing, and telecommunications. Thebig surprise, says Sinur, is retail.

Gartner predicts that the BPM mar-ket will see increased selling of businessprocess templates. There will be threemain types of templates: verticalprocess, horizontal process, and compli-ance templates. BPM is at the heart ofthe buy-vs.-build argument because itoffers a solution that’s a huge blendingof the two: where maybe 50 percent of

functionality of an application is BPM.Sinur also predicts that the markets hecalls “the Killer B’s” (BPM, businessrules, BAM, and business process analy-sis) are converging.

Sinur says that workflow “failed”the first time around because it washighly departmental, had no designsupport, no methodology, and weakperformance. Although BPM has begunto address the other issues, he sees itsbiggest hurdle is the lack of a publiclyaccepted methodology. The difficultpart of BPM is the link to integration.Sinur believes integration is movingtoward a commodity market, so thatpure-play BPM vendors must have anintegration partner.

Gartner offers two services that per-tain to BPM, their integration service andthe application development service.They also address BPM out of verticalservices. In addition, they offer marketwatch and consulting services for BPM.Both BPM pure-play and EAI vendorsrate a “magic quadrant” study comparingthe top 50 vendors in each segment.Several Gartner Reports on BPM areavailable, including “Drivers for BPM: 11Money-Related Reasons to Start,” pub-lished Feb. 25, 2004. bij

Gartner offers twoservices that pertain

to BPM, theirintegration service and

the applicationdevelopment service.


Butler Group’s first report on theBPM market was published in

March 2002. They define BPM as con-cerning “the software and toolsrequired to model and execute anorganization’s business processes,through the orchestration and integra-tion of the necessary people, systems,applications, and application compo-nents.” That market includes theprocess modeling environment, devel-opment environment, process testingand simulation, process engine, rulesengine, process management suite,administration tools, repository, inte-gration layer, and presentation layer.

According to Charlesworth, BPMtechnology was “first generation” from2000 until 2002 and is now in its secondgeneration and growing rapidly, thoughstill in the early adopter phase of the cat-egory life cycle. Initially, EAI vendorsdrove the market, enabling rapid adop-tion of BPM and letting business userssee IT assets as business process-related.BPM can be understood from the busi-ness process model and managementview by business users and simultane-ously enable IT users to understand thereal assets that implement process activi-ties as services. This is the first time sucha strong synergy and mapping betweenIT and business has existed. With earlysuccesses, the danger is now that vendorswill oversell BPM. He advises a focus onvertical solutions so that both invest-ments can be controlled and benefitsmeasured. Ian expects BPM to move tomarket adoption within two to threeyears and to reach maturity in four tofive years.

Butler Group says that global organi-zations with complex processes are theprimary adopters, with manufacturing,telecommunications, and financial serv-ices seeing the greatest benefit. He cau-tions that, against a backdrop ofdramatic, attention-grabbing vendorclaims relating to potential ROI and ben-efits, BPM needs to be critically chal-lenged in terms of discovering exactlyhow and where it will add value to thebusiness. Solutions need to be focused onbusiness problems (compliance, distrib-uted order management, etc.) if positiveROI is to be realized.

As Web services and service-orient-ed architecture (SOA) take hold, thetask of application integration will bedrastically simplified. This will create alevel integration playing field, whichwill ensure that BPM offerings trulycompete at a business level. In broadterms, we’re talking about creating

points of integration between BPM andrelated technologies, specifically busi-ness intelligence (BI), corporate per-formance management (CPM), andmore importantly, workgroup andenterprise collaboration.

The greatest barrier to BPM adoptionis seeing BPM “ . . . as purely a technologysolution. BPM needs to be seen as a moverof power from IT to business units andso it’s important to look at the organiza-tion’s strategy first. BPM users shouldidentify business problems, and onlythen try to discover the IT source or solu-tion. The technical solution is incidental.BPM encourages this approach.”

Vendors were selling BPM as an ITsolution with a business management

facility on top, but are now understand-ing that the business drivers are first.They’re still feeling out business issuessurrounding BPM adoption and organi-zational change; business consultants andsystems integrators (SIs) will now comeand deal with this.

In successfully adopting BPM, signifi-cant change management is required; thisconsumes 75 percent of the effort.Because processes are intertwined, busi-nesses need to understand processchange implications, purpose, and value.Making changes is complex and requiresboth short-term and long-term impactanalysis. The technology comes in foronly the last 25 percent.

Butler Group’s Ian Charlesworth isone of the principal authors of BusinessProcess Management—A Guide toNavigating the Process Minefield, pub-lished in February 2004. They also pub-lish the Butler Group TechnologyEvaluation and Comparison Report, andprovide research and analyst consultingservices. bij

ButlerGroupon the

BPMMarket

Ian CharlesworthButler Group

(Butler Direct, Ltd.)www.butlergroup.com

In successfully adopting

BPM, significant change

management is required;

this consumes 75

percent of the effort.


D elphi Group published its first BPMreport in 2001. They define a BPM

system “ . . . by the components of an exe-cution engine, process designer, processdefinitions, an activity monitor, and userinterface.” A BPM system must includeprocess extraction, definition, and execu-tion; be transparent with respect tohuman vs. automated tasks, provide anidentifiable and independent processdefinition (not merely an applicationgenerated from a process definition), sep-arate integration logic from process exe-cution logic, provide introspection of theintegration layer so that the interfaceisn’t hard-wired or use purely manualdata structure mapping.

Delphi characterizes the BPM marketbased on the results of a survey. Their2003 survey respondents spent $550 mil-lion on BPM projects, of which 26 percentwas software and 39 percent was integra-tion services. The BPM software-onlymarket was estimated at $500 million,suggesting that the overall market wassomething less than $1.5 billion. The mar-ket is expected to grow at 15 to 30 percentannually over the next three years.

Initial projects tend to be implement-ed with considerable help from externalservices, but the trend is to bring thisexpertise in-house. Almost 90 percent ofsurvey respondents cited BPM projects ashaving a positive return or at least net-ting out expenses. Case studies reportROI in as little as the first four monthsafter deployment.

The market has a long way to go. It hasbeen strong through the present by apply-ing BPM to the “low-hanging fruit”: —namely, those situations in which anobvious process improvement could beobtained through BPM. The “leap of faithinvestments” are over and the market ismoving to solution selling. Still, Palmerstates that less than 5 percent of the mar-ket opportunity has been addressed.

Businesses that can benefit from cur-rent BPM technology must be of signifi-cant size. There’s more adoption amongmidsize businesses than elsewhere.Adoption isn’t being driven by IT, butusually by a group with a business trans-formation charter such as an e-businessgroup. Telecommunications, finance,and insurance are seeing the greatest ben-efits. BPM technology is driving (i.e.,enabling) business change rather thanthe other way around.

Palmer predicts that BPM will seeheavy use in business process outsourc-ing (BPO), not just for cost-cutting, butto handle capacity variability. BPM willenable business knowledge capture and

transfer, so that education about a specif-ic task can be rolled up and delivered to ageneralist for execution. It will be usedincreasingly to help bring new personneland new business units online quickly.The trend is toward frameworks on plat-forms, most of which are Java 2Enterprise Edition (J2EE).

In 2004, modeling facilities willimprove. Federated and cross-process secu-rity support will come. BPM will begin toleverage presence technologies (e.g.,instant messaging) for more robust, adapt-able task assignment by delivering the taskto the human resource. This will eliminatethe need for a person assigned a dedicatedrole to attend to a worklist manager.

BPM technology is unique in that it

must not be separated from businessissues. It’s difficult for businesses to learnto think in terms of process; this can takenine to 12 months or longer. The biggestbarrier to adoption is for the business tobecome adept at process discovery andcapture. Rapid improvements in prod-ucts can be expected in support of thesedifficult tasks.

Delphi Group published the BPM2003 Milestone Report, and the firstreport of several expected in 2004 willappear in May. The firm provides severalBPM-related client services, includingexecutive workshops, process redesign, aframework for market analysis, and howto write requests for proposals. bij

DelphiGroupon the

BPMMarket

Nathaniel PalmerDelphi Group

www.delphigroup.com/bpm BPM technology is unique in

that it must not be separated

from business issues. It’s

difficult for businesses to

learn to think in terms of

process; this can take nine

to 12 months or longer.


META Group started tracking BPMin 2002, but Bischoff states that

they had tracked the same market formany years before as workflow. SaysBishcoff, “BPM refers to both a conceptand technology (just like CRM). Theconcept provides for establishing goals,strategies and objectives for improvingparticular operational processes havingsignificant impact on corporate per-formance. BPM technology automatesand manages business processes bytracking and coordinating the flow ofwork and information across allhuman and system interactions. SomeBPM vendors offer analytics and simu-lation tools to get to the most opti-mized process.”

They define the BPM market asincluding only those vendors offeringprocess modeling, process orchestra-tion engine, integration server, processmonitoring and analysis, and processsimulation and optimization in theirtechnology. META Group declined tosize the market or state a typical ROIor ROR. However, Bischoff did saythat BPM vendors so far have pene-trated less than 10 percent of the mar-ket, which “has great growthpotential.”

According to META Group, mostorganizations of any size are adoptingBPM for a single process or departmentaleffort. There are few organizations of any

size adopting BPM as an enterprisewidestandard for all processes. Those with themost significant manual processes (e.g.,financial services and healthcare) are see-ing the greatest benefit.

Bischoff predicts that applications,EAI, Web Services, collaboration andBPM will come together as a set of toolsthat can create, manage, and measure col-laborative applications or services. Sheemphasized that the greatest barrier toBPM adoption was “ . . . cultural accept-ance of standardized processes acrosshumans, [and] the acknowledgementthat a single individual or departmentshould be sub-optimized in order to opti-mize the entire process or enterprise.”People have to be taught the value of giv-

ing up some control over their workhabits and of performing business func-tions in a repetitive manner.

She believes that the current state ofBPM technology primarily addressesmanual processes (a.k.a. workflow),with simultaneous support for thecombination of manual and automaticactivities by any process engine on themarket as being too difficult. In METAGroup’s view, BPM is just the latest stepin the evolution of workflow and isnothing new.

META Group offers a BPM researchservice, as well as consulting. An impor-tant product coming later this year is aBPM METASpectrum. bij

METAGroupon the

BPMMarket

Hollis BischoffMETA Group, Inc.

www.metagroup.com Bischoff believes that the current state of BPM

technology primarily addresses manual processes (a.k.a.

workflow), with simultaneous support for the

combination of manual and automatic activities by any

process engine on the market as being too difficult.


Forrester/Giga began tracking BPMabout 2000, covering some pure-play

and EAI vendors. Vollmer defines BPMas the designing, executing, and optimiz-ing of cross-functional business activi-ties that incorporate people, processes,and functions. Forrester divides theBPM market into several segments ofvendors: pure-play, EAI, platform ven-dors, enterprise applications, and enter-prise content management.

Forrester estimates that the marketin 2000 was less than $10 million (U.S.).In 2002, it had risen to about $50 mil-lion. By 2004, it’s about $1 billion insoftware and services, of which about$300 million is software. “By 2006, weexpect it to double.”

“The worst mistake you can make isto pick a good BPMS and then waste theinvestment on something easy, some-thing low risk and therefore with no pay-back,” warns Vollmer. Mostorganizations will have about a one-yearpayback period on their first project, dueto the steep learning curve. By the secondproject, return is realized in 60 to 90days, and continues to go down withsubsequent projects.

Less than 20 percent of companieshave adopted BPM technology and mostof these have revenues of greater than $1billion. The midsize market has barelybeen touched. Forrester thinks that thismarket is following a maturation pattern

similar to electronic data interchange(EDI). The sectors that have seen thegreatest benefit so far are banking, insur-ance and retail, but it’s clear that there’s abig potential in manufacturing.

Most large organizations will adopt aBPM agenda within the next five years.BPM requires significant organizationalrealignment as businesses become moreprocess-focused. BPM eliminates func-tional department boundaries and putspressure on jobs.

Vollmer says, “ . . . the greatest barrierto BPM is the adoption drag effect.”Effective sharing of information amongrelated departments or other entities ishighly dependent on the use of commontechnology and interfaces. Therefore,

any adoption of BPM would still find itdifficult to deploy across its entire valuechain, as it’s unlikely that all the partici-pants in an enterprise process would uni-versally adopt this capability.

Forrester offers guidance on and aframework for vendor selection, requestfor information preparation, and analysisof responses on a client subscription andconsulting basis. Online, the companyoffers interactive Tech Rankings soclients can compare two vendors. This isavailable now for the pure-play segment.Tech Rankings for EAI vendors of BPMtechnology will be available later thisyear. A new Forrester Wave report evalu-ating competitors is in preparation. bij

ForresterResearch

on theBPM

MarketKen Vollmer

Forrester Research, Inc.www.forrester.com Less than 20 percent of companies have adopted

BPM technology and most of these have

revenues of greater than $1 billion.

The midsize market has barely been touched.


lmost by definition, every type ofenterprise software requires stan-

dards to enhance interoperability.Business process management systems(BPMSes) certainly deserve to be classi-fied as enterprise software and thereare many opportunities to use stan-dards with them. The two main usesfor business process management(BPM) standards are multi-systeminteroperability and component inter-operability. Both preserve softwareinvestments. Perhaps more important,however, is preserving business processknowledge in reusable form.

Standards developed for other process-related purposes are often useful for BPMtechnology and practices. Some standardsthat relate to BPM, such as UnifiedModeling Language (UML), were devel-oped with an entirely different objective.Some standards, such as IDEF0, were inplace long before the conception of thefirst BPMS. BPM’s heritage in businessprocess analysis, business process automa-tion, business process re-engineering, andworkflow have led to the adoption of exist-ing standards used in those disciplines. Inaddition, the use of newer technologies,such as Web Services in BPM technologies,has initiated the evolution of older stan-dards and development of new ones.

The standards that are, or would be,useful to BPM can be classified accord-ing to their function (see Figure 1).

Much remains to be accomplishedwhen it comes to BPM-related standards.Standards don’t yet exist for all thesefunctions and not all standards define anapplication programming interface (API).Additionally, numerous de jure and defacto standards groups exist with overlap-ping objectives. These groups sometimesrepresent disparate perspectives and a com-

mon approach to BPM-related standards is farfrom being estab-lished. For example,automated activitiesmight be invokedusing an asynchronousmessaging protocol, asynchronous API, orWeb Services protocol.Each would require adifferent approach tochoreography andorchestration.

Process specifica-tion or execution lan-guages that have aworkflow heritagegenerally approach theproblem top down,

from a process enactment or control per-spective. They usually provide support foractivities performed by humans, alongwith resource assignment, functional roles,and organizational units. By contrast, thoselanguages with a service-oriented architec-ture (SOA) or Web Services heritage gen-erally approach the problem bottom up,with services collaborating or interacting inan orchestrated or choreographed mannerto create the business process. These differ-ences can have a profound impact on func-tionality, business vs. IT value proposition,and ease of use for the business user.

The story has just begun. We canexpect extensive development of BPMstandards over the next five years as thedefinition and value of both BPM andBPMS products continue to mature. Fornow, we can provide only a brief guide tothe more relevant standards, most ofwhich are still being developed:

The Business Process ExecutionLanguage (BPEL) offers an execution lan-guage for distributed and transactional

business processes based on the Pi-Calculus mathematical model. It supportsthe orchestration of multiple independentbut communicating processes. It relies onthe standards-based Web services stack forprocess-to-process communication andintegration with third-party systems.Version 1.2 of BPEL for Web services(BPEL4WS) will be released soon and willoffer support for distributed transactionsbased on contributions made by Intalio tothe Organization for the Advancement ofStructured Information Standards(OASIS) WS-BPEL Technical Committee.

The Business Process ModelingLanguage (BPML) was the first standards-based business process modeling languagefor executable processes and has beendeveloped by the Business ProcessManagement Initiative (BPMI.org). It pro-vided the first XML-based language forexecutable processes based on the Pi-Calculus model and the standards-basedWeb services stack. It laid the foundationfor the development of BPEL4WS. Itsdevelopment was suspended whenBPMI.org joined forces with OASIS todevelop future versions of BPEL4WS.

The Business Process ModelingNotation (BPMN) is the first standards-based graphical notation for businessprocesses and is being developed byBPMI.org. It lets business analysts, processdesigners, and software engineers graphi-cally design end-to-end business processesthat can be automatically translated intofully executable processes using theBPEL4WS language. When completed insecond or third quarter this year, it willsupport XML-based serialization intoXML Metadata Interchange (XMI) usingUML profiles, therefore allowingexchange of business process designsbetween business process modeling tools,as well as interoperability with UML 2.0.

Analysis and Design Execution Monitoring and Analysis

• Process knowledge discovery and analysis

• Graphical process modeling notation

• Business process specification

• Technical process specification

• Metrics specification • Resource specification • Business transaction

definition • Technical transaction

definition.

• Resource assignment • Scheduling • Executable process

languages • Service/activity centric

orchestration • Process-to-process

interoperation • Federated/distributed

process invocation and coordination

• Transaction execution.

• Process query languages • Event/metrics query

languages • Analytical languages • Activity monitoring • Process monitoring • Event monitoring • Process audit trail

schemas • Process audit trail query.

Figure 1: Categories of Standards Functionality

A


The Business Process Query Language(BPQL), currently being developed byBPMI.org, will be the first standards-basedquery language for business processes.BPQL will support the deployment ofbusiness process definitions onto a processserver and the real-time querying ofprocess instances. BPQL is expected to bereleased in the fourth quarter of 2004.

The Business Activity MonitoringLanguage (BAML) will support the defi-nition of process metrics, monitoringinstruments, monitoring filters, key per-formance indicators (KPI), and processdashboards. BAML is expected to bereleased in fourth quarter.

The Business Process Audit TrailSchema (BPATS) will provide a stan-dard XML Schema for the serializationof process instances based onBPEL4WS process definitions. BothBPQL and BAML will rely on BPATS.BPATS is expected to be released in thefourth quarter.

The Web Service ChoreographyInterface (WSCI) was the first stan-dards-based language for defining thepublic interface of business processes. Itwas developed by BPMI.org, BEA,Intalio, SAP, and Sun Microsystems,then donated to the World Wide WebConsortium’s (W3C’s) Web ServicesChoreography Working Group. It sup-ports the mapping of alternative publicinterface process models such asRosettaNet Partner Interface Process(PIP) onto the BPEL4WS and BPML exe-cution models. WSCI public interfacesare functionally equivalent toBPEL4WS abstract processes, which areconsidered the standard mechanism fordefining the public interface of businessprocesses. WSCI supports message cho-reography, transaction boundaries andcompensation, exception handling,thread management, and dynamic par-ticipation of Web Services.

WS-Transactions support the propa-gation of a transaction context acrossmultiple parties over the Internet usingWeb services interfaces. It brings to theWeb services stack the transactional serv-ices originally offered by CORBAthrough Internet Inter-Orb Protocol(IIOP) and XA/Open interfaces. Itextends such services with additionaltransaction semantics that take advan-tage of asynchronous and XML-basedmessaging protocols.

The Business Transaction Protocol BTPfrom OASIS enables the coordination ofrequests, responses and outcomes for dis-tributed applications involving multiplebusiness entities. It supports atomic trans-

actions, as well as permitting outcomes thatare more flexible than all-or-nothing, butwhich are nonetheless agreed upon by theparticipating entities. BTP is potentiallyimportant as a BPM-related standard since aBPMS is often required to support com-plex business transactions. WS-Transactions supercedes the work done forthe Business Transaction Protocol (BTP),but is only a vendor proposal at the timethis article is being written.

