Customer Reviews

The Power of Process: Unleashing the Source of Competitive Advantage

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a graduate student with significant work experience, I was enlightened and entertained in reading The Power of Process. The book was used as one of the staples in an IT/eCommerce Course. The different approach of relaying knowledge and information via a story-telling format was refreshing and different.

The book lays the groundwork in the beginning with definitions and clarifications, then progresses to organization-wide, cultural changes in business process that is needed to give your organization a "leg up". Good comparisons are made to other methodologies such as LEAN and Six-Sigma. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and its context with BPM are explained. Another good thing, is that each chapter provides key take-aways to reinforce concepts and facts.

Recommended for students and professionals alike to digest something that has taken hold and is emerging as a value-added force and sometimes a "must-have" in business today.

I read the Power of Process as part of my MBA program. This book has an interesting approach to communicating concepts in Technology. Rather than having a list of technical concepts, Dr. Garimella tells a story. With this approach you find yourself relating to the characters. This book does not try to sell you on one approach vs. another. Dr. Garimella shows how BPM is related to Six Sigma and LEAN. As most of us have learned, these methodologies should be viewed as tools in a tool box and there is a time and place for each of them. I recommend this book for the technical community and non-technical people a like.

Kiran followed the style of The Goal by Goldratt and Cox and The Choice by Russell Roberts in creating The Power of Process. It takes a popular management and technology trend - Business Process Management (BPM) - and walks the reader through it by using a story.

The reader experiences and learns about BPM theory, its link to Six Sigma, the technology, and technical frameworks such as SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) by listening to a mythical conversation between a consultant and his client. The client in this case is a typical company struggling with the pressures of sustaining growth, compliance, and organizational dynamics.

I would recommend the book for anyone looking to learn more about BPM and how to sell it or explain it to their peers. BPM offers a lot of value to companies, but its link to technology often pushes it towards the CIO. The Power of Process makes BPM a CEO level conversation and sheds different perspectives on the value.

From working with several clients in this area, I found the book to accurately represent the typical questions and present compelling and simplistic descriptions and analogies for the answers.

Working in an ISO 9001 government agency, I still find it interesting to see where process is going to take us. This book helps connect the dots from process mapping to Service Oriented Architecture. However, it does it in a humorous and interesting way by building a novel around a series of textbook lessons. Dr. Garimella's use of the language sometimes borders on the flowery but this doesn't distract from the important message that business is still in the throes of learning--process management trumps every other new idea.

I use this book as part of readings for my Information Systