BPM Tests: Software Assessment

As more and more organizations are implementing
BPM-based solutions, many are beginning to realize the
limitations of traditional "pure-play" BPM products, which
often offer only process management functionality. While
this type of BPM works well for simple, transactional
processes within departments, it doesn't provide the
functionality or infrastructure needed to support complex,
collaborative processes that extend across the enterprise.

Luckily, a new class of BPM technology has emerged - the
BPM suite. Poised to take advantage of the full promise of
process management, BPM suites deliver a comprehensive
platform of functionality. Unlike older pure-play BPM
products, suites have been designed and architected from
the ground up to speed development of powerful
process-driven, context-sensitive business applications.

In addition to powerful process management functionality,
BPM suites include a range of other integrated capabilities,
such as document management, collaborative tools,
knowledge communities, business analytics, personalization,
and business activity monitoring. BPM suites leverage
flexible portal frameworks that accelerate application
development and use emerging standards like JSR 168,
UDDI, and WSRP to speed integration. Modular and
services-oriented, BPM suite architectures are designed
to facilitate rapid application development.

The new generation of BPM suites is also designed for
enterprise scalability. These suites feature elegant, intuitive
user interfaces. They make business process tools accessible
to every enterprise user. The best include 100% HTML-based
process designers that cost 10-20 times less in terms of
deployment, training, and support versus older client-server
tools. And BPM suites are platform independent, further
reducing deployment and integration costs.

When choosing a BPM solution, start tactically but think
strategically. Today, BPM may be needed to support just a
few critical processes. Tomorrow, process management will
be the glue that brings employees and enterprise systems
together to function as a coordinated whole. Plan accordingly
by using the functionality checklist above as a starting point
for evaluating BPM solutions.

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