The ebXML Business ProcessSpecification Schema (ebXML BPSS)from OASIS provides a schema for par-tially executable business processesdefined through business-level con-structs. BPSS defines collaborative busi-ness-to-business (B2B) processes in termsof a sequence of typed messageexchanges (BPSS business transactions)and defined message contents. It pro-vides a slightly higher-level modelingabstraction for business processes com-pared to block-structured process lan-guages, such as BPEL4WS and BPML,and can be mapped onto those to offer aseamless path to execution.

The XML Process DescriptionLanguage (XPDL) is an XML-baseddescription language for workflowprocesses based on the Petri-Net mathe-matical model. It addresses both humanand, to a lesser degree, automated activi-ties, providing a transition model of thecontrol flow based on an abstract docu-ment known as a case. Only activitiesmodify the case. It supports the conceptof resources, organizations, and bothnested and chained processes, but doesnot support collaborative process, trans-action, or exception semantics.Developed by the WorkflowManagement Coalition (WfMC) prima-rily for process definition interchange,it’s a strict functional subset of more gen-eral block-structured process languagessuch as BPEL4WS and BPML, and so canbe mapped onto those languages.

The Process Specification Language(PSL) from the National Institute ofStandards and Technology (NIST)defines a neutral representation formanufacturing processes; it’s an indus-try-specific process specification lan-guage that can be mapped ontoblock-structured process languages suchas BPEL4WS and BPML to offer a seam-less path to execution.

Integration Definition (IDEF) stan-dards are Federal Information-ProcessingStandards originally derived from theU.S. Air Force Integrated Computer-Aided Manufacturing Architecture.IDEF0 Function Modeling Method

(a.k.a. FIPS 183) is a process-mappingstandard consisting of a high-level mapof the major business processes a compa-ny uses, and a second level that providesfunctional decomposition of theseprocesses into ever-finer sequences ofactivities by describing decisions, actions,and activities. It has found considerableuse in BPR activity models.

The IDEF3 Process DescriptionCapture Method provides a methodolo-gy for discovering, collecting, and docu-menting high-level, non-executablebusiness processes. It has found consider-able use in BPR process models. Called“swimlanes,” rows (or alternatively,columns) are often used to assign respon-sibility roles. As part of the overall IDEFframework, it provides a vendor-neutralalternative to enterprise frameworkssuch as ARIS, Catalyst, and Zachmann.

UML is managed by the ObjectManagement Group (OMG) and pro-vides two primary diagramming stan-dards for process description. Use-casediagrams describe the relationships andinteractions between functions and envi-ronmental actors. UML activity diagramsare sometimes used to model processflows as state transitions. Activities areassigned responsibility roles, and designat-ed graphically as swimlanes. AdditionalUML diagramming standards for processdescription are being considered. bij

Ismael Ghalimi isfounder and chairmanof the BusinessProcess ManagementInitiative (BPMI.org), astandards body forBPM technologiesfounded in August2000. He co-foundedIntalio in 1999, a

company delivering BPM solutions, where he leadsproduct development and innovation as its chiefstrategy officer. Ghalimi received his degree incomputer science from the Ecole des Mines deNancy, France, and studied parallel and distributedcomputing at the Ecole Normale Superieure deLyon, France.e-Mail: [email protected]

David McGoveran is an independent industryanalyst and consultant at Alternative Technologies,specializing in business process managementsystems (BPMS), database management systems(DBMS), and related enterprise technologies. He isalso senior technical editor for Business IntegrationJournal.e-Mail: [email protected]: www.alternativetech.com

About the Authors

The relationship between business activity monitoring(BAM) and business process management (BPM) is an

intimate one. Identifying the value and proper use ofthese technologies can be difficult, given the buzz aboutthem and the variety of features offered. We discuss fea-tures of BAM and BPM, identify commonalities and differ-ences, evaluate target applications for each technology,and explore the opportunity available to your businessfrom integrating these technologies.

Human activities can be placed in a spectrum based onthe sophistication of reasoning that we employ. Theseactivities may range from breathing, walking, driving,responding to threats and opportunities, and developingbusiness plans. Activities that use more sophisticated rea-soning also have larger fields of vision. When you walk,you need only look a few feet around you; whereas whenyou drive, you need to be aware of a much larger envi-ronment. When you’re developing a business plan, youneed to be aware of global situations.

Information technologies leverage human capabilities,and they’ve done so historically by moving up the spec-trum from capabilities that require less sophisticated rea-soning and limited fields of view to more sophisticatedreasoning and larger fields of view. The entire sweep of IThistory demonstrates this; from the era of punched cardsand automatic data processing, to simple business processautomation (analogous to walking), to EAI and workflow(analogous to driving), and currently moving into the eraof BPM, BAM, and the real-time enterprise (analogous to aworldwide military command and control system).

Eventually, IT will move to the adaptive, learningenterprise. While the initial focus of BPM’s predecessors(such as workflow management) was on automatingimportant but well-understood and repetitive activities,the focus of BPM is on enabling rapid, efficient, and meas-ured change to all business activities that can be under-stood as part of a business process. A focus of BAM is onleveraging human capabilities further up the spectrum:rapid, appropriate response to threats and opportunities.

Process control has been used in manufacturing fordecades. The chemical industry has gained a great deal ofexperience from chemical plants that have operated effi-ciently with a high degree of automation. As costs of serv-ices rise, businesses are mapping from engineeringprocess control concepts to BPM. Many of the features ofBPM have analogs in process control. Examples includeautomation, decision support systems and rules engines,monitoring tools and displays.

BPM technologies manage business processes, includingtheir design, analysis, execution, measurement, and modifi-cation. BPM helps automate process flow, relieving humandecision makers from having to make repetitive decisionsthat can be encoded within an algorithm. BPM infrastruc-tures monitor and record the flow of documents >



and actions; this record can help in iden-tifying transient problems such as a lostinsurance application and, equallyimportant, help in identifying systemiclogistic problems such as poor responsetimes in some departments. Businessprocesses can be automated across multi-ple systems and a variety of applications,so BPM technology can also be viewed asa natural extension of EAI. Dashboardsdisplay data and key performance indica-tors related to business processes moni-tored by BPM infrastructures.

In our analogy of a hierarchy ofhuman activities, when we start to learnto drive, we use our brains at every pointand drive slowly. Later, the activitybecomes increasingly instinctive, follow-ing repeated patterns, and we drivefaster. BPM infrastructures help inreducing the amount of human partici-pation in repeatable business processes,freeing the brainpower of your employ-ees to more creative tasks.

BPM doesn’t stop there. Its real valuecomes from its ability to enable rapid,knowledge-driven change of the busi-ness process, whether to enable higherlevels of efficiency (business processredesign), create new business processesto address new opportunities (businessprocess creation and innovation), or torealign business processes with strategicbusiness objectives. This is analogous toenabling the driver to choose betterroutes that will avoid traffic problems,save time, or increase fuel efficiency, orto drive to entirely new places.

BAM has many of the same techno-logical ancestors as BPM. In addition,BAM’s technological forbears includebusiness intelligence (BI), autonomiccontrol of technical systems, such asinformation systems and manufactur-ing, and military command-and-controlwith its emphasis on responding to (pos-sibly unexpected) threats and opportu-nities within time windows. BAMemphasizes detecting critical situationsand responding within time windows.The main features of a BAM infrastruc-ture are sense-analyze-respond, coupledwith tools for monitoring, display,design, and deployment.

Though the ancestries of BAM andBPM technologies are slightly different,the boundaries between them are definite-ly fuzzy. BPM’s emphasis on enabling andmanaging business process changedepends on the sense-analyze-respondcycle. It therefore necessarily includesBAM insofar as BAM relates to businessprocesses, comprising activities and deci-sions that can be monitored and measured.

In our analogy of how IT leverageshuman capabilities, BAM deals withactivities that require sophisticated rea-soning and larger fields of vision thanmost consider appropriate to BPM.When we detect threats to the success ofa business trip to several countries, our“fields of vision” include weather at thesecountries, terrorist threats, delays inflights, and possible changes in hotelaccommodations. The reasoning we useis more sophisticated than the reasoningwe employ to drive.

If one accepts the BPM thesis thatmost business activities occur in the con-text of some business process, then theobjective of monitoring and measuring,correlation and analysis, and responsewithin BPM becomes identical to theobjective of BAM. Likewise, the BAMsense-analyze-respond cycle can then beunderstood as measuring the results ofsome business process-related activitiesor event streams, correlating and analyz-ing those results, and then determiningsubsequent activities (the response). TheBAM response will then include activi-ties within the same business process (i.e.,next steps in the flow) as well as possiblytriggering events or influencing activitiesin other business processes. BAMincludes the flow control aspects ofBPM. Under this interpretation, BPMand BAM technologies merge into a sin-gle framework that supports the adap-tive learning enterprise.

The difference between BAM andBPM is largely one of focus. BPM treatsevents in the context of business process,while BAM treats business process in thecontext of events. In BPM, the focus is onunderstanding and managing activitiesand events as being necessarily related toand occurring in the context of a well-understood, repeatable business process.That business process context might beconstrained to a particular processinstance, the entire history of processinstances, or even a group of related busi-ness processes. Recent improvements inBPM technology have enhanced repre-sentation, control, and incrementalchange of repeatable business processes,with improvements to the sophisticationof monitoring, measurement, analysis,problem determination, and responsebeing perceived in the industry as slight-ly lower priority.

By contrast with BPM, BAM focuseson real-time understanding of the globalstate of the extended environment of anenterprise, and managing activities inresponse to changes in this global state.Specifying repeatable business processes

is less critical for BAM. Primarily becausenot all business processes are highlyrepeatable, let alone automated or evendocumented, it can appear that someevents and activities are unrelated tobusiness process. BAM technologyimprovements have emphasized broad-ening the range of events that can besensed and categorized, with sophisticat-ed improvements in analysis andresponse recommendation or automa-tion being high priority.

BAM emphasizes responding to theextended environment of an enterprisethat may include competitors, govern-mental organizations, and news organiza-tions. Defining schemas for repeatablebusiness processes that span all theseinstitutions in the extended environmentis impossible because these institutions(e.g., competitors) may not cooperate indefining repeatable processes.

Both BPM and BAM process events.Events fall into a spectrum ranging fromfrequent events for which the enterprisehas event-handling processes in place tothe occurrence of totally unexpectedthreats or opportunities. An example ofan expected event is the completion ofeach step in processing an insuranceclaim. The completion event signalsreadiness of the business process to exe-cute the following steps. An example ofan event that’s less expected is a delay inthe arrival of a critical part that delaysshipment of products to critical cus-tomers and results in massive perform-ance penalties. An example of an evenmore unexpected event is the suddenannouncement of a competitor’s disrup-tive innovation, or the impact on busi-ness continuity of a natural or man-madedisaster. Though BPM and BAM willeventually cover the entire spectrum ofevents, a simplistic differentiation of thecurrent status of BAM and BPM is thatBPM focuses on the expected end of theevent spectrum while BAM focuses onthe unexpected end.

An emphasis on responding to possi-ble surprises implies that a critical fea-ture of BAM is the ability to “fuse” datain databases, message queues and appli-cations with streams of events fromwithin the enterprise and from partners,competitors, customers, the government,and the markets. Eliciting critical infor-mation from vast amounts of data is afunction of BI in the business world andmilitary intelligence in the military.

The difference between BAM andtraditional BI (including enterprise per-formance management) is one ofemphasis. The emphasis in BAM is on


responding to events within time-win-dows of opportunity. The emphasis inBI is to support humans making senseof large data repositories by analysis andexperiments that may take hours ordays. The relative importance of time-criticality implies that BI and BAM usesomewhat different tools for correlat-ing data (see Figure 1). BAM event-detection tools can be applied tostreams of events as they’re entered intoa repository for later in-depth analysisusing BI tools. Though the currentemphases are different, we expect algo-rithms and technologies used in theevent detection part of BAM to becomeintegrated with “real-time BI.”

The detection of events in the extend-ed enterprise, including partners and com-petitors, implies that BAM infrastructuresinclude sensors to obtain information fromWeb services, Websites, file transfer proto-col (FTP) sites and stock feeds from outsidethe enterprise as well as Web services, mes-sage queues, databases and application pro-grams from within the enterprise. Sensortechnology, generally forming its most gen-eral form, is an integral part of BAM. Bycontrast, BPM technologies deal primarilywith sensors in the enterprise. The datastreaming from sensors into BAM infra-structures is often heterogeneous and mayinclude numerical data on flows of gasalong pipelines, structured data such aspurchase orders in XML schemas, semi-structured data such as tables at competi-tors’ Websites, and unstructured data suchas news stories.

In most current BPM implementa-tions, the decision about which process-ing step to execute next is usually madebased on relatively local data. The samedecision in BAM is made based on rela-tively global data. Although neither defi-

nitional for BPM nor appropriate to itsvision, this distinction is important,given the state of the technology. Forexample, in a BPM application, when apurchase order arrives at a mail-orderretailer’s warehouse, a condition is evalu-ated to determine if the items orderedare all available locally. If the items areavailable locally, they are shipped out; ifnot, the next step is executed, which is todetermine the optimal locations toobtain these items. By contrast, in a BAMapplication, the determination of how torespond to a lengthy delay in delivery ofa part to a manufacturer is based on:

• Which products are affected by this part• Which customers are waiting to get the

product• How important these customers are to

the enterprise• The availability, prices and reputations

of alternate suppliers of the part• Evaluation of the option to buy the

product from competitors.

The specifications of threats, oppor-tunities and responses change more fre-quently in BAM applications thanspecifications of process flow change inBPM applications. Thus, the ability forbusiness users (as opposed to IT users) tochange these particular specifications ina running system is, generally, moreimportant in BAM than changingprocess specifications on-the-fly in BPMapplications.

BAM systems help in responding tothe unusual and hence they must be ableto capture, if not learn, what is “usual.”Detecting anomalies requires an estima-tion of a baseline. The detection of outliersrequires estimation of clusters. That’s whyBAM technology uses time series statistics,

parametric analyses, machine learning, andother areas of information science associat-ed with signal processing, statistics and pat-tern recognition.

The response part of a BAM sense-and-respond application is usually implement-ed in some form of BPM infrastructure. Atits simplest, the response is generating analert at a dashboard. More complexresponses include initiation of businessprocesses. BAM events can trigger BPMresponses, and BAM may fuse streams ofevents generated by executions of BPMflows to generate complex events.

A BPMS without BAM is merelyprocess automation or process integra-tion. The basis for any management deci-sions, whether in managing businessprocess change or in managing the busi-ness through process, is simply missing.BAM without BPM is a sophisticatedsense-analyze-alert engine; with BPM, it’sa complete sense-and-respond platformwith adaptive potential.

We expect these information tech-nologies to converge into platforms thatleverage human activities at the top ofthe hierarchy of sophisticated reasoningand global fields of view. The vision of aBPMS with integral BAM will help auto-mate repetitive, well-understood busi-ness processes, support responses tothreats and opportunities, and supportenterprise adaptation and enterpriselearning. By reducing the amount ofattention that must be paid to moremundane processes, business managersand their supporting staff will be able tospend more time on creative activities,which is clearly a sustainable businessadvantage. bij

Mani Chandy, Ph.D., is the Simon Ramo Professorof Computer Science at the California Institute ofTechnology and one of the world’s leadingauthorities on real-time “sense and respond”systems. Since the mid-’90s, Dr. Chandy hasdirected research on dynamically reconfigurablecommand and control platforms for crisismanagement. In 1998, he co-founded iSpheresCorp., a provider of real-time event managementand alerting platforms. e-Mail: [email protected]


About the Authors

Figure 1: BAM Infrastructure

Dashboards & EnterprisePerformanceManagement


By Steve

Wooledge

&

David

McGoveran


nterprise performance manage-ment (EPM) is informally defined

as “a systematic, data-oriented approachto managing people at work that relieson positive reinforcement as the majorway to maximize performance.” EPM isenabled by data and technology thatgive people access to enterprise per-formance metrics, or key performanceindicators, to measure and improve thespeed and effectiveness of organization-al operations.

Organizations from every industryface similar challenges: increased compe-tition, fewer resources, and less time to

react to changing market conditions.Increased transparency to external forceshas increased the scrutiny on organiza-tions, while simultaneously loweringbarriers to entry for competition. Often,companies become so worried aboutthese external forces that they get preoc-cupied with pleasing investors and audi-tors while fending off competition. Theythen neglect the assets that matter most:the people, processes, and goals that drivetheir organization’s performance.

When organizations fail, it’s oftennot because of a flawed strategy, buttheir inability to effectively communi-

cate and execute the strategy. By imple-menting EPM processes and tools, youcan give people dashboards that providethe information necessary to trackprogress against goals (see Figure 1).Aligning people with goals, metrics, andprocesses helps the organization over-come challenges and maintain competi-tive advantage.

An EPM solution gives every personin the organization, regardless of title orresponsibility, access to a dashboard tohelp them track, understand, and man-age their daily business. Its primary goalis to achieve organizational accountabili-ty and control. We’ll explain how anEPM solution helps achieve this goal. Asyou’ll see, EPM helps personnel becomeaccountable, motivated, measured, andappropriately rewarded. We’ll alsoexplain how EPM is related to both busi-ness process management (BPM) andbusiness activity monitoring (BAM).

The ProblemWhat happens after leaders and

managers deliberate and decide thebest strategy to win in the market? Dothey lock it up in an annual report, orpost a bulletin board in hallways, hop-ing their staff will rally around thecause? Unfortunately, “yes” is a typicalanswer. It seems like the perfect“Dilbert” cartoon. The employees wan-der around, wondering what to do,when suddenly Dilbert sees the newcorporate strategy displayed next tothe coffee machine: “Delight the cus-tomer, be number one in market share,and lower costs through ‘operationalexcellence.’ ” Dilbert would say, “Aha!That’s what I need to do! Lower costs!I’ll throw this coffee machine out thewindow to decrease our variable costsfor coffee beans.” The ramifications ofsuch responses would be inappropriateand ultimately devastating.

EPM provides a way to give everyemployee a view of the business on theircomputer through a personalized, butcorporate dashboard, often with a bal-anced scorecard display (see Figure 2).Examples of balanced scorecard toolsinclude:

• Strategy maps, which connect desiredoutcomes to drivers via cause-effectchains (see Figure 3)

• Metric trees, which provide decompo-sition of key performance indicatorsinto source measures (see Figure 4).

With balanced scorecard displays,you can communicate strategic objec-

Figure 1: EPM Dashboard With Goals Management

Figure 2: EPM Dashboard With Balanced Scorecard

E


tives and how everyone affects them.But effectively communicating the strat-egy and goals of the organization isn’tenough. There must also be accountabil-ity to ensure that people act congruentlyto support top-line goals and strategies.

Can this be achieved through allocat-ing budgets for departmental resourcesand reallocating based on actual vs.planned achievement? Well, sometimes.But many goals aren’t as measurable asnet income. For example, simply increas-ing the sales department budget doesn’tensure increased revenues or market

share. Additionally, most budgets are seton an annual basis. What happens whenmarket conditions change monthly orweekly? The need for a flexible EPM sys-tem that takes all the organization’s goalsinto account is paramount, whetherthose goals are quantitative financialmeasures or qualitative measures such as“customer loyalty.” This makes everyoneaccountable by assigning them specific,measurable goals, whether they have abudget or not.

Through a dashboard, people can bealerted when any goal isn’t being met.

They can then analyze trends and dis-cover root causes. Moreover, an innova-tive EPM system lets users analyze thebusiness, collaborate with co-workers,and take action to get operations back ontrack. Flexibility is required because notwo organizations are identical and nei-ther are the processes or systems thathelp them succeed. Your businessprocesses shouldn’t have to follow a tech-nology vendor’s definition of operationalexcellence! The dashboards created foryour users need to be easily configurableto achieve organizational fit. Theyshould support changes easily as newconditions warrant.

Achieving Strategic PerformanceEPM sounds easy enough, but where

should you start? There may be thou-sands of people in your organization,each with varying roles and responsibili-ties, with each depending on one anotherto accomplish many goals that are cross-functional and globally dispersed. Tyingeach person’s performance to organiza-tional goals sounds challenging andexpensive, like boiling the ocean, but itreally doesn’t need to be that difficult.

The first step is to realize that per-formance management can be appliedto any business process within theorganization where there’s a need toview and analyze all the points of meas-ure, or measured objects, that defineenterprise performance, productivity,and profitability.

A “measured object” is an identifierfor a person, place, or thing the perform-ance of which can be measured and dis-played in a dashboard. Trackingperformance of each measured objectrequires “metrics.” A metric is defined asa measurement over time of a variablethat’s meaningful in judging the per-formance of something. Most important,metrics must have goals associated withthem that benchmark performance andact as a grading scale to give the metricsmeaning relative to top-line strategies.

You can then take the following five-step methodology and apply it to anyprocess:

1. Identify a specific business pain anddetermine the associated causesdeterring success. This can bephrased in terms of a strategy toachieve an objective and impedi-ments to that strategy. For example, ifthe organization’s strategy is to gainwidget market share by having thelowest costs on its manufacturedparts, giving pricing power and com-

Figure 3: Strategy Map

Figure 4: Metrics Tree


petitive advantage in the market,start by determining the reasons fornot achieving this low-cost approach.

2. Determine the operational goalsthat must be set to get operationsaligned with this strategy. For exam-ple, a goal may be to lower widgetraw material costs by 10 percentover 12 months and a simultaneousgoal may be to lower productionvariable costs by 5 percent over sixdifferent months.

Once the operational goals aredetermined, you must determine theobjects to measure, their associatedmetrics, and the frequency of meas-urement. It’s much easier to holdsomeone accountable if they cantrack their individual performance ina dashboard and where they standrelative to peers. For example, iflower raw material costs is the goal,what can you measure that affectsthis goal? Perhaps there are 12 buyersin different regions, each buying thesame part from different suppliers. Isit enough to have a “widget monthlyspend” metric, or would it be moremeaningful to show each buyer’smonthly spend per unit and comparethis to the goal for each buyer?

3. Different objects may be measuredwith differing frequencies. Forexample, cost per unit may only bemeasured monthly, whereas produc-tion efficiency may be measureddaily. Given this variability, an EPMdashboard should have metrics thatare flexible enough to accommodatean organization’s individual needs.

4. Identify business rules, or thresholds,for immediate action. As the EPM ini-tiative grows in scope and complexity,there will be terabytes of performancedata generated. It’s an overwhelmingtask to manually monitor all this activ-ity. The solution is “management byexception,” or automatically detectingwhen a metric isn’t in compliance andproviding notification through thedashboard. Knowing the businessrules that trigger alerts and a need foraction is critical in focusing efforts onareas that need it most. The EPM sys-tem must be able to monitor metricsand proactively notify users when athreshold is reached.

5. Determine who needs to act, andwhat recommended actions shouldbe taken. This brings us back toaccountability. You may be measur-ing raw material costs and realizeyour spending is out of control in theeastern region. What steps should be

taken to diagnose the situation andwho is responsible for taking action?By giving employees an EPM dash-board that’s integrated with a busi-ness intelligence (BI) informationinfrastructure, you can easily guideusers to the data and reports theyneed to analyze the root cause of thesituation and take action to get opera-tions back on track.

Moreover, once misalignmentbetween performance and goal has beenaddressed, the accountable party is likelyto have discovered some key lessons.Perhaps the “pricing report” they wereguided to in their dashboard lacked thenecessary information to really diagnosethe problem. Perhaps they learned amore efficient way to tackle the prob-lem. Whatever the case, the ability tomeasure the efficiency of the businessprocess or individuals involved helps youidentify opportunities for improvement.Refined best practices can then be re-established and easily implemented,becoming the recommended actions thenext time this situation arises. This itera-tive approach enables optimization ofthe business processes used to manageperformance.

As this five-step methodology isapplied throughout the business, and sup-ported using an EPM tool flexible enoughto meet your needs, the puzzle piecesbegin to come together. A clear view ofhow to achieve your performance goalswill develop. Strategic alignment can beachieved by using dashboards and othertools to communicate strategies and goalsthroughout the organization and todefine common metrics.

Closing the Loop: EPM, BAM, and BPMEPM uses data-centric monitoring of

performance metrics to detect andreport exception events via dashboards,enabling the analysis of causes and rec-ommending actions for improving per-formance. Both EPM and BAM requiremonitoring large amounts of data,sophisticated analytical techniques, anddashboards for notification. By contrastwith EPM, BAM focuses not so much on

accountability and strategic perform-ance improvement based on the relation-ships between objectives and trends, ason business improvement through real-time detection and response to opera-tional events. Both approaches are clearlycomplementary, compatible manage-ment techniques.

Keeping in mind that every businessprocess and activity is defined as havingat least one measurable objective, it’seasy to see that BPM and EPM convergewhen the EPM metrics tree is alignedwith business process. This can beachieved either by overlaying theprocess hierarchy (decomposed byfunction and responsibility) with themetrics tree, or by bottom-up composi-tion from performance measures ofprocess activities. When this is accom-plished, the strategic performanceimprovement capabilities of EPMbecome integrated with BPM.

Closing the loop between strategies,goals, and individuals with an EPMarchitecture lets you assign accountabil-ity, monitor progress toward goals, andtake action to get operations back ontrack with objectives in the event of amiscue. Capturing best practices ofhigh-performance individuals and shar-ing these throughout the organizationhelp align performance across all areasof the business. EPM isn’t just another“buzz” term surrounded by emptypromises or a new topic of ridicule in a“Dilbert” cartoon. It can and should be apragmatic approach to aligning anorganization’s people and businessprocesses with strategic objectivesthrough dashboards, enabling organiza-tional vision to become reality. bij

Steve Wooledge holds a master’s degree from theKellogg School of Management and a degree inchemical engineering from the University of Akron.He currently manages enterprise performancemanagement products at Business Objects. He has10 years of experience in engineering, sales, andmarketing in both manufacturing and high-techorganizations. e-Mail: [email protected]


About the Authors

A primary goal of an EPMsolution is to achieve

organizational accountabilityand control.

—————————————

Embarking on a business process management (BPM) project is simultaneously full of promiseand challenge. Technologists often overlook some of the more important aspects of BPM

adoption, namely those having to do with business change and commitment. Successful BPMadoption, including implementation of the technology, requires that attention be given to theimpact of BPM on the business, its organization, and its practices.

Become a Process-Centric OrganizationTo obtain the greatest benefit from BPM technology, the organization must ultimately become

process-centric. As discussed elsewhere in this BPM Supplement, a BPM approach implies acommitment to understanding, measuring and managing business activities and decisions interms of the business processes they underlie. Even for a reasonably well-bounded businessprocess, with explicit, measurable objectives, changing the affected portion of a business to thismindset can take as much as a year.

Much has been written on how to become a process-centric organization. Although little of that literature hasexplicitly taken into account the potential impact of BPM technology on this effort, it’s well worth reading. Keepin mind, however, that BPM ultimately requires more than adopting a mindset. BPM also requires a set ofpractices that are closely related to those found in Six Sigma companies.

Implementation of a BPMS requires a greater commitment to precise definition of processes,activities, goal specification, and measures at all levels of detail than is typically required in, forexample, business process re-engineering efforts. Of course, this precision need not be achieved all atonce (an extensive business process analysis isn’t necessarily required upfront), but can be improvedcontinuously over time. This is one of the key advantages of using a BPMS. It enables theincremental documentation of process knowledge, since definitional deficiencies become apparentthrough operation and are correctable.

Establishing a Process Competency Center, consisting of business and some technology leadersthat will acquire the necessary knowledge of BPM and then guide BPM adoption, is highlyrecommended. Among the specific goals of the center should be making certain that thetechnology is aligned with the business, rather than the other way around. Among other things,this means the selected BPMS should enable business users to interact with it in terms of businessconcepts rather than technology components. This aspect of BPM technology is not yet mature, sothe center must be vigilant in seeking improvements.

Most BPMS products force the user to learn something about the technical infrastructure thatwill ultimately implement a business process. Worse, users are often forced to redefine a businessprocess to capture its description with the available tools. BPM process modeling tools generallyfocus on capturing a process definition that can be automatically converted into a process executionspecification, which is usually highly structured and repeatable. By contrast, actual businessprocesses range from highly structured and repeatable to unstructured and even ad hoc. >

Implementation:Issues and Strategies

B Y D A V I D M c G O V E R A N

Implementation:Issues and Strategies

B Y D A V I D M c G O V E R A N



BPM Goals and Technology SelectionAmong the key steps in adopting

BPM and implementing a BPMS is iden-tifying goals. BPM addresses both strate-gic and logistic issues. Strategic goalsinclude improving agility so the organi-zation is more responsive to externalevents. This capability, unique to BPM,translates into support for rapid processchange and innovation; it enhances anorganization’s ability to meet longer-term strategic objectives such as improv-ing revenues or margins, lowering costs,competitiveness, and so on. The ability toaddress strategic issues is contingentupon understanding the relationshipbetween strategic and logistic goals, andaligning the two. Logistic goals are themost commonly pursued, and pertain toefficiency of operations. Examples oflogistic goals include:

• Improving process step quality, cycletimes and repeatability

• Removing bottlenecks, reducingresource waste, idle time and unneces-sary latencies

• Making certain that materials andinformation are available for activities.

Selecting an initial, feasible set ofgoals to be achieved through BPM isessential to scoping. The expected busi-ness benefits of achieving these goalsthrough BPM should be clarified inadvance.

Once reasonable goals are identified,it becomes possible to select and priori-tize those key business processes which,when subjected to BPM implementation,will contribute most significantly toachieving those goals. This leads to atime-phased set of requirements deter-mined by the complexity of the businessprocesses in order of priority. There aremany BPMS and BPM technology ven-dors whose products can be evaluatedduring the technology selection process.Care should be taken to ensure that thetechnology is evaluated with respect toits ability to support the key businessprocesses and to achieving the targetgoals. Secondarily, both the ability of thevendor to improve their product, and thealignment between the vendor’s technol-ogy road map and time-phased require-ments, should be taken into account.

Selecting and Implementing a PilotSome choices of business process are

inappropriate subjects for a pilot (i.e.,first) BPM project. On the one hand, ifthe selected business process is too sim-ple, it’s unlikely that BPM will deliver

much return on investment. On theother hand, if the selected businessprocess is too complex, the entire organi-zation can be put at risk. The selectedbusiness process should simultaneouslybe highly visible, have bounded but sig-nificant risk, some known inefficiencies,quantified exception processing andrepeatability, and moderate resistance tochange. Choosing such a businessprocess for the BPM pilot forces manage-ment participation and experience withorganizational and operational change,while providing the opportunities tolearn the value of BPM in a reasonabletime. In many cases, relatively simplebusiness process changes can yield hugedividends. For example, consider select-ing business processes in which automat-ing the notification of exceptions,thereby enabling early response to costlyinefficiencies is easily achieved with theBPMS.

The first step after selecting a specificbusiness process should be to establish abaseline business process definition. Thisinvolves identifying both the normalprocessing activities and those exception-processing activities that will account fora high percentage of the throughput. It’sthen necessary to identify, for the entireprocess and each of the activities anddecisions it comprises, the measurableobjectives and the resources necessary toachieve those objectives. The concept of“measurable objectives” is loaded, imply-ing that an objective is meaninglessunless the degree of its success or failure(perhaps binary) can be assigned a quan-titative or qualitative measure. In turn,this implies the identification of well-defined, repeatable, operational methodsby which the measure can be assigned toa metric variable.

Note that this definition doesn’texclude the use of subjective or inferen-tial judgment, but only requires that themethod of obtaining that judgment iswell-defined, repeatable, and opera-tional. Obviously, developing moreobjective, quantitative measures shouldbe an ongoing goal. Metrics associatedwith detailed activities should provide abase from which to derive higher-levelmetrics and ultimately key performanceindicators, forming a metrics tree. Oncethe metrics tree is understood, itbecomes possible to monitor the exist-ing business process execution andestablish an operational baseline. It’sagainst this baseline that the effects of aBPM implementation are compared andcontrasted to determine ROI or othermeasures of project value.

Adopting BPM must not be under-stood as a task to be completed (except inthe unlikely case that the businessprocess executes in isolation from thebusiness environment’s usual influ-ences). It’s a business philosophy thatrequires ongoing application. Not only isthere tremendous opportunity toimprove most business processes, butchanging strategic goals, regulations, newtechnologies, competitive events, supplychain variability, workforce availability,acquisitions and merger, divestitures,and so on give rise to the need to modifyor even to create new businesses. Activeattention to, and maintenance of, a BPMimplementation is required as long as thebusiness can change. After all, from aprocess-centric view, business processesare the business.

Select an Implementation StrategyAttempting to deploy a BPMS, or any

mission-critical system for that matter,without having a strategy is asking for alot of pain or something worse (like out-right failure). A BPM implementationstrategy is a well-defined plan of actionwith an identified schedule, objectives,risks, and quantifiable costs and benefits.A comprehensive discussion of specificstrategy alternatives is too complex forthis supplement, so we will explain thekey types of strategy instead. Strategiesare classified as bottom-up, dispersive,accretion, or top-down, according to thedeployment plan used. The deploymentplan dictates which business objectivescan be met first, which componentsshould be deployed first, and which por-tions of the organization will be affectedmost directly. Let’s consider each ofthese strategies.

The most common type of strategy isbottom-up, which means the BPMS islayered on top of a technology integra-tion infrastructure. For obvious reasons,EAI vendors and IT departments findthis strategy type convenient sincethey’ve already begun tackling the prob-lems of technology integration. Pilots aretypically restricted to a department or toone interdepartmental (cross-function-al) business process. In this context,BPMS is seen as providing process (oreven message-flow) integration and tech-nology orchestration, being a means ofcoordinating the various applicationsthat support a business process.

The process engine will generallyfocus on process automation, possiblyhave human-centric workflow capabili-ties added, and provide more technical(vs. business) activity monitoring. The


process model will be only an idealizedtechnical substitute for the actual busi-ness process. This means business man-agers will have some difficultyinteracting with and benefiting directlyfrom the BPMS, so that business objec-tives are reduced to simple overheadreduction or even to technical objectives(logistical effectiveness).

This type of strategy initially treats aBPMS as a new layer of middleware.Eventually, additional business processmodeling (vs. modeling technical servic-es orchestration or choreography), busi-ness activity monitoring (BAM), analysis,forecasting, and control are added. Thisstrategy type permits the organization tolearn the benefits of a BPMS over time.However, it risks losing the support andinterest of business management, andfailing to reach the potential the BPMSoffers to the business. Only a concertedeffort to achieve faithful mappingbetween business process definitionsand technical flow definitions can miti-gate this risk. It’s particularly attractive toIT, which readily understands the imple-mentation technology and its technicalbenefits as deriving from choreograph-ing technical services.

The dispersive type of strategy intro-duces BPMS selectively to address specif-ic business problems that occurthroughout an organization. It starts asmultiple islands or silos of BPM, usuallyin an attempt to implement operationalstandardization and gain control overtargeted business costs (logistical effi-ciency). These islands are initially con-nected functionally rather than throughprocess integration, and may eventuallybe replaced with a federated BPMS.Local business performance measuresare often rolled up to higher organiza-tional levels through data integrationmeans, such as a data mart or an enter-prise portal, rather than through inte-grated BAM and enterprise processmanagement (EPM).

As additional business functions aretreated, the scope of each local businessprocess increases until the islands even-tually become process-connected. Theprocess engine will often emphasizehuman-centric workflow, with perhapslimited process automation capabilities.This type of strategy is tactical from abusiness perspective, and doesn’t dependheavily on a common EAI infrastructure.Web Services interfaces tend to workwell for local process integration of auto-mated activities. It provides rapid, meas-urable business benefits that middlemanagers can easily understand, but

risks not having the support of sufficienttechnical integration as enterprise-levelprocesses emerge and functional scopeexpands from operational to strategicbusiness objectives. This type of strategyis becoming popular because it lets theorganization adopt high-return verticalsolutions of controlled scope, but with-out having to wait for BPMS maturity.

The accretion type of strategy selectsa particular (perhaps small) businessoperation and introduces BPMSthroughout. Its scope is initially limitedto all the existing business processesunder the control of a specific (perhapsquite small) management team, all oftheir objectives, and all of the technologyinfrastructure necessary to support theoperation. The scope can grow both hor-izontally—through organizations that areprocess-connected to those already usingthe BPMS, and vertically—through theadditional organizations that fall underthe increasing managerial scope as wemove up the corporate structure. At notime is this type of strategy a “big-bang”approach: it literally grows outwardfrom a successful center or seed.

An accretion type of strategy requiresa well-architected BPMS with all the com-ponents we’ve discussed elsewhere in theBPM supplement, even though thesecomponents need not be mature tech-nologies. The type of strategy yields meas-urable business benefits (both tacticaland strategic) in a reasonable timeframe,can grow with the development of anintegration infrastructure, and offersstrong alignment between business andIT objectives. It risks failure from improp-er scope, lack of coordinated corporateand IT commitment, and a poor under-standing of BPM and BPMS concepts.

The top-down type of strategy is per-haps unique to BPMS as technologydeployment goes. Initially, the top tiers ofthe selected business process hierarchy areimplemented, with successively lowertiers implemented over time. The “back-filling” of detail need not be even acrossthe entire business process, but mayattend selectively to problem activities. Itfocuses on initial delivery of and acclima-tion to business process modeling, moni-toring, analysis, and forecasting, withminimal reliance on technology integra-tion. These capabilities are tools for busi-ness managers and business analystsrather than technologists. Monitoringmay initially not be real-time or detailed. Itwill become more so as the process engineis used more extensively and businessactivities are eventually process-enabledthrough technology integration. Likewise,

analysis and forecasts become increasing-ly more accurate. Even if the processengine provides only e-mail or Web serv-ices integration, tremendous process agili-ty can still be obtained.

Managers use the BPMS (perhapsindirectly) to understand existingprocesses, measure current levels of per-formance, identify opportunities forprocess improvement, determine appro-priate business performance metrics, andidentify mission-critical technology inte-gration objectives. Over time, the desiredtechnology integration infrastructure isdeveloped, or the existing infrastructureappropriately modified and integratedwith the BPMS.

A top-down type of strategy offers fastdeployment and almost immediate resultsfor business managers. It risks failure frompoor commitment to BPM principles bymanagement, poor understanding ofanalysis and forecasting techniques (espe-cially estimating and improving uncertain-ty), and an inability by IT to provideadequate, timely process integration.

Although the other strategies mayeach be appropriately used, only the top-down strategy type places priority onenabling business management practicesfrom a process-centric view. With a top-down type of strategy, an end-to-end enter-prise process can be chosen as the pilot.While this doesn’t remove the so-called“adoption drag” (that is, slowing downadoption due to the mismatch betweenportions of the organization that are BPM-enabled and coupled portions that arenot), it can help minimize the effect.

No matter which BPM implementa-tion strategy type you choose, make sureit matches your abilities and objectives,and that it’s compatible with the selectedbusiness processes. Then choose a com-patible BPMS. Continuing BPM successcomes from focused, process-centricattention to the business. bij

David McGoveran is anindependent industryanalyst and consultantat AlternativeTechnologies,specializing in businessprocess managementsystems (BPMS),database managementsystems (DBMS), and

related enterprise technologies. He is also seniortechnical editor for Business Integration Journal.e-Mail: [email protected]: www.alternativetech.com

About the Author


Straight-ThroughProcessing forCustomerOrders

By Tony M. Brown

Nextel Mexico, a division of NIIHoldings (formerly Nextel

International) headquartered in Reston,VA, is a telecom company providingfully integrated wireless communica-tions. The company operates in majorMexican cities, with each city operationconnected to a centralized IT infrastruc-ture containing billing, collections, provi-sioning, financials, inventory, andcustomer care systems. The companywanted to eliminate manual “swivel-chair” efforts that required the rekeyingof customer information into variousapplications.

“Our users had to logon each time touse different operational systems—billing, financials, customer care—toprocess an order,” explains Kiran Babu,chief architect, NII Holdings. “Thismeant that users had to manually enterdata into different machines throughoutthe order fulfillment life cycle. Wewanted to create one logical orderprocess that was transparent to users.”

Process OrchestrationNextel Mexico’s goal was to reduce

latency in the order fulfillment processand gain a single view of the companywithout replacing each back-end systemthat was already in place. It also requireda flexible solution that was able to adoptany new process while providing auto-mated run-time process versioning.

To accomplish the orchestration ofintegrated business processes, NextelMexico determined that a businessprocess management (BPM) solutionwas needed. After carefully investigatingthe available solutions, it concluded thatthe FuegoBPM suite was the best tech-nology choice.

The FuegoBPM suite orchestrates andautomates Nextel’s entire order fulfill-ment process, validates the customerorder information, and automaticallydetermines how data is routed to thev a r i e t y o f N e x t e lM e x i c o ’ s s y s t e m srequired to activate acustomer’s wirelessphone service.

“The FuegoBPM suiteis a great concept. It iseasy to use and cost-effec-tive. With FuegoBPM,we didn’t need to buy somany different compo-nents—it was an integrat-ed suite that offered abetter total cost of own-ership,” says Kiran.“FuegoBPM is flexibleand easily integrates dif-ferent systems and tech-nologies, whether it is alegacy system or Java-based system. It is alsovery easy to design andreview processes. BeforeFuegoBPM, designing aprocess consisted ofdrawing informationflows on sheets of paper,which were then postedaround a room and users

called in to review the process. The BPMsolution not only reduces the amount ofmeetings but it also makes the processesmuch easier to develop.”

Eliminating Manual InterventionFuegoBPM allows Nextel to integrate

and modify any system or business ruleinto the business process with minimaleffort. The company is now able to havea common view of the process across allbusiness areas that both business and ITcan easily understand. The BPM solutionhas streamlined the sales, marketing, andcustomer activation (order fulfillment)process with a common, integratedprocess approach. The entire process isnow simplified, efficient, and accurate.Nextel Mexico is also able to view rele-vant reports about its operations in asmuch or as little detail as desired.

Using FuegoBPM, Nextel Mexico has

completely integrated the numerousmanual steps necessary to enter cus-tomer information in the provisioningand activation systems. The order pro-cessing time from start to completion of

an activated order has decreased by 16percent as a result of BPM implementa-tion. It has also resulted in cost savings ofover $700,000 per year.

“FuegoBPM has allowed us to standard-ize and automate processes, reducing man-ual intervention and increasing orderthroughput,” adds Kiran. “We want toexpand the use of FuegoBPM to standard-ize more processes, especially for cus-tomer-facing systems. We aim to buildmore customer self-service capabilities(for example, allowing the customer to ini-tiate and view orders), using an Internetbrowser and the FuegoBPM suite.”

Bottom LineThe FuegoBPM solution has automat-

ed and standardized key businessprocesses within Nextel Mexico, leadingto significant business benefits in orderthroughput and reduced costs. bij

FuegoBPM is available from Fuego, Inc., 2400 Dallas Parkway, Plano, TX 75093.Voice: 972-801-4200; Website: www.fuego.com

s o l u t i o n s h o w c a s e


Meeting theChallenge ofDeregulation

By Tony M. Brown

CenterPoint Energy (formerly the regu-lated operations of Reliant Energy)

provides electricity transmission and dis-tribution services for the Houston met-ropolitan area. As one of the largestcombined electricity and natural gasdelivery companies in the U.S., withnearly five million metered customers,CenterPoint Energy has assets totaling$21 billion and employs more than11,000 people. It owns 12 power plantswith more than 14,000 megawatts ofpower generation in Texas, of whichnearly 3,000 megawatts are currently inmothball status, and maintains approxi-mately 3,600 miles of transmission linesand more than 40,000 miles of distribu-tion lines.

As a large utility, CenterPoint Energyhas a complex IT infrastructure. Its datacenter, which includes four mainframesystems and 84 midrange servers, handles89 million printed bills each year andmore than 16,000 online reports. Its end-user operation consists of nearly 10,000PCs, 500 servers, and more than 100LANs.

The Challenge of DeregulationPrior to January 2002, CenterPoint

Energy’s business model had barelychanged in nearly 120 years. As a fullyintegrated regulated utility, it generatedpower (and maintained reliability ofservice), delivered that power to its cus-tomers, read customers’ meters, and col-lected payment.

Then in 2002, Texas Senate Bill 7came into effect, deregulating the state’selectric industry. The objective of thelaw is to let competitive markets work

wherever possible and to regulate onlythose utilities that are true monopolies.Deregulation has affected the structureof the Texas electricity market. Theseven delivery companies in Texas, ofwhich CenterPoint Energy is one, pro-vide transmission and distribution serv-ices, while competing retail electricproviders market and sell the electricityto consumers. The Electric ReliabilityCouncil of Texas (ERCOT) administersthe state’s power grid and guaranteeselectric supplies for the entire state. It ispaid for by all the delivery and retailcompanies.

“Deregulation forced us away from atotally integrated model,” explains MaryRich, IT manager at CenterPoint Energy.“Previously, when a consumer called, say,for a move-in, all the information wouldbe entered into one legacy system, whichwould then be sent to the field. Whenthe work was done, a message was sentback to the legacy system to update theinformation. For the consumer, therewas only one company and one systemto deal with.”

Although deregulation was virtuallytransparent for the consumer (exceptthat they now call one of the many retailproviders competing for their businessrather than being limited to a single localutility), it had huge implications for sup-ply-side operations. “Now the same trans-action hits more than 20 differentcomputer systems, including those ofthe retailers and ERCOT,” continuesRich. “Without ERCOT acting as thehub, every delivery company wouldhave to ensure all their transaction typeswere compatible with every other mar-ket participant. There would have beenchaos trying to get everyone on the samepage talking the same language. So, whenthe Texas electricity market was deregu-lated, it was mandated that all usagetransactions flow through ERCOT,which is responsible for settlement withthe retailers, not the individual deliverycompany.”

Integration IssuesThe far-reaching changes to the elec-

tricity market had a significant impacton the business processes and supportingtechnologies of CenterPoint Energy.

“We needed a technology solution tohelp us do business in the deregulatedenergy market. Specifically, we neededto set up B2B communication withmany other market participants, specifi-cally the retailers and the ERCOT hub,”adds Rich.

The Public Utility Commission, theregulatory body that oversaw deregula-tion, decided the industry needed a com-mon transaction format, which woulduse EDI, be ANSI-compliant, and followa set of standards protocols. In addition,business processes would follow a set ofcommon terms and conditions. This cre-ated a challenge for many providers,including CenterPoint Energy. “We hadto use EDI transactions to communicatewith external parties but our legacy sys-tems didn’t natively handle EDI,” contin-ues Rich. “This meant there had to betranslation between the EDI standardsand our existing legacy systems.”

For CenterPoint Energy to interfacewith multiple trading partners, it had tohandle 26 different EDI messages—forinvoices, usage data, payments, switchrequests, move-ins, move-outs, serviceorders, and other business processes—andintegrate these with its existing systems.And it would also have to do all theseoperations while handling its massiveworkload of over four million transac-tions per month. To meet these challeng-ing requirements, CenterPoint Energyworked with both SeeBeyond andAccenture to architect a core B2B plat-form, which it called the TransactionManagement Hub (TMH), to handle thenecessary translation, validation, datatransfer, legacy interfaces, businessprocess rules, and reporting.

“A key challenge was the volume oftransactions that needed to be translat-ed—more than 300,000 per day,” addsRich. “We needed an integration solutionthat could scale for a massive volume oftransactions, handle EDI formats, andperform the translation and validation.And it had to execute at the process levelbecause there were a lot of business rulesassociated with each transaction. Weused SeeBeyond because its integrationsolution could meet all our needs, andAccenture, our integration partner, hadfirst-hand experience in working with



SeeBeyond’s technology. We had alsosuccessfully used SeeBeyond with anoth-er system.”

Composite ApplicationUsing SeeBeyond as its integration

engine, the TMH acted as a centralizedinterface between business partnerslocated throughout the deregulated mar-ketplace and CenterPoint Energy’s inter-nal systems. These include largecommercial and industrial customer sys-tems, residential and small customer sys-tems, and an outage system handlingrepairs and maintenance. The TMH uti-lizes a service-oriented architecture(SOA) to decouple the functionality andservices provided by legacy applicationsfrom the new functionality and servicesprovided through SeeBeyond and otherbusiness partners.

Rich explains: “By placing all the busi-ness process rules into the integrationlayer, we can easily control what process-ing occurs with each transaction. Thereare a lot of complex business rules thatmandate what needs to happen, depend-ing on what transactions and which com-binations of transactions are received.”

“The SeeBeyond platform decon-structs incoming files into separate trans-actions, which it logs, verifies that theyare legitimate, sends them to the appro-priate legacy system for processing, andautomatically sends an acknowledge-ment (or rejection notification) to thesender. It is the interface between ourlegacy systems and the market.”

Early on in the project, CenterPointEnergy recognized that business process-es embedded in monolithic applications

are inflexible and difficult to change. Byleveraging SeeBeyond’s support for anSOA, the TMH externalized the businesslogic from disparate applications, creatingnew process-centric composite applica-tions. Composite applications are drivenby processes, defined by business rules,and determine if and when any humaninteraction is required. “We have onemain business process that uses differentservices residing on different systems,”says Rich. “We have externalized businesslogic in the middleware layer. WithoutSeeBeyond, we would have to write andupdate code for each legacy system. WithSeeBeyond, we can respond much fasterwith lower risk because it saves program-ming, testing, and quality assurance. Andwe are now more flexible. It is so easy toadd new trading partners.”

Window on the MarketCenterPoint Energy is in the process

of upgrading to the SeeBeyondIntegrated Composite ApplicationNetwork (ICAN) Suite 5.0, which deliv-ers a comprehensive, standards-basedplatform for the assembly of powerful,process-centric business applicationsfrom existing systems and infrastruc-ture. By implementing ICAN 5.0,CenterPoint Energy will deliver moreprocess visibility and control to businessusers, further reducing the amount ofmanual intervention.

Rich concludes: “SeeBeyond is ourwindow to the outside market. It gives usthe ability to communicate within theTexas deregulated electricity market andprovides the flexibility for us to adapt asthe market changes. It is our integrationstandard. It is like a beating heart at thecore of our business operations.”

Many states are watching the Texasmodel with interest. Deregulation hasworked and it has been transparent tothe consumer, while large industrialusers are seeing substantial cost savings.And process-centric integration technol-ogy, such as SeeBeyond, has proved cen-tral to its success. bij

SeeBeyond Technology Corp., 800 E. RoyalOaks Dr., Monrovia, CA 91016.Voice: 800-425-0541;Website: www.seebeyond.com

Many states are watching the Texas

model with interest. Deregulation

has worked and it has been

transparent to the consumer, while

large industrial users are seeing

substantial cost savings.


BPM: A GoodCall for M&A

By Tony M. Brown

Mergers and acquisitions are almostalways a catalyst for change. And so it

proved for a top-20 U.S. bank when itacquired the retail banking division ofanother major bank. Two major tele-banking centers that handled more thanthree million customers had to bemerged. This was a major task in itself,but the senior management at the bankalso wanted the merged call center tech-nology to be closely integrated with thecustomer transaction environment. Thiswould provide end-to-end business visi-bility of the customer-facing processesand make them both more efficient andmore effective.

Business GoalsThe bank had three key objectives

regarding the acquisition:

• Make the conversion of the acquiredinstitution transparent to customers

• Meet support requirements for itsanticipated long-term growth

• Provide world-class customer service,regardless of growth or complexity.

To increase customer satisfaction ofits service delivery and achieve thesegoals, the processes of the merged tele-banking operations had to beimproved. For expert advice and assis-tance, the bank turned to Piercetech, anexperienced consultancy and integra-tor in call center and transaction envi-ronments.

Technology ImperativesTo meet the bank’s goals, Piercetech

found there were several technologyimperatives:

• Intimately linking call center processeswith offline services and bankingprocesses

• Allowing unified access to all customerdata

• Implementing process control via busi-ness rules

• Monitoring and reporting of transac-tions from initial contact to comple-tion

• Flowing work and tasks to individualagents and employees based on busi-ness events.

These imperatives could not be real-ized with the current IT infrastructure,which was not scalable or adequate toprovide the required levels of customerservice.

The SolutionAchieving end-to-end business visibil-

ity meant that a CRM package, even one

customized for the financial servicesindustry, was inadequate. “Typical CRMsolutions are focused on single-call reso-lutions,” explains Mitch Pierce, CEO,Piercetech. “There is no notion of manag-ing an end-to-end process in which thereare multiple, long-running transactionsthat may be initiated by one call. There isno ability to close the loop. With thisproject, we had to provide visibilityacross processes running 140 differenttypes of transactions that may involveboth manual and automated tasks.”

Piercetech needed to augment itsGlobalFlow toolset, which moves andpresents information when and wherev-er it is needed, with enhanced BPM capa-

bilities from Ultimus. “We foundUltimus not only had powerful func-tionality but was very easy to use,” com-ments Pierce. “Unlike many olderworkflow environments that have a her-itage in imaging, the Ultimus solution isa transaction-oriented system, architect-ed for Web services and built on .NET.We were able to quickly implement ascalable integration solution based onopen standards. It reduced the costs andschedule of the whole project.”

The BenefitsManual callbacks were virtually elim-

inated by the new BPM-based system.Previously, processes were often frag-mented, with many steps requiring man-ual intervention. Calling back customersbecause of errors, or even lost transac-tions, accounted for nearly 10 percent ofcalls. These are now approaching zero.

Furthermore, the bank required accu-rate customer information in its back-end databases, but did not want anychecks to occur during customer-facingprocesses, as this would have increasedthe time for all customer calls anddecreased customer satisfaction.Business rules were used to verify thatthe data collected by call center agentswas correct, in which case the databasescould be updated. If there was a problemwith the data, the workflow managed atask whereby the call agent made an out-bound call back to the customer orinvolved other personnel, if required.

Overall, the BPM-based projectreduced fulfillment time from 72 hoursto 24 hours, reduced the average agenthandling time by 10 seconds, and savedmore than $500,000 in developmentcosts. The payback period was just sixmonths.

Bottom LineWithout the BPM-oriented solution,

the bank would have probably lost cus-tomers—a high price to pay—and thismay have jeopardized the success of theacquisition. Good BPM solutions can bethat important for business. bij

Piercetech, 2114 N. Flamingo Rd., Suite 130,Pembroke Pines, FL 33028. Voice: 954-704-1516 or 866-665-8666;Website: www.piercetech.com

Ultimus, 15200 Weston Parkway, Suite 106,Cary, NC 27513. Voice: 919-678-0900;Website: www.ultimus.com


Without the BPM-orientedsolution, the bank would

have probably lostcustomers—a high price to

pay—and this may havejeopardized the success ofthe acquisition. Good BPM

solutions can be thatimportant for business.


Legal FirmExpandsCustomer Base

By Tony M. Brown

LexisNexis provides comprehensiveand authoritative legal news, informa-

tion, and tailored applications to lawyersacross the U.S. Traditionally, the compa-ny focused much of its business effortson attracting and retaining big law firmsand large corporations with its legalinformation services. The companywanted to expand its services to the 80percent of lawyers in small legal prac-tices that did not have an easy or cost-effective way to access its services.

The Business OpportunityWith increasing numbers of small

law firms gaining access to the Internet,it was clear to LexisNexis that theInternet could expand its market toaccommodate the needs of smaller firms.But there was a catch: Smaller law firmsoften worked to a faster timetable thanlarger firms and needed informationimmediately. To successfully penetratethe new market, LexisNexis had toimprove its order fulfillment systems toprovide the rapid response now required.

The IT department therefore set thefollowing goals for the Small Law project:

• Establish a more nimble, flexibleorganization

• Dramatically improve customer-fac-ing processes

• Fully integrate its vertical business silos.

The SolutionTo accelerate its order fulfillment sys-

tem for the smaller law firms, LexisNexisintegrated a business process manage-ment (BPM) system into its existingorder fulfillment infrastructure. TheBPM solution it selected was Intalio|n3,a standards-based, platform-neutral BPMsolution that supports business processesthat involve distributed transactionswith packaged applications, databases,

and legacy systems.“Of the three BPM software

providers we initially examined, Intaliooffered the most immediate benefitwithout requiring us to purchase addi-tional hardware or software,” explainsAllan McLaughlin, CIO. “It was also well-positioned to meet our longer-termdirection for reducing the dependencyon skilled software development laborrequired to keep pace with rapidlychanging business processes.”

LexisNexis’ Web-based intranet ful-fillment tool sends an order in a prede-fined XML schema over the corporateintranet to an Intalio|n3 server runningon the Microsoft Windows 2000 operat-ing system. The Intalio server consumesthese orders, evaluates which of six pos-sible decision pathways to take, andthen branches toward variousIntalio|n3 subprocesses. The variousprocesses and subprocesses interfacewith a database (via a JDBC connector)to update order status and providereporting. The Intalio|n3 server thensends the order to the existing back-office systems, and may generate an e-mail message to one or more parties,depending on the content of the data inthe order.

“With Intalio|n3,” adds McLaughlin,“We’ve established the BPM-driven mid-dleware solution that is necessary to inte-grate various business systems that had,up until now, been stand-alone data silos.With Intalio|n3, we now have a way tointegrate applications and data, andthat’s the key to the flexibility andadaptability that will further accelerateour responsiveness to changes in thebusiness environment.”

The BenefitsThe use of Intalio|n3 has enabled

LexisNexis to decrease the amount oftime it takes to fulfill an order by morethan 95 percent—from 48 hours to twohours—and reduced the per-order pro-cessing costs. It enabled LexisNexis torealize its ROI in as little as four months.

“But those are not the only returns,”says Terry Williams, project manager.“While project ROI has been substantial,the tight alignment that has resultedbetween our business and IT organiza-tions has been even more significant. Onthe Small Law project, business and ITanalysts worked side by side, modelingbusiness process flows and then directly

converting them into application sourcecode. This alignment has paved the wayfor rapid action on future cost-cuttingand revenue-generating opportunities.”

As LexisNexis found, the ability to

allow business users and software engi-neers to collaborate on the same underly-ing model and deploy processes that areexecutable on the company’s existinginfrastructure is a significant advantageof Intalio|n3.

Bottom LineDeploying a BPM solution has

enabled a legal services company torapidly expand its customer base, usingnew business processes that cross multi-ple organizations and systems. bij

Intalio|n3 is available from Intalio, Inc., 1900 South Norfolk, Ste. 290, San Mateo, CA94403-1164. Voice: 650-577-4700; Website: www.intalio.com


LexisNexis has decreased

the amount of time it takes

to fulfill an order by more

than 95 percent—from 48

hours to two hours—and

reduced the per-order

processing costs.


The theory of business process opti-mization (BPO) may be simple and

the rewards obvious, but the practice ofachieving BPO is not. It requires an inte-grated business process management(BPM) and business activity monitoring(BAM) environment that can link infor-mation about business events from mul-tiple systems. In other words, BPM +BAM = business process optimization.

BPM allows an organization to man-age its business processes to create a com-petitive edge. Leading BPM solutions,such as the webMethods IntegrationPlatform, overcome artificial boundariesof proprietary systems and span all enter-prise processes, both inside and outsidethe enterprise. Critically, a BPM solutionmust also address the human element byintegrating people directly into theprocesses to make decisions, according tobusiness rule-driven workflows, and han-dle exceptions.

A leading BPM solution providesbusiness information visibility and oper-ational control across all aspects of anenterprise by:

• Integrating processes inside the enter-prise and those of customers and part-ners

• Working with legacy applications, pro-prietary systems, and Web services

• Addressing human workflows• Translating process definitions into

new applications and integrations.

Half the SolutionYet, for a modern enterprise, BPM is

only half the solution. True competitiveadvantage is only obtained when theenterprise can combine instantaneousawareness of events with the ability tocorrelate the information surroundingthose events into meaningful feedbackalong the decision chain. A sustainablecompetitive advantage can be realizedwhen this correlation capability extendsto the point of recommending responses,to prevent failure or even to take advan-tage of an opportunity, before the eventsoccur.

This is the point of BAM, whichprovides real-time visibility of opera-tions, business processes, and transac-

tions across the enterprise. A BAMsolution should leverage the informa-tion visibility afforded by BPM towatch multiple systems for the occur-rence of predefined circumstances (e.g.,for a stock price or inventory to hit to acertain level) and then send out an alertthat the con-dition hasbeen detect-ed. It alsomeasures thee f f i c i e n c yand enhancesthe perform-ance of busi-ness processesin real-time.

A leadingBAM solutionwill:

• Access anddeliver infor-mation forthe purposeof enhancingthe perform-ance of busi-ness operations

• Coordinate processes, measure theirefficiency, and enhance or modifyaccordingly

• Notify everyone in the businessprocess about predefined events

• Include all constituents: employees,customers, and partners.

While BPM provides the power toview and control business processes,BAM provides the intelligence to moni-tor and enhance the processes.

Optimizing Business ProcessesThe goal of achieving business

process optimization has been realizedby webMethods with the addition ofits core BAM product, webMethodsOptimize, which provides instantinsight into operational processes andcustomer transactions that span multi-ple disparate systems. By leveraging andextending the proven capabilities ofthe webMethods Integration Platformwith the functionality offered by

webMethods Optimize, customersobtain a viable business process opti-mization solution that measures thehealth of their business in a timely andrelevant way.

webMethods Optimize is a BAMsolution that harnesses the power of neu-

ral-network technology, allowing it todynamically support real-time event col-lection, analysis, and correlation. Patent-pending fingerprinting technologyautomatically finds patterns in businessprocesses and leverages this informationto anticipate and diagnose problemsbefore they can adversely impact busi-ness operations. It offers enterprisesinstant insight into operational processesand customer transactions, resulting inincreased organizational efficiency and apositive impact on the bottom line.

An Overview of webMethods OptimizewebMethods Optimize is designed to

manage the three essential componentsof a successful BAM implementation:analytics, visualization, and prioritiza-tion:

• Analytics: webMethods Optimize pin-points only the data relevant to anexisting problem, isolates the problemto quickly resolve it, and then presentsthe information in business context.

By Tony M. Brown

webMethods Delivers Business Process Optimization


This eliminates the confusing flood ofinformation that forces managers toinvest valuable time to identify prob-lems on their own.

• Visualization: webMethods Optimizehelps managers quickly and intuitivelycomprehend the problem and its asso-ciated causes. This shortens the recog-nition and response cycle, directlyreducing the effect of the problem onthe enterprise.

• Prioritization: webMethods Optimizeprovides managers with insight as tothe relative impact of the problems athand, allowing them to deal with themost critical problem first.

How It WorksThe Optimize life cycle has seven

steps:

1. Define: The first step in the process isthe definition of the key perform-ance indicators (KPI) that are criticalto the operation of the enterprise,along with the key metrics associatedwith each KPI. The KPI specificationsare loaded into a rules engine alongwith user-defined performance tar-gets for each metric. This informa-tion will be used as context whenwebMethods Optimize begins tocompare actual performance to thesekey performance metrics in real-time.

2. Access: webMethods Optimize lever-ages the integration and data accesscapabilities of the webMethodsIntegration Platform to retrieveinformation about business processesin real-time. All IT assets are availableto webMethods Optimize: customapplications, packaged applications,databases, and mainframe applica-tions, as well as Web services.

3. Listen: Leveraging its real-time dataaccess capabilities to monitor thetransactions flowing through thebusiness processes, webMethodsOptimize captures the data compris-ing the transaction as well as the tech-nical information surrounding theoperational state of that transaction.This ability to tap into both businessfeeds and technical feeds is at thecore of the BAM philosophy.

4. Compare and analyze: webMethodsOptimize analyzes the metrics for agiven KPI and stores the results in asophisticated knowledge base thatcontains real-time and historical per-formance. This provides a baselinefor the normal behavior of theunderlying metrics and providesmanagers with a real-time view ofbusiness performance. Metrics can bedisplayed alongside other relateddata, or a user can explore a singlemetric summarized across any timeperiod to more easily spot trends.

5. Learn: webMethods Optimize learnsbehavioral patterns—a “fingerprint”—that impact business goals, events,and activities. The fingerprint cap-tures the status of the metrics associ-ated with the KPI, along withinformation about the underlyinginfrastructure at the time of theevent. These fingerprints are used tounderstand the underlying compo-nents that are important to thehealth of a business process and topredict and resolve future problems.

6. Predict: Over time, the fingerprintinganalysis of webMethods Optimizelearns behavioral patterns that affectKPI performance. These patterns arecombined with the historical base-lines of the knowledge base to pro-vide predictive capabilities thatactually forecast poor KPI perform-ance before it happens. webMethodsOptimize can actually alert managersto take corrective action before aproblem occurs, eliminating anypotential impact to the business.

7. Recommend: Some problems are sys-tematic and often repeat.webMethods Optimize has the abilityto recognize such problems by associ-ating the symptoms related throughthe metrics to the knowledge base.webMethods Optimize can recom-mend diagnosis and treatment plansto resolve the problem quickly andaccurately. As a result, companies candirect business spending toward insti-tuting permanent corrective actionsfor the most frequent problem areasand, as a result, generate the most sig-nificant improvements.

Optimizing the BusinessUnlike many other BAM offerings

that are based solely around dashboardfunctionality, webMethods Optimize isbased on sophisticated correlation enginetechnology that correlates KPIs with thereal-time data flowing through the busi-ness environment. It is able to leverage aWeb services infrastructure to plugdirectly into critical business processes.

T o g e t h e r , t h e w e b M e t h o d sIntegration Platform and webMethodsOptimize offer a business process opti-mization solution that combines theability of BPM to manage businessprocesses with the advanced correla-tion and prediction capabilities ofBAM. This has significant business ben-efits, including total information visi-bility, operational flexibility, andorganizational agility.

All organizations can benefit fromhaving improved visibility and controlinto their business processes. Businessprocess optimization can directly influ-ence customer satisfaction and reten-tion, improve operational efficiency, andenhance the accuracy of financial report-ing. The bottom line is that businessprocess optimization has a direct, posi-tive effect on business performance thatwill in turn have a direct, positive effecton the bottom line of the businesses thatembrace this technology.

BPM allows an organization to man-age its business processes to create a com-petitive edge. Leading BPM solutions,such as the webMethods IntegrationPlatform, overcome artificial boundariesof proprietary systems and span all enter-prise processes, both inside and outsidethe enterprise. Critically, a BPM solutionmust also address the human element byintegrating people directly into theprocesses to make decisions, according tobusiness rule-driven workflows, and han-dle exceptions. bij

webMethods Optimize is available fromwebMethods, Inc., 3930 Pender Drive, Fairfax,VA 22030; Voice: 703-460-2500;Website: www.webmethods.com


ProcessVisibility: The Key toCustomerService

By Tony M. Brown

Pulte Mortgage is a wholly owned sub-sidiary of Pulte Homes, one of the

largest homebuilders in the U.S. It strivesto meet the financing needs of cus-tomers by providing excellent customerservice and comprehensive loan options.

“Most people make several majordecisions in life. Pulte is involved withtwo of them,” says Rod Hardin, CIO andsenior vice president of IT at PulteMortgage. “One is buying a quality home;the second is properly financing it. Pulteis building more and more homes and weare providing more and more mortgages.Our whole ethos is built around cus-tomer service.”

Experiencing rapid growth, PulteMortgage wanted to maintain its envi-able record of high customer satisfac-tion. To achieve this, the companyestablished a corporate initiative to iden-tify ways to be more responsive to cus-tomer requests and keep its customersmore informed and prepared through-out the mortgage-lending process.

Excellence in Customer ServiceTo help meet this objective, the com-

pany conducted a vendor review to finda BPM solution that would increase itsvisibility into process performance, pro-vide more control over process changes,and reduce the time taken to process anend-to-end loan application.

“Our mortgage applications are fineat performing the necessary calculationsand operations to generate documenta-tion for the customer loan file, whichcan comprise more than 300 different

documents,” explains Hardin. “However,they do not measure critical events andtrack progress against a set of key per-formance metrics. We needed an enter-prise process management solution thatcould help us improve customer serviceand operational efficiency. It had to be aseparate component from the businessapplication so we could switch out anyapplication with minimum disruption.We realized we were never going to ‘slaythe paper dragon’ by waiting for a mort-gage application provider to incorporatethe BPM function we needed.”

With customer satisfaction alreadyhigh, Pulte wanted end-to-end visibilityof its processes to make the adjustmentsthat would further increase this metric.“We wanted to improve customer satis-faction from 83 percent to 90 percent

and save up to $5 million in costs,” addsHardin. “Our overriding goal is to driveour customer services scores as high aspossible, and technology is a key compo-nent in helping us achieve this.”

Making the Team WorkPulte found that many BPM and

workflow products were high-end and

expensive middleware solutions built onan EAI layer. The company wantedsomething less costly. It was also clearthat it did not need to re-engineerprocesses. “We investigated workflowfor customer services and operationalefficiency. We wanted to standardizecustomer-facing processes. We did notwant to re-engineer our processes—wehad already done this over the previousfive years. We wanted to measure theperformance of our existing processes,especially those that touch the customer,and improve them, if necessary.”

Pulte found one solution that met itsneeds: Lombardi’s TeamWorks, an enter-prise-scale BPM solution designed todeliver continuous process improve-ment. Managing and adapting processeswithin a changing business environ-

ment, TeamWorks enables companies tocontinuously measure and incremental-ly improve processes, helping to leveragevalue from their business processes andmaximize operational efficiencies.Lombardi’s BPM software also increasesthe visibility that organizations have intoprocess performance and correlates itwith business impact. Both of these



characteristics were important to Pulte,which required the capability to providedetailed process information throughoutthe enterprise and allow business usersto continuously change processes inresponse to evolving market conditions.

Pulte was also attracted to Lombardibecause of its cost-effectiveness.TeamWorks leverages existing invest-ments in systems, skills, and training. It isan open platform, using J2EE and XMLstandards, and is completely interopera-ble with Microsoft .NET systems.

Business Activity MonitoringThe primary role of Business Activity

Monitoring (BAM) is to track criticalbusiness events in real-time and alertusers of a potential problem before itbecomes a real one. The Lombardi solu-

tion provides BAM-like capabilitiesbecause it monitors critical-path events,allowing Pulte to continuously improveits processes.

At Pulte, TeamWorks tracks nearly40 key milestones throughout theprocess, from origination to post-closefor more than 1,500 existing loan appli-cations. This provides Pulte with visibili-

ty into the entire lending process and theability to track critical-path events innear real-time. Prior to the Lombardisolution, tracking had been post-factoreporting.

The solution provides managers andexecutives with highly detailed ProcessScoreboards to keep them informed ofprocess and team performance.Scoreboards are equipped for “drill-down” views that enable users to imme-diately access detailed processinformation.

Paving the Critical PathUnlike the traditional BAM concept,

Lombardi’s BPM solution is not executingthe loan process—it is providing insightinto the end-to-end process. But that is notall it does. TeamWorks includes ProcessCoaches that guide users through processtasks, delivering key information fromunderlying applications, along withdetailed instructions to ensure consistentprocess execution across the enterprise.Additionally, the TeamWorks TaskManager contains detailed informationabout process status and keeps usersinformed of pending tasks.

“Lombardi’s TeamWorks is a greatproduct,” says Hardin. “We have builtmore than 20 dashboards to provide end-to-end process visibility. It helps to coacha user through a particular task.TeamWorks also retains the knowledgeof our corporate processes, so we cantrain new employees more easily andquickly.”

With Lombardi tracking nearly 40business events on the critical path toget a loan closed and keep the customerinformed, it is standardizing keyprocesses and smoothing customer-fac-ing operations. Faster handoffs occurthroughout the loan process. “Weexpect to see significant cost savingsfrom higher throughput—a direct result

of increased business visibility. In thepast, users had to assess what tasks hadto be undertaken for a particular cus-tomer by physically examining the loanfile. Now, the workflow solution pro-vides a task list of what needs to bedone. We have moved from a reactivesystem to a proactive one.”

Customer satisfaction is improvedthroughout the entire process.TeamWorks notifies loan officers ofimportant dates, and sends an e-mailwhen it’s appropriate to contact the cus-tomer. For instance, users now receive e-mails as the loan is closing, promptingthem to contact the customer for a doc-ument review to ensure everything is inorder and that the customer is preparedfor the close.

Slaying the Paper DragonAs a company, Pulte Mortgage has

three business objectives:

• Increase operational efficiency: Beingefficient is essential to providing excel-lent customer service.

• Develop personnel: Highly trained andproactive staff is another critical suc-cess factor for customer satisfaction.

• Maintain growth: Currently, Pulte isgrowing at an accelerated pace, year-over-year. Although an internal busi-ness metric, growth is often an inhibitorto better customer service when a com-pany cannot scale its customer-facingoperations sufficiently as it grows. Pulteis committed to delivering better servic-es for its customers while increasingvalue for its shareholders.

Lombardi’s TeamWorks is helpingPulte achieve all three business objec-tives. It is also a central element of futureplans to further increase customer serv-ice levels by decreasing the vast paperchain. Hardin concludes: “LombardiTeamWorks has helped standardize ourprocesses. As we build more processesaround TeamWorks, I fully expect it tobecome strategic to our business. In fact,we hope to use Lombardi in the futureto help slay the paper dragon.” bij

Lombardi Software, Inc.4516 Seton Center Parkway, Suite 250,Austin, TX 78759; Voice: 512-382-8200;Website: www.lombardisoftware.com

The solution provides

managers and executives

with highly detailed Process

Scoreboards to keep them

informed of process and

team performance.


Plain SailingWith Workflow

By Tony M. Brown

Stolt-Nielsen is one of the world’s leadingproviders of transportation services for

bulk liquid chemicals, edible oils, acids,and other specialty liquids. Through itsparcel tanker, tank container, terminal, railand barge services, the company providesintegrated transportation for its cus-tomers. It wanted to centralize and auto-mate its accounts payable processes in aHouston-based accounting services centerthat would support operations for morethan 20 locations worldwide, saving 15percent in accounting labor costs.

A Problem of ComplexityAlthough simple enough in concept,

in reality this was far harder to achievebecause of the complexity of the busi-ness operations that needed to be sup-ported. Stolt-Nielsen manages 250companies, in 24 offices, across six conti-nents, using 16 functional currencies andany of 60 transaction currencies. Itprocesses about 180,000 invoices annual-ly, and a typical invoice can contain 100pages of documentation.

“Our agents submit all activity on oneinvoice, although it involves separateprocesses such as insurance, ship man-agement, and port disbursement,” saysMickey Stayman, business systems man-ager at Stolt-Nielsen. “These processes arehandled by different groups—sometimesin different continents. We had to faxpaperwork all over the place so theapprovers could see all relevant docu-ments.”

The Workflow SolutionThe company decided to implement

a single global document managementrepository where accounts payableclerks could store invoice images andsupporting documentation and then eas-ily route them for review and approvalto supervisors anywhere in the world.Workflow was a critical component ofthe solution to allow users to see invoices

and route them through the approvalprocess, even when they were out of theoffice, without having to deal with papercopies. Accounts payable clerks inHouston, for example, could scan andsubmit invoices for approval by supervi-sors in Rotterdam.

“We researched a large number ofvendors. Many of the products couldnot meet our requirements,” commentsStayman. “Hummingbird, the providerof our document management system,recommended BizFlow Accelerator forAccounts Payable (AP) fromHandySoft because it could handlecomplex workflows and intelligentlyroute work items between processesand subprocesses.”

BizFlow Accelerator for AP enablesthe integration of current AP systemsand processes into a unified solutionthat tracks payables from submissionto payment, auto-pays routine invoices,handles exceptions that require humanattention, and generates reports on thestatus of invoices in the approval andpayment process. It offers straight-through processing of payments,according to definable business rules,and automates exception-handling for

routing of invoices for review,approval, and payment.

“Before, there was too much ineffi-ciency and risk of losing documentswhen routing documents physically todifferent locations for approval,” contin-ues Stayman. “We could even lose trackof documents, which would lead todelays. Now we have total control of theapproval process.”

Previously, staff had to rekey informa-

tion from paper-based invoices into theERP system. With BizFlow, the invoicesare electronically loaded into the ERP sys-tem without human intervention, increas-ing both throughput and data integrity.

Following the Business RulesAs well as reaping cost savings due to

the centralization of the accounting func-tion, Stolt-Nielsen has also reducedinvoice cycle times by as much as 85 per-cent, reduced outstanding payables, andcan take advantage of early-pay discounts.

But there were some unexpectedbenefits. When the new system wentlive, the company found the number ofescalated invoices had increased, eventhough the volume of invoices was thesame. It was discovered that the compa-ny’s formal approval policy had not beenadhered to in all cases prior to usingBizFlow. It is a great example of howincreased business visibility can lead tounanticipated process improvementsand business benefit.

Bottom LineDeploying the workflow and docu-

ment management solution hasincreased control and efficiency while

decreasing risk. Stayman concludes:“BizFlow was integral to our businessstrategy of centralizing the accountingfunction. It would have been impossibleto undertake this project without thecapabilities of BizFlow.” bij

HandySoft Global Corp., 1952 Gallows Road,Ste. 200, Vienna, VA 22182. Voice: 703-442-5600; Website: www.handysoft.com



Salvation FromData Hell

By Tony M. Brown

Important decisions need to be made.Management of the healthcare compa-

ny has reviewed volumes of businessmetrics and data about patient trends inits facilities. However, to be more certainof the proposed action, they ask to seethe same data cross-referenced in differ-ent ways, against different metrics. It’ssuch a simple request, but it requires aprogrammer to extract the informationfrom the data warehouse. Real-time visi-bility into its business processes and met-rics is sorely missing.

Data Hell This is not fiction, but an all-too

familiar scenario for healthcare organiza-

tions like Shands HealthCare, a hospitalsystem affiliated with the University ofFlorida. “One might say we were in datahell,” says Gigi Lipori, assistant to theexecutive vice president and COO. “Wewould analyze key business data andthen realize we needed a different viewof the same data. But this was never exe-cuted in real-time, so we often foundourselves creating reports, while man-agers had to hypothesize until the actual

data was obtained.” Shands had a comprehensive data

warehouse that had been maintained formore than 20 years, but those who need-ed it to make decisions could not accessthe data interactively. Retrieving thedata and performing the required analy-sis fell to a small team of technology spe-cialists. This created a problem. “Ahandful of programmers would accessthe data based on management requests.The difficulty was that demand alwaysexceeded supply, and there was always aqueue of requests for data, and turn-around times were often delayed,” addsLipori.

Decision Life-Support Rather than be on virtual decision

life-support, Shands wanted to providedecision support tools for its executiveand management teams. “We wanted tocreate a decision support system to allowmanagement to become more data-driv-en, to make decisions based on hardfacts,” explains Lipori. To enable admin-istrators and executive managers totrack, understand, and manage financial,regional, staff, and patient information,S h a n d s H e a l t h C a r e i n s t a l l e d

BusinessObjects Enterprise 6, a leadingbusiness intelligence (BI) platform.

An integral part of BusinessObjectsEnterprise 6 i s BusinessObjectsDashboard Manager, which Shands isusing to continue the development of itspowerful BI dashboard to give staffimmediate access to financial data as wella s p a t i e n t a n d s t a f f t r e n d s .Administrators will be able to see thevarious relationships that exist among

medical services, facilities, doctors, staff,and patient volumes and understandhow these affect revenue. For example,an administrator could be automaticallyalerted to any significant increase in the

length of hospital stays and could associ-ate it to a facility, procedure, physician,or type of patient.

Interactive DashboardMany of Shands’ executives and

administrators can immediately track,understand, and manage informationover the intranet, enabling the companyto control costs more effectively andimprove patient care. “We have created apowerful semantic layer between theuser and the application to make surethere are no mistakes with the datainquiries,” comments Lipori. “Our dash-board allows users to get at the main-frame data themselves and it isinteractive. It has empowered users,allowing them to get the data they needto make better decisions, which hashelped us improve clinical decisions,patient throughput, financial manage-ment, and patient experience. We nolonger have to wait for reports to try toidentify and respond to issues, and thedashboard has become an integral part ofour success.”

Bottom LineBy using business intelligence soft-

ware from Business Objects, a healthcareprovider was able to gain better insightinto the performance of its processes. bij

Business Objects Enterprise 6 is available fromBusiness Objects, 303 Orchard Pkwy., San Jose, CA 95134. Voice: 800-877-2340;Website: www.businessobjects.com

Shands HealthCare


We have created a powerful

semantic layer between

the user and the application

to make sure there are

no mistakes with

the data inquiries . . .


Eliminating thePaper Chain forHome Loans

By Tony M. Brown

Accredited Home Lenders is a nation-wide mortgage banking company

that originates, finances, sells, securi-tizes, and services non-prime mortgagesfor single-family residences. The compa-ny is growing rapidly and has estab-lished itself as one of the country’s mostrespected non-prime lenders. During

2003, Accredited originated $8 billionin mortgages through its wholesale andretail channels.

Business Process ChallengeThe mortgage industry has tradition-

ally been reliant on enormous quantitiesof paper. Every step of the mortgage

process, from origination to funding toservicing, requires many forms. The bur-densome, paper-based processes dimin-ish profit margins and slow growthbecause of:

• Increased costs: Extra headcount isrequired simply to rekey data, collate,and file.

• Reduced transaction volume:Inefficient information sharingbetween a mortgage company and itspartners in the mortgage process (e.g.,brokers and credit bureaus) limits thenumber of transactions that can becompleted in a given amount of time.

• Increased risk: Mean time-to-close, anindicator of the time required toprocess mortgage applications, isextended.

Accredited wanted to automate theloan life cycle, simplifying and accelerat-

ing human intervention wherever possi-ble. The first move was to bring inAtlanta-based WellFound Technology,an IT solutions provider that helps com-panies streamline processes and accesscrucial business data and services in real-time. Its domain expertise in mortgagebanking has resulted in a Mortgage

Integration Framework (MIF), a service-oriented, architecture-based solutionthat utilizes standards-based technolo-gies to enable mortgage bankers to inte-grate an entire value chain.

Mortgage Integration FrameworkMIF is built on BEA WebLogic

Platform 8.1, which includes WebLogicIntegration, WebLogic Portal, WebLogicServer, and WebLogic Workshop. MIFalso incorporates a common data repre-sentation (CDR) schema that complieswith the new MISMO (MortgageIndustry Standards MaintenanceOrganization) XML standard—a dataschema that allows mortgage bankersand other companies involved in themortgage process to exchange data in aconsistent, predictable manner.

WebLogic Integration provides anintegration layer that is designed toenable Accredited to loosely couple newand existing applications via Web servic-es. WebLogic Integration also provides abusiness process management (BPM)capability to orchestrate activities byrouting messages reliably and alertingappropriate personnel when their actionor attention is required, according to spe-cific business rules. It is able to bothmodel and execute business processes inone environment, allowing Accreditedto design and implement workflows thatmirror the needs of the business.

WebLogic Portal provides the inter-face for registered users to receive a real-time view of where loans are in theprocess, and be alerted to events thatneed their attention. Users get access toboth individual loan information and anaggregated view of loan activity relevantto them. The portal utilizes severalportlets to present information.Examples of portlets include a view intothe loan pipeline with drill-down accessthat provides visibility into the status ofpending loans and performance of indi-vidual brokers, real-time news feeds, andevent-message registration that enablesusers to select the type of alerts theywish to receive.

Accredited is also leveragingWebLogic Portal’s native content man-agement capabilities to publish contentto the portal and tailor the services andinformation that are available to each


Deploying a BPM system has helped

Accredited process more of its loan

applications “straight through”—

significantly reducing the costs and risks

of human intervention.


user. Content for each registered user isdetermined by business rules related tojob title, job responsibility, and othervariables. Accredited’s new portal is ini-tially being rolled out to employees, withplans to roll it out to brokers after a suc-cessful internal deployment.

Integrating Java and .NETAccredited utilized WebLogic

Workshop, a core component of theBEA platform, in implementing MIF.WebLogic Workshop is an integrateddevelopment environment that enablesany developer— even those new to Java—to build service-oriented Web applica-tions and Web services. Accredited hasbeen a Microsoft .NET shop for years,but putting development on hold whilethe entire IT staff was retrained on Javawas simply not feasible, due to the costand time of such an undertaking.WebLogic Workshop made it possiblefor Accredited to start leveraging Javafor mission-critical applications incre-mentally and while leveraging existingin-house development talent.

WebLogic Workshop removes thecomplexity from J2EE development andprovides software developers with anintuitive visual development environ-ment so they can build Web applicationsrapidly without having to understandthe complexities of Java. Many develop-ers on the Accredited staff were able tobecome proficient with WebLogicWorkshop in two to three weeks despitehaving no Java experience.

“WebLogic Workshop enabled us toutilize the BEA platform,” says JimPathman, CIO at Accredited. “We want-ed to move to Java and, based on the rec-ommendation provided by WellFoundas well as our own research, we deter-mined that BEA provided the best Javafoundation for us. However, we haveyears of work invested in .NET. Wecouldn’t just dump the platform. Wewanted to extend that investment.”

Mike McCoy, director of enterprisearchitecture, adds, “BEA allows us to dothat by enabling us to integrate .NETapplications with our new Java-basedapplications, and by enabling our staff toget up to speed on Java fast. Now, wehave the flexibility and enterprise-classstrength of Java, and we continue to

leverage our .NET investment via theinteroperability provided by WebLogicWorkshop’s Web services. We have thebest of both worlds.”

“We need to build systems andprocesses that can match our growth andadapt to change,” says Pathman. “Weknew we wanted a standards-based solu-tion for integration, and WellFoundTechnology tied it together for us into aservices-oriented architecture. As aresult, we now have an enterprisewideintegration framework that can meettoday’s needs and quickly respond to ourever-changing business processes.”

Focusing on the BusinessThe MIF is now in place. The initial

phase of the project was completed ontime and on budget, and WellFound andAccredited are continuously rolling outnew service-oriented applications.Among the first projects to be complet-ed were a loan gateway that providesdrill-down access to loans in progressthat require special attention, and inte-gration between MIF and Accredited’slegacy funding and underwriting appli-cations.

An alerting application has also beenimplemented on MIF. It is specificallyintended to shorten mean time-to-closeby generating real-time messages when-ever a loan application is idle, pendinghuman action. Alerts can be sent tomobile phones, e-mail accounts, andinstant message accounts. Additional

workflow automation and process opti-mization that are in the planning stagesare designed to further increase loan pro-cessing efficiency so that Accredited canclose more loans, faster, without increas-ing headcount.

“The benefits of our new infrastruc-ture are pretty straightforward,” saysPathman. “From an IT perspective, wecan build and integrate services faster

and cheaper. From a business perspec-tive, we want to improve the quality ofour work product by eliminating theneed to rekey data, improving accuracy,reducing overhead, and enabling faster,better lending decisions. That will makeus a more attractive lender to independ-ent brokers, which is one of the keys togrowing loan originations and stayingahead of the competition.”

“I would sum up our new infrastruc-ture by saying that it allows our develop-ers to add more value by focusing onbusiness logic without having to rein-vent the wheel on each project,” addsMcCoy. “We have fewer worries aboutsecurity, integration, presentation, and somany other tasks that we used to incor-porate into every development project.As a result, we can bring new applica-tions to market much faster, and we’remore responsive to the needs of our bro-kers and other partners.”

Pathman concludes: “The WebLogicPlatform is a standards-based businessintegration technology that allows us toextend our investment in existing ITresources. Of great interest to us is BEA’sapproach that blends traditional integra-tion tools, such as BPM modeling andgraphical transformation, with customSOA development in one package forbuilding next-generation compositeapplications. This convergence of BPMand SOA development is paramount toour goal of building a services-based ITarchitecture: it enables faster develop-ment and delivery of new applications,and helps Accredited stay ahead of thecompetition. BEA is a true strategic tech-nology partner for Accredited; togetherwith our vision and their technologyplatform, we are able to align IT with thedemands of our business,” concludesPathman.

Bottom LineDeploying a BPM system has helped

Accredited process more of its loanapplications “straight through”—signifi-cantly reducing the costs and risks ofhuman intervention. bij

These products are available from BEASystems, Inc., 2315 North First Street, SanJose, CA 95131. Voice: 408-570-8000;Website: www.bea.com


BPM Enables e-Government

By Tony M. Brown

The Missouri Public ServiceCommission (MPSC) regulates more

than 1,400 utility companies operatingin Missouri, including electric, naturalgas, telephone, water, and sewer compa-nies. The MPSC has a clear mission: Toensure “safe, reliable, and reasonablypriced utility services” for consumerswhile allowing investors “the opportuni-ty for a fair return.” For example, if atelecommunications company requestsapproval for a rate hike, the MPSCwould thoroughly evaluate the requestat all levels to ensure it was fair beforebringing the case to a judge for review.

A Paper Mountain Some of the companies policed are

large, multinational telecommunicationsconcerns. Others are small, local, family-owned sewage treatment firms. TheMPSC also provides services for morethan 5 million Missouri citizens, such asrate inquiries or filing complaints. It is acomplex regulatory environment thatgenerates a huge volume of informa-tion—by the late ’90s the MPSC had 9million hard copy documents on file.Tracking, processing, and filing docu-ments consumed a substantial amountof resources, especially as its case man-agement system was antiquated. Allcommunication was done either bypaper documents, fax, or internal mail.These documents were stored in filingcabinets dispersed across 10 floors.Finding a document was a labor-inten-sive and time-consuming process.

The manual processing of documentsand associated copies was highly error-prone, since the process could stall at anystep and there was no simple way to trackstatus. Version control was largely down tothe memory of the individual employee.

Catalyst for Change Enter utility deregulation, which

meant the already heavy workload wasexpected to grow by at least 20 percentper year. Increasing the number of staffwas not an option—the MPSC was taskedto continue its work with a fixed headcount. The commission faced a difficultfuture, as the workload would quicklyoverwhelm the capacity of the work-force and processes. “The 1996Telecommunications Act, which encour-aged more competition, would lead to asteep increase in the number of cases butwithout the opportunity for more headcount,” says Todd Craig, the IS managerat the MPSC. “Resolving cases would takefar longer. Our strategic plan was to getmore information out to the public andreduce the cost per case. Deregulationwas a catalyst for change.”

The only way forward for theMPSC was through technology-ledbusiness productivity gains. “The prob-lem was that our four legacy systemswere twilight systems,” Craig contin-ues. “We had a classic stovepipe envi-ronment. For example, the tariffsystem would not talk to the case sys-tem. This meant we had to resort tomanual entry of data into multiple sys-tems, and to have instant access to thecases we had to have multiple filings ofdocuments. The utility companies hadto file up to 14 copies of each submis-sion. There was no integration of docu-ments to dockets (a summary of theactivities, actions, and calendar for acase). Dockets had to be printed andthen the case documents of interesthad to be physically located.”

Not surprisingly, metrics and reportsof the processes were difficult to obtain,if they could be obtained at all. And ratepayers had poor and inconvenient accessto rate and service information.

The Solution The MPSC concluded that an auto-

mated Business Process Management(BPM) system would eliminate paper,slash request response time, and generatea significant ROI. The goal was a Webportal, both for business and consumerclients, which would carry most of theworkload. However, it was recognizedthat not all cases would go online and


By using the portal,

the number of

required hardcopies

has been reduced

from 14 to just five.

We can now monitor

processes and make

changes to the

workflows on demand.


about 20 percent would remain paper-based. In these cases, imaging serviceswould convert documents into an elec-tronic format for access into businessprocess management.

Craig explains: “For our electronic fil-ing and information system, we requireda robust and scalable workflow engine.We looked at integration technologies,document management solutions, andcontent management products. The onlyinclusive solution that offered BPM,along with document image manage-ment and content management, wasFileNet BPM.”

The FileNet platform stores originaldocument images and text content in acentral repository. From this, the solutiongenerates more than 40 technical, man-agement, and legal reports. The applica-tion is composed of approximately 350front-end screens, 200 back-end databasetables, and 50 XML-based, e-processworkflow maps for automatically mov-ing the work and the associated docu-ments through the process life cycle.

After an extensive pilot run, the sys-tem went live in mid-May 2002.Applications can be filed over the Web,using a browser to access a customizedWeb portal. The system allows for thefiling of paper forms, as well as for theuploading of electronic documents. Alltypes of utilities and filings can be select-ed from drop-down boxes.

“FileNet BPM integrated our majorsystems,” adds Craig. “The collaborativesystem offers secure access by staff,utility companies, and ratepayers. Staffcan simply click on a line item in adocket to see the associated document.By using the portal, the number ofrequired hardcopies has been reducedfrom 14 to just five. We can now moni-tor processes and make changes to theworkflows on demand.”

The Results The results have been impressive:

• Number of business processes:Reduced from 158 to 60 (the 98 redun-dant processes were largelyworkarounds due to incompatibletechnology).

• Number of integrated processes:Increased from 22 percent to 100 per-

cent. All 60 business processes can nowinteract with each other.

• Number of systems: Reduced from 64applications to 10.

• Documents on file: Reduced from 9.2million pages to 5 million pages. Thisfigure will reduce further as docu-ments can be released after retentionperiods expire.

• Document growth: Reduced from 1.2million new pages added annually to200,000—an 83 percent reduction inthe growth of the paper mountain.

As a result, employees have beensaving an average of an hour and a halffrom their schedule each day. This hasyielded a productivity gain of $2 mil-lion per year. Direct cost savings havealso been impressive. Reduced printingand delivery costs save $275,000 eachyear.

MSPC has met its strategic goal ofmaking its business processes more effec-tive to mitigate the increasing workload.But the commission is not the only partyto benefit from the BPM solution:

Regulated utility companies seereduced costs of doing business withMPSC. One utility, a large internationaltelecommunications company, claimedin one month alone to have saved 40

staff hours and eliminated productionand delivery fees for nearly 4,500 pagesof paper. Companies also enjoy secureand efficient interaction with MPSC toreceive faster, better quality decisions.Inquiries can now be dealt with almostimmediately, instead of waiting days orweeks.

Rate payers can access online infor-mation, enabling them to make educateddecisions regarding utility services (e.g.,best-buy decisions). They can also viewthe status of a request online.

The Bottom Line The MPSC was the first state utility

agency to deploy an electronic filing andinformation system. It is a showcase,both for the benefits of e-government atthe state level and the power of BPMsolutions. Craig concludes: “FileNet BPMis the foundation of the entire solution.Without it we would be in a world ofhurt! We would have to figure out howto survive, given the current workloadand business environment. It would notbe easy.” bij

FileNet Corp., 3565 Harbor Boulevard, Costa Mesa, CA 92626-1420. Voice: 800-345-3638; Website: www.filenet.com/bij

BPM


Business RulesOK?

By Tony M. Brown

Balboa Insurance Group, a subsidiaryof Countrywide Financial Corp., is

one of the largest vendors of insurance-tracking services in the U.S. for mort-gage companies, banks, and otherfinancial institutions. These organiza-tions work with Balboa when they needto verify that customers have enoughinsurance to protect the lender’s interestin the collateral. When a borrower doesnot have adequate insurance, Balboaprovides a service that enables thelender to purchase insurance on behalfof the borrower.

Balboa deals with huge volumes ofdata. On average, Balboa tracks informa-tion for approximately 10 million loans,many of them mortgage loans. Each day,the company handles about 100,000 in-bound documents from hundreds ofinsurance carriers. These documentsarrive via fax, mail, and electronic datainterchange.

Poor Business Visibility Over the years, Balboa deployed a

number of workflow in-house applica-tions to handle this high-volume flow ofinformation. “The business rules wereencapsulated in a COBOL-based pro-gram,” explains Mike MacKenzie, seniorvice president of application develop-ment, Balboa Insurance. “It was function-al but not very flexible. Users had novisibility of the business rules and it wasdifficult to change them.”

Balboa Insurance recognized the needto upgrade its processing systems toremain competitive and continue pro-viding superior service to its large cus-tomer base. The company also wanted tomaintain an accurate and efficient flowof information between its own systems

and those of its corporate clients.Specifically, it needed to:

• Increase the performance of dataexchange to and from client systems

• Share and customize business ruleswith its customers

• Automate document processingtasks, reducing the need for humanintervention.

MacKenzie adds: “We required betterintegration with our customers’ lendingsystems. Our primary goals were toupdate the lending systems in near real-time and to have a single system ofrecord—the lender’s system—eliminatingthe need for a shadowing system or adual posting system.”

Flexible Business RulesBalboa developed TrackSource,

which integrates its own processesdirectly with the loan systems of its cus-tomers. The IT department at Balboawanted to leverage a comprehensiveintegration platform and a powerfulbusiness rules engine. After looking atseveral options, it selected MicrosoftBizTalk Server 2004, part of theMicrosoft Windows Server System.

“TrackSource is core to our businessand represents a substantial investmentby the company,” explains MacKenzie.“BizTalk was attractive to us because itoffered a rules engine coupled with inte-gration capabilities. By offering two tech-nologies we needed in one package,BizTalk helped reduce our costs.”

TrackSource leverages the businessrules capabilities of BizTalk Server. Itprovides Balboa with an intuitivemethod of separating implementationdetails from the business logic. Businessprocesses are designed using BizTalkServer objects created with theMicrosoft Visual Studio .NET 2003development system. Information com-ing into Balboa—as well as data that isreturned to the customer host databas-es—is controlled by a combination ofBizTalk Server evaluations and out-comes based on rules-engine execution.

“As insurance documents come intoBalboa, we route them through BizTalkServer for processing, matching each

document to the appropriate loan,” saysMacKenzie. “Once a document ismatched to the proper account, we areable to interface with the lender in real-time to get the current information onthe loan’s status. From that point, we passdata from the incoming document alongwith information from the loan and runit through the BizTalk Server rulesengine to make a decision on how to pro-ceed with the document.”

After a document is accepted into thesystem and a BizTalk Server orchestra-tion helps to validate it, the transactioncontinues or the Balboa database flags itas an exception, in which case, an excep-tion analyst takes over to correct the doc-ument manually.

TrackSource has its own operationaldata store that uses Microsoft SQLServer, also part of the MicrosoftWindows Server System. TrackSourcesearches and matches against lender data,which is updated regularly. WhenTrackSource finishes processing a docu-ment or transaction, it accesses a lender’shost system—typically by accessing amainframe or minicomputer through a“green-screen,” text-based terminal usinghost emulation middleware—andupdates the host system using the samemiddleware components.

Reaping the BenefitsWith the new solution, Balboa can

exchange data much more efficiently


Being able to integrate with

our client systems in a

faster, more efficient way

than before is crucial to the

success of this project.


with the systems of its customers. Thishas improved customer service. “Beingable to integrate with our client systemsin a faster, more efficient way thanbefore is crucial to the success of thisproject,” says MacKenzie. “Through thisintegration process, we are able to postdata directly to the lender’s system ofrecord. If the lender gets a call from acustomer, the information is already intheir system. This means that we servethem better, and they can provide bet-ter service to their customers.

“BizTalk Server, with its use ofXML, enables us to integrate with clientsystems in whatever way is available,”MacKenzie continues. “They may beusing other commercial applications orhave their own application program-ming interfaces. As soon as we receivetheir data, it is translated into XML, sothat we can handle it internally. Now, ifwe want to add a new client system, wejust need an adapter and the rest of thesystem works.”

BizTalk has significantly improvedthe process visibility for business usersat both Balboa and its customers. “Before,when we made a change to one businessrule, we had to be very careful it did notimpact other rules. With BizTalk, therules are now English-like and can be eas-ily understood by business users. Thismeans we can share rules with ourclients and even add a new rule just forthat client.”

The reliability of BizTalk Serverensures a high success rate for the trans-actions passing between Balboa and itscorporate clients, according toMacKenzie. “BizTalk Server has provenvery reliable,” he says. “Even if weunplug a server and it goes down, it’sable to recover any transaction that wasin process.” MacKenzie adds that thecompany will be able to easily scale upBizTalk Server in much the same man-ner as adding Web servers, givingBalboa a cost-effective means of grow-ing the system in accordance with busi-ness needs.

Working With BizTalk“We compare using BizTalk Server

2004 with a subway system,” commentsMacKenzie. “Once you’ve created the

connections to each stop in the system,whether it be a fax server, our opticalcharacter recognition system, or ourclient lending systems, the transactionspass through like trains on a track andcan be routed to any stop based on thebusiness rules.”

TrackSource is a newly developedapplication that went into productionearly in 2004. MacKenzie explains that

Balboa intends to take advantage ofother features of BizTalk, such as itsBusiness Activity Monitoring (BAM)capabilities. “We have high hopes forBAM. We are attracted to having zero-latency analysis of the entire system sowe can measure throughput, track thetransaction paths through the processes,and be alerted to bottlenecks. For exam-ple, we can set minimum and maximumthresholds for the number of faxes com-ing through the fax server. If they arereached, we can alert users to potentialproblems, shift resources, and continueto meet service standards.”

Bottom LineMacKenzie concludes: “TrackSource

gives us an industry-leading applicationthat processes transactions directly toour client systems. We can now shareand customize business rules quicklywith our clients. BizTalk has reallyhelped us strengthen our customer serv-ice and make us agile.” bij

Microsoft Corp., One Microsoft Way,Redmond, WA 98052-6399.Website: www.microsoft.com/biztalk/


WorkflowIncorporated

By Tony M. Brown

Workflow is a crucial component ofcollaborative applications. For inde-

pendent software vendors (ISVs) andenterprises that are developing collabora-tive applications, it makes sense toembed a comprehensive and customiz-able workflow engine into these solu-tions. This was the approach adopted byCalifornia-based software providerdiCarta when it wanted to enhancediCarta Contracts, its enterprise contractmanagement solution. The solutionhelps companies gain control over theircontract management procedures,increase visibility into contractual obliga-tions, and drive contract compliance.

The Workflow Advantage“Workflow is important because it is

such an integral component of the con-tract management process,” says BobJamison, director of product manage-ment at diCarta. “When a contract clauseneeds to be modified from standard lan-guage or a key business term is not in linewith company policy, then it is impor-tant that the right people in the organi-zation review and approve theseproposed changes before the contract isexecuted. We also need workflow inmanaging contract compliance.”

diCarta had three key requirementsfor enhanced workflow capabilities:

• Enterprise scalability: diCartaContracts is deployed in some of theworld’s largest, most contract-intensivecompanies, so the workflow solutionneeded to match diCarta Contract’sscalability.

• Graphical representation: A graphicalview of the workflow allows a user toeasily understand the status of a partic-ular work item (i.e., a contract) withinthe overall process.

• Parallel workflow: This allows multi-ple workflow threads (say within dif-ferent departments) to run

concurrently, which was critical, asmost diCarta clients are large Global2000 enterprises that require complexworkflows.

The question was: buy or build?

Buy vs. BuilddiCarta searched the market for a

robust workflow engine it could easilyincorporate into diCarta Contracts. In theend, one company had a solution that metits needs: Dralasoft. “It was a straightfor-ward build vs. buy decision,” explainsJamison. “We looked at the level of effortto build our requirements and we con-cluded it was better to leverage DralasoftWorkflow. This significantly acceleratedtime-to-market and resulted in richer

functionality than our product wouldhave had if we had built it ourselves.”

Dralasoft creates standards-basedworkflow technology that reduces thecomplexity and costs of integrating busi-ness processes into applications andframeworks. It consists of:

• Workflow Engine: An optimized run-time Java component providing thecapabilities needed in a mission-criticalproduction environment. It offerscaching, thread-pooling, persistence,clustering, load balancing, and notifica-tion. The Engine is a scalable compo-nent with the ability to be deployed on

multiple servers as a cluster. • Workflow Studio: A visual design

environment for developing work-flows by dragging and dropping prede-fined tasks. Due to its flexibility andintuitive interface, the Studio can beused by programmers and business ana-lysts alike. The Studio is customizableto enable integration into existingapplications via XML.

• Workflow Manager: Provides monitor-ing and management services to sup-port mission-critical deployments,including isolating bottlenecks inworkflows, gathering and analyzingstatistics, and reporting.

Easy and FlexiblediCarta was impressed that Dralasoft

had specifically designed its workflowtechnology to be incorporated withinother applications: “The Dralasoft prod-ucts were easy to embed because of theirrich set of APIs,” comments Jamison.“We have completely embeddedWorkflow Engine into our J2EE-basedsolution, and we are also usingWorkflow Studio, which is very flexible.Dralasoft solutions have met all of ourworkflow requirements.”

diCarta found it easy to customizeWorkflow Studio—either disabling oradding new functions—and repackage it.“In the diCarta Contracts ComplianceManager module, the Process Designer isbased on Dralasoft Studio,” addsJamison. “Process Designer lets contract-ing professionals define rules and alertsbased on events in their transaction sys-tems. That’s a significant business advan-tage for our customers because it allowsthem to effectively enforce compliancewith contracts and policies.”

Bottom LineISVs and some end-user organiza-

tions need an enterprise-class workflowengine that can easily be incorporatedwithin an application. diCarta usedembedded comprehensive workflowtechnology from Dralasoft to quicklyand cost-effectively deliver an enhancedproduct to its customers. bij

diCarta, Inc., 1 Circle Star Way, San Carlos,CA 94070-6234. Voice: 650-474-3800;Website: www.dicarta.com

Dralasoft, Inc., 10955 Westmoor Drive, Suite 110, Westminster, CO 80021.Voice: 303-468-6754;Website: www.dralasoft.com


ISVs and some end-user

organizations need an

enterprise-class workflow

engine that can easily

be incorporated within

an application.


AlternativeTechnologies

Alternative Technologies, founded in 1976, provides international consulting andeducational services, specializing in business process management, integration, anddatabase management. The firm has 20 years of BPM systems (BPMS) experience,having designed and developed a pioneering federated-BPMS and manufacturingsystem in 1981. The firm has consulted for companies such as BEA, Hewlett-Packard,and IBM regarding their BPM strategies. In partnership with renowned subject areaexperts, Alternative Technologies develops and licenses unique intellectual property suchas process templates for BPMS. For example, our extended relationship managementand optimization (ERMO) process template lets you install and customize decades ofpartner management knowledge on your BPMS. For more information on our consultingservices or BPM seminars, e-mail: [email protected].

Alternative Technologies, 6221A Graham Hill Road, Suite #8001, Felton, CA95018. Voice: 831-338-4621; Website: www.AlternativeTech.com

BEA Systems, Inc.The most pressing challenge IT organizations face today is building a fully

integrated business. To realize comprehensive integration, the solution must provide notonly core integration capabilities, but also an approach that unifies development andintegration. BEA WebLogic Integration 8.1 is the first product to deliver this approach—astandards-based platform for application integration, Business Process Management,workflow, Web services and business-to-business integration, which also leverages theenterprise-strength capabilities of the industry-leading application server.

WebLogic Integration provides customers with a unified framework for businessintegration, simplified production and management, as well as a new extensiblearchitecture for the rapid assembly and integration of applications, business processes,and partner trading communities. BEA WebLogic Integration has helped Global 2000customers make their businesses more efficient, responsive and adaptable, by deliveringrapid, open integration in half the time and cost of proprietary approaches.

By leveraging the award-winning BEA WebLogic Workshop™ developmentenvironment, BEA WebLogic Server™, industrial-strength messaging broker and datatransformation capabilities, pre-built and custom controls, and a catalog of standards-based application adapters, WebLogic Integration presents a seamless environment forintegration specialists and application developers alike.

WebLogic Integration™ is an integral part of the WebLogic Enterprise Platform™,the industry’s leading application platform suite from the world’s leading applicationinfrastructure software provider. The BEA WebLogic Platform enables IT to focus onbusiness goals—instead of infrastructure integration—shortening project cycles andreducing complexity.

BEA Systems, Inc., 2315 N. First St., San Jose, CA 95131. Voice: 800-817-4BEA or 408-570-8000; Website: www.bea.com

Business ObjectsBusiness Objects is the world’s leading Business Intelligence (BI) software

company. BI enables organizations to track, understand, and manage enterpriseperformance. The company’s solutions leverage the information that is stored in an array of corporate databases, ERP, and CRM systems.

Popular uses of BI include enterprise reporting, management dashboards andscorecards, customer intelligence applications, financial reporting, and both customerand partner extranets. These solutions enable companies to gain visibility into theirbusiness, acquire and retain profitable customers, reduce costs, optimize the supplychain, increase productivity, and improve financial performance.

In December 2003, Business Objects completed the acquisition of CrystalDecisions, the leader in enterprise reporting with more than 16 million licenses ofCrystal Reports shipped worldwide. The combined product line includes software forreporting, query and analysis, performance management, analytic applications, and dataintegration. In addition, Business Objects offers consulting and education services tohelp customers effectively deploy their business intelligence projects.

Healthcare organizations face a particularly daunting task when it comes tomastering the huge amounts of data they collect. Business Objects helps theseorganizations improve both overall performance and regulatory compliance by enablingthem to track, understand, and manage information from every corner of the enterprise.Business Objects has more than 24,000 customers in more than 80 countries. BusinessObjects healthcare customers include Aetna, Allegiance Healthcare, Blue Cross BlueShield, Detroit Medical Center, Eli Lilly & Co., Kaiser Permanente, Medtronic, Owens &Minor, Pacific Care Health Systems, and Pfizer, Inc.

Business Objects, 3030 Orchard Pkwy., San Jose, CA 95134. Voice: 800-877-2340; Website: www.businessobjects.com

CemanticaEnterprise systems integration has one motivation—to enable accurate and timely

business information exchange and processing. Despite anticipated lower costs,increased revenues, and business information control, mixed results and unexpectedexpenses often result. Business information incompatibilities can force manualexception processing and perpetual redesign of data transformation. Focusing onimplementation and data reformatting is not enough. Information interoperability (thesemantically, syntactically, and structurally accurate and timely exchange of businessinformation) is required.

Business process management (BPM) requires understanding how systems useinformation. The information conveyed by structure, and the semantics of each piece ofinformation in the context in which it is used and needed must be addressed, and notjust data syntax. An information interoperability solution that will enhance productivityand competitiveness for your specific environment is essential. Only then can yourvaluable, proprietary, distinctive processes be streamlined.

Cemantica offers the first BPM-compatible information interoperability solution:Cemantica Interoperability Management (CIM). CIM services address the “logical levelof information exchange,” today’s key challenge to achieving informationinteroperability. CIM focuses on the meaning and context of data, identifying andresolving the costly conflicts that affect communication between people, organizations,and applications that generate or process the information. Cemantica’s three keymodules—Data Profiling, Data Integrity and Data Integration—significantly reducelaborious and costly exception processing by covering every facet of informationinteroperability: semantic, syntactic, and structural.

Located in San Jose, CA, Cemantica is a privately held corporation with a provenmanagement team. For more information, email [email protected] or visitwww.cemantica.com.

Cemantica, 2684 Gayley Pl., San Jose, CA 95135. Voice: 408-472-6576; e-mail: [email protected]; Website: www.cemantica.com

VE N D O R

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Business Process Management Supplement


DralasoftAs a leading innovator of Business Process Management (BPM) solutions, Dralasoft

pioneered the embeddable workflow market with its product entry in early 2000. Itsflagship product, Dralasoft Workflow, is a 100 percent Java component that includes ahigh-performance and scalable workflow engine with a suite of graphical tools, includingDralasoft Workflow Studio, a best-of-breed visual design tool. Dralasoft’s customersinclude Xerox, Sears, Agile Software, and Sony.

Dralasoft Workflow is a comprehensive workflow and BPM solution. It provideseverything you need to design, deploy, and manage business processes for embeddedand IT infrastructures. Dralasoft products provide customers with the ability to quicklyand smoothly integrate workflow technology based on standards such as XML, LDAP,SOAP, BPEL, and J2EE. Dralasoft Workflow Studio is a visual design tool for developingworkflows by dragging and dropping predefined and custom tasks onto a workflowtemplate. Dralasoft Workflow Manager provides monitoring and management services tosupport mission-critical deployments, offering you complete insight into the activity ofyour workflows individually or as a collective group. Dralasoft Workflow Engine is ahighly optimized, run-time Java component, providing the capabilities needed in amission-critical production environment and is the core component of the DralasoftWorkflow solution.

Based in Westminster, CO, Dralasoft is a privately held corporation. Dralasoft, 10955 Westmoor Drive, Suite 110, Westminster, CO 80021.

Voice: 303-468-6754; Website: www.dralasoft.com

FileNet Corp. FileNet Corp. helps organizations make better decisions by managing the content

and processes that drive their business. FileNet’s Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions allow customers to

build and sustain competitive advantage by managing content throughout theirorganizations, automating and streamlining their business processes, and providingthe full spectrum of connectivity needed to simplify their critical and everydaydecision-making.

FileNet ECM solutions deliver a comprehensive set of capabilities that integrate withexisting information systems to provide cost-effective solutions that solve real-worldbusiness problems.

Since the company’s founding in 1982, more than 4,000 organizations, including81 of the Fortune 100, have taken advantage of FileNet solutions for help in managingtheir mission-critical content and processes.

Headquartered in Costa Mesa, CA, the company markets its innovative ECMsolutions in more than 90 countries through its own global sales, professional servicesand support organizations, as well as via its ValueNet® Partner network of resellers,system integrators, and application developers.

FileNet Corp., 3565 Harbor Blvd., Costa Mesa, CA 92626-1420. Voice: 714-327-3400; Website: www.filenet.com

Fuego Fuego™ provides solutions to design, execute and continuously improve end-to-end

business processes that span people, applications, and organizations. FuegoBPM helpscompanies orchestrate, manage and optimize business processes with top-down,affordable software that is implemented quickly—delivering rapid, measurable ROI.

Companies use our BPM solution to gain process excellence and get businessresults. Our clients include the largest BPM implementations in the world in terms ofnumber of users, transactions and processes for regulatory compliance, claimsprocessing, loan origination, customer activation, order fulfillment, purchase orders, HR,credit management, and more. With FuegoBPM, process owners quickly design,implement and change business processes.

These adaptive process applications empower our customers with speed, controland agility: • Speed in designing, integrating, and deploying processes• Control over the automated process by the process owner, including visibility into andmanagement of the flow of work throughout the entire process

• Agility to modify the process quickly with no changes to the underlying systems.

FuegoBPM includes everything needed to design, implement, and continuouslyimprove business processes:

• Visual process modeler• Self-generating business integration facility• Business and transition rules• Simulation and debugging facilities• Powerful standards-based orchestration engine• Work portal• Process analytics and BAM• Organization administration• Web services support• And more.

Fuego delivers dramatic and measurable ROI. With Fuego, customers achieve thefollowing advantages:

• Most complete solution available• Unequaled power and reliability• Simplicity• 100 percent customer success.

Fuego, 2400 Dallas Pkwy., Suite 350, Plano, TX 75093. Voice: 972-801-4200;Website: www.fuego.com

HandySoft Global Corp.HandySoft Global Corp. delivers innovative solutions for Business Process

Management (BPM), workflow automation, and collaboration to commercial andgovernment marketplaces. Built on the foundation of BizFlow®, the award-winning BPMplatform, our solutions automate and simplify processes, enforce best practices, improvequality and productivity, and foster internal and external collaboration.

BizFlow offers complete capabilities for building and managing automated businessprocesses, including tools for designing and monitoring the processes, presenting andaccessing work, integrating existing IT systems, and platform administration.

BizFlow 9.0 is planned for release in spring 2004. BizFlow 9.0 enhancementsinclude Process Simulator, an integrated simulation and analysis environment thatenables fast definition of business conditions affecting process and participantperformance, with a high-performance engine delivering results in seconds. Uniquecustom report generation and optimization features for creating and sharing key findingshelp justify process improvement initiatives by highlighting inefficiencies and impactbefore implementation. BizFlow 9.0 includes wizard-based Web and J2EE servicefeatures for reusable, standards-based interoperability with IT resources such as ruleengines, enterprise applications, and external partner systems. Supporting BusinessActivity Monitoring (BAM) and “reaction in real-time,” wizard-based Event Responsefeatures have been expanded to include e-mail, queue, HTTP, database, and file eventsfor process initiation and activity completion.

BizFlow solutions are available with prepackaged, customizable process templatesand forms for common industries and applications, and also as custom-built solutionsthat meet specific organizational requirements. Installed in more than 380 sites with 2.5million users worldwide, BizFlow has won awards from the Workflow ManagementCoalition (WfMC) and Transform magazine.

HandySoft Global Corp., 1952 Gallows Rd., Ste. 200, Vienna, VA 22182.Voice: 703-442-5600 or 800-753-9343; Website: www.handysoft.com


iGrafxiGrafx is a leader in software and services for Business Process Analysis (BPA).

The iGrafx family of products is a comprehensive suite of BPA tools that helporganizations visualize, analyze and optimize their processes. Our underlying approachto BPA begins with a focus on the business analyst’s ability to quickly and easilydocument and analyze process flows in a consistent and easy-to-understand notation.iGrafx provides a solid foundation for approaching business process documentation fromthe most logical starting point—the business analyst—and easily translating it into an IT-centric, execution view. iGrafx supports the leading process notation standard—BusinessProcess Modeling Notation (BPMN) and execution language—Business ProcessExecution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS).

iGrafx provides integrated support for major corporate process initiatives andregulatory requirements such as Six Sigma, Lean, ISO, Sarbanes Oxley, and TQM. iGrafxintegrates with the leading Business Process Management (BPM) executionenvironments, corporate application development environments, and enterprisearchitecture environments. iGrafx easily supports both centralized and decentralizedapproaches to process improvement through flexible deployment options and aclient/server architecture.

iGrafx BPA products and services provide an easy to use, powerful, and flexiblesuite of solutions for the range of process management challenges an organizationfaces. Easy enough for business users, powerful enough for process improvementexperts, and flexible enough for IT users, iGrafx enables organizations to design,simulate, and implement high-performance business processes.

iGrafx, 7585 SW Mohawk, Tualatin, OR 97062. Voice: 503-404-6050; Website:www.igrafx.com/bij04

IntalioFounded in July 1999 by recognized innovators in enterprise software development,

Intalio is a privately held, venture-backed company headquartered in San Mateo, CA,with offices in the U.K. and in central Europe.

Intalio’s mission is to empower Global 2,000 firms to become process-managedorganizations.

With its Intalio|n3 product line, now in Version 2.5, Intalio is a leading provider ofenterprise-class Business Process Management Systems (BPMS) for orchestratingprocesses that span multiple systems or partners. It is the first and only standards-based and platform-neutral BPMS that enables best-in-class business processes to beextended into executable and manageable processes that can be directly deployed ontoexisting IT assets and seamlessly directed by business users.

INDUSTRY CREDENTIALSIntalio serves the market with an impressive array of BPM credentials. The company:

• Initiated and co-founded BPMI.org in August 2000 • Authored key BPM standards, including the Business Process Modeling Language(BPML) and the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)

• Co-submitted with IBM and Microsoft the Business Process Execution Language(BPEL) 1.1 specification to OASIS in April 2003

• Participates in the OASIS Technical Committee to guide BPEL to standardization.

This work has strengthened not only the BPM market, but also Intalio—providinginvaluable experience and insight the company has distilled into its own enterprise-classBPMS. By using BPM offerings from Intalio, organizations now have the power tocompletely and seamlessly manage the entire life cycle of their business processes—from design to execution to optimization.

Intalio, 1900 S. Norfolk St., Suite 290, San Mateo, CA 94403-1164. Voice: 650-577-4700; Website: www.intalio.com

iSpheres iSpheres is one of the pioneers in Business Activity Monitoring (BAM). Even before

the term existed, iSpheres was enabling companies to “sense and respond” to dynamicopportunities and threats. The company’s core event-driven architecture and complexevent processing capabilities are the basis of iSpheres’ real-time event server, callediSpheres Halo.

With successful deployments in finance, supply chain and government, iSpheresrecognized that each BAM application, regardless of the industry or business area,possesses a similar set of functional requirements, which include:

• Efficiently monitoring distributed sources of data and events • Correlating and detecting critical events in real-time• Alerting users and/or triggering application flows upon detecting an event • Allowing end users to define and manage event scenarios on-the-fly

BAM applications require some degree of customization to support a customer’sdesign requirements and business case. It is for this reason that iSpheres can serve manymarket segments with a central, extensible platform as opposed to “point solutions.”

To minimize development time, iSpheres Halo utilizes industry-accepted programmingmodels and standards, including Java, XML, SOAP, and JMX. iSpheres Halo also leveragesa loosely coupled hub-and-spoke architecture, which enables multiple applications to bedeveloped on one platform and provides a lower total cost of ownership.

The origins of iSpheres are a 10-year research project funded by the DefenseAdvanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Air Force Office of ScientificResearch (AFOSR). The research was conducted at the California Institute of Technology(Caltech) to develop the underlying mathematics, algorithms and framework fordynamically reconfigurable command and control systems.

iSpheres Corp., 640 Third St., Oakland, CA 94607. Voice: 510-302-6700; Website: www.ispheres.com

Lombardi Software Lombardi Software is the developer of TeamWorks®, award-winning Business

Process Management (BPM) software that enables organizations to identify and improveprocess inefficiencies that, when not addressed, cost millions of dollars in lost revenue,margin, and operating expenses.

Lombardi’s unique approach to BPM focuses on managing processes and easilyadapting to business changes—enabling companies to continuously derive value from theiroperational and financial processes over time. By providing ongoing visibility into businessprocesses and increasing the velocity with which organizations can respond to mission-critical events, TeamWorks enables Global 2000 companies, such as Sprint, PulteMortgage, Dell, Hasbro, and Wells Fargo, to create new efficiencies, improve profitability,and increase their overall business value through Continuous Process Improvement (CPI).

TeamWorks is changing the way companies manage their business with out-of-the-box performance tracking, reporting and improvement capabilities that move BPMbeyond process automation and into active process management. TeamWorkscontinuously monitors (BAM) for critical business events, throughout multiple internaland external systems, or within specific processes, collects data and transforms thatinformation into a meaningful context that enables senior executives and managers tomake informed, real-time decisions that drive process efficiencies and operationalresponsiveness. Lombardi’s Zero-Code™ technology, designed to facilitate the rapidchange required to deliver CPI, underlies the entire TeamWorks platform.

Key processes benefiting from Lombardi’s BPM solutions include: customer ordermanagement, supplier management, purchase order management, inventorymanagement, product distribution, customer service, financial/treasury management andregulatory management.

Lombardi Software, 4516 Seton Center Pkwy., Suite 250, Austin, TX 78759.Voice: 877-582-3450 or 512-382-8200; Website: www.lombardisoftware.com


MicrosoftBuilding the Smart, Connected Enterprise With BizTalk Server 2004Microsoft creates technology to enable business users to critically analyze how

their company runs and to be more agile when engaging in new business opportunities.Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2004 is at the heart of its vision for delivering acomprehensive integration solution.

As part of Windows Server System™, BizTalk Server 2004 helps customersefficiently and effectively integrate systems, employees and trading partners throughmanageable business processes, enabling them to automate and orchestrateinteractions in a highly flexible, highly automated manner. These capabilities areinherently integrated into the application architecture of Windows Server System andcombine the benefits of tight integration with Microsoft Office and Microsoft VisualStudio®. .NET. Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) tools, such as Microsoft OfficeInfoPath™, Microsoft Office Visio®, and Microsoft Office SharePoint™ Portal Server,integrate with BizTalk Server to provide customers with real-time visibility into businessprocesses. Furthermore, BizTalk Server ensures optimal productivity for developers byharnessing the familiar development environment of Visual Studio and standards-basedXML Web services. As a result, developers can deliver more secure and reliablebusiness process integration within and across organizational boundaries. Existingmainframe and AS/400 systems can also be connected to new systems and businessprocesses by using Microsoft Host Integration Server with BizTalk Server. With itscomprehensive infrastructure for integrating applications, data sources, and peoplewithin heterogeneous environments, BizTalk Server provides the foundation for buildingand managing the smart, connected enterprise.

Microsoft Corp., One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399. Website:www.microsoft.com/biztalk/

PegasystemsPegasystems provides rules-based, smart Business Process Management (BPM)

software for large organizations, delivering significant ROI and providing them with theflexibility and agility to respond to changing business needs. With annualized revenuesof approximately $100 million and a blue-chip customer base, the company offers bothhorizontal, enterprisewide BPM platforms and solutions, and packaged vertical BPMapplications for the financial services, healthcare, insurance, and government markets.

PegaRULES Process Commander V4 is the latest generation of Pega’s smartBPM platform for efficiently developing, executing, managing and evolving decision-intensive BPM applications. Java and XML-based, it features built-in versioning,simple rules creation forms oriented to business users, and a built-in, browser-baseddevelopment environment.

To deliver operational, quality and service excellence across the enterprise,Pegasystems offers such horizontal solutions as Pega Quality & Exception Managerand Pega Customer Process Manager. The former enables large organizations tomaximize operational performance, quality initiatives and customer satisfactionthrough proactive exception management; the latter provides a process-orientedcontact center solution that applies an organization’s business rules and bestpractices to provide exceptional customer service and one-call resolution across allcustomer touchpoints.

Pegasystems also leverages its expertise in financial services and healthcare with arange of industry-specific, packaged applications and product suites, delivering solutionsfor card issuers and acquirers; check research and adjustment; payments investigations;healthcare claims processing; and healthcare service and support, including bothmember and provider services.

Pegasystems (NASDAQ: PEGA) is headquartered in Cambridge, MA, and hasregional offices in North America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim.

Pegasystems Inc., 101 Main St., Cambridge, MA 02142. Voice: 617-374-9600;Website: www.pega.com

Proforma Corp. Today’s top business leaders know that an automated process will not save their

organization time or money unless a well-designed, strategic plan is in place first.That’s why they ensure their processes support the organization’s strategic directionbefore they launch costly BPM initiatives. Smart executives realize that processmodeling and analysis are paramount to effective BPM planning.

Proforma Corp. is an established leader in business process improvement,process simulation, and enterprise architecture. Its powerful ProVision modeling suiteand experienced service team combine to help organizations optimize their businessand IT.

Over the last decade, thousands of premier organizations have discovered whyindustry analysts praise ProVision for its ease of use, functionality, and strongmethodology. An integrated solution with a Web-server repository, ProVision quicklydelivers results by defining strategy, improving processes, and modelingrequirements and systems. All these steps lay the groundwork for successful BPM.

ProVision is the ideal choice to front-end BPM tools because it:

• Promotes process analysis and improvement prior to automation• Models both automated and manual activities, which are important to enterpriseoperations but often forgotten in BPM efforts

• Serves as a single front-end to many process automation tools.

ProVision’s robust process modeling and simulation environment allowsorganizations to analyze current operations and design and simulate new and improvedprocesses. In other words, ProVision empowers organizations to become process-centric.As a result, they save time and money and add value.

Ensure your BPM initiative’s success and secure your competitive advantage. CallProforma.

Proforma Corp., 26261 Evergreen Rd., Suite #200, Southfield, MI 48076.Voice: 888-PVW-6903; Website: www.proformacorp.com

SeeBeyond Technology Corp.

The ability to quickly recognize and respond to changing market, partner, andcustomer dynamics is critical in today’s environment. Process-driven businessintegration is a must, allowing organizations to adjust quickly and dynamically to thesechanging business conditions with minimal impact. As a leading provider of enterpriseintegration solutions, SeeBeyond allows companies to automate and optimize businessprocesses that orchestrate the flow of activities across any number of systems, bridgingthe gaps and inefficiencies left open by siloed processes.

Based on 14 years of software innovation and real-world experience inintegrating systems across Global 2000 organizations, SeeBeyond delivers theindustry’s first fully J2EE-certified, integrated composite application network built ona comprehensive integration platform. With the SeeBeyond Integrated CompositeApplication Network (ICAN) Suite, organizations are now capable of rapidly deployingan infinitely scalable infrastructure to enable the development, deployment, executionand management of composite applications based upon a completely open,standards-based, service-oriented architecture. Composite applications leverageexisting systems and logic, and repurpose them to achieve new business goals.Beyond eAI, the SeeBeyond ICAN suite, helps organizations extract real businessvalue from their investments to dramatically improve business operations, resulting inreduced costs, increased market share, and improved customer service andsatisfaction.

SeeBeyond has more than 1,880 customers worldwide, including ABB, ABN Amro,BHP Billiton, The Cleveland Clinic, The Dial Corp., DuPont, Florida Power & Light, FluorDaniel, Fujitsu, General Motors, Halliburton, Hertz Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, Pfizer,Samsung, Sprint, Sutter Health, and UnitedHealth Group.

SeeBeyond Technology Corp., 800 E. Royal Oaks Dr., Monrovia, CA 91016.Voice: 800-425-0541; e-Mail: [email protected]; Website: www.seebeyond.com


StaffwareStaffware is a leading Business Process Management (BPM) specialist with more

than 1,500 enterprise customers within the banking, insurance, telecommunications,utilities, general commercial, manufacturing, and government sectors. Staffware isheadquartered in the U.K., has offices in 17 countries, and employs approximately 370people. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is the leadingprofitable, debt-free, global vendor focused exclusively on providing BPM solutions.Staffware Corp. is headquartered in New York City with sales, development and supportcenters in Arlington, TX, and Spokane, WA.

Staffware, with its nearly 20 years of BPM expertise, has unique insight into thecomplex people-to-people, people-to-application, and application-to-applicationinteractions that make up business processes. Its Staffware Process Suite builds on thisinsight to provide a complete set of tools to create, transform and streamline the internaland external processes and tasks of an organization. This platform enables the creationof an Independent Process Layer™ that separates process from the underlying IT/dataenvironment, facilitating the rapid development and change to an organization’s process.The Staffware Process Suite is an open, standards-based solution that ensures seamlessintegration and full interoperability with existing IT infrastructures and applications.

Staffware, 1270 Avenue of the Americas, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10020. Voice:212-218-7420; Website: www.staffware.com

Ultimus Ultimus provides a complete software product, the Ultimus BPM Suite, and

complementary services to help organizations build competitive advantage faster and easierthan is possible with any other alternative. The Ultimus solution is simply the fastest andeasiest BPM solution on the market to implement, manage, and use. It provides hundredsof out-of-the-box features that can be leveraged in automated business processes, withoutrequiring programming or scripting. Additionally, a variety of open interfaces are available toextend and integrate the product into any existing corporate infrastructure, and the UltimusWorkflow Development Methodology provides a clear path for successful implementations,with guidelines for activities, deliverables, and timeframes for your project team.

Featuring easily understandable user interfaces, the BPM Suite promotes daily usein process implementation and management for non-technical software users. Customersin a variety of industries use the suite to support customer care (e.g., custom quoteprocessing, new account setup), product development (e.g., localization, defectresolution), administration (e.g., invoice processing, capital equipment requests), humanresources (e.g., employee roll-on, merit reviews), and many more areas. In most cases,they are using the product to support many different processes that cross departmentalboundaries to deliver superior service. For example, a growing, top-10 financial institutionhas implemented more than 100 automated processes in the last two years. Many othercustomers have deployed 30 or more processes that touch users and customersthroughout their organizations. Customers who have partnered with Ultimus havecaptured a number of diverse and compelling benefits, including higher productivity,improved quality, reduced cost per transaction, and increased profits.

Ultimus, 15200 Weston Pkwy., Suite 106, Cary, NC 27513. Voice: 919-678-0900;Website: www.ultimus.com

Vitria TechnologyBusiness processes are a fundamental building block of organizational success.

Vitria (NASDAQ: VITR) is the only company that brings together a unique, provencombination of software, services and vertical market expertise to help customersdevelop a clear and deep understanding of business processes, how they function, andhow to manage them to impact the business’s bottom line.

From its heritage as an EAI pioneer and early leadership in Business ProcessManagement (BPM), Vitria was first-to-market with a commercially viable BPM solution,adding those capabilities to the Vitria:BusinessWare™ platform in 1997. As a result,Vitria enjoys a market lead of more than seven years of R&D, four years of real-worlddeployments, and more than 500 satisfied customers. Vitria has also built well-known

expertise in healthcare, telecommunications, financial services and manufacturing,providing a rapid ROI for customers.

Vitria’s differentiator, Business Process Integration (BPI), uses visual models toprovide real-time visibility and control of strategic business processes that crossapplications, data, people, and companies. Through a fusion of best practices, processintegration technology and implementation services, Vitria provides the missing linksneeded to align IT investments with business goals, such as operational efficiency,lowering costs and reduced time-to-market for new products and services. In otherwords, making your BPM solution fit your business, not the other way around.

Leading global companies trust Vitria to help them create measurable, sustainablebusiness outcomes using BPI. They include: AT&T, BankFirst, BP, Blue Cross Blue ShieldAssociation and member companies, DaimlerChrysler Bank, Ford, Humana, MasterBrandCabinets, Nissan, PacifiCare, Royal Bank of Canada, Sprint, Toro, XM Satellite Radio, andhundreds of others.

Vitria Technology, Inc., 945 Stewart Dr., Sunnyvale, CA 94085. Voice: 408-212-2700; Website: www.vitria.com

webMethodswebMethods is the industry’s first Web services infrastructure company, delivering

enterprise-class solutions for integration, Web services, Business Process Management(BPM), and Business Activity Monitoring (BAM). Combining an innovative product portfoliowith solid experience and unparalleled support, webMethods helps customers streamlinetheir business operations, maximize their existing IT assets, and reduce their costs.

Through world-class Web services infrastructure, integration, portal and analyticstechnologies, webMethods delivers the ability to build a new generation of businesssystems, providing unparalleled visibility and control.

At the core of webMethods is webMethods Fabric™, a standards-based, EnterpriseService-Oriented Architecture (ESOA) infrastructure for building, deploying andmanaging Web services applications. webMethods Fabric takes Service-OrientedArchitecture (SOA) concepts to the next level by combining powerful, comprehensiveSOA capabilities with enterprise-class quality of service (QoS). As the first deliveredESOA solution, webMethods Fabric enables enterprises to quickly go from small, static,brittle, ad hoc networks of unmanaged Web services to larger, dynamic, robust,coordinated networks of managed services.

Recognized in 2003 as the fastest growing software company in North America byDeloitte, webMethods is headquartered in Fairfax, VA, with offices throughout the U.S.,Europe, Asia Pacific, and Japan. webMethods has more than 1,050 enterprise customersthat include Global 2000 leaders such as Bank of America, Citibank, Dell, EastmanChemical, Grainger, and Motorola. webMethods has targeted solutions for the consumerpackaged goods/retail, financial services, government and manufacturing industries.webMethods’ strategic partners include Accenture, AMS, BearingPoint, BMC Software,Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, CSC, Deloitte, EDS, HP, i2 Technologies, PeopleSoft, SAP AG,Siebel Systems, and TCS.

webMethods, 3930 Pender Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030. Voice: 703-460-5822;Website: www.webmethods.com

BPM Wall ChartTo order additional copies of the BPM Wall Chart that accompanied this issue of BusinessIntegration Journal, fax this order form to Blair Thomas at 214-341-7081, contact him byphone at 214-340-2147, or e-mail him at [email protected].

The BPM Wall Chart you receive will be rolled and shipped in a mailing tube, not folded andcreased like the copy included with this issue. The cost for the BPM Wall Chart is $15.

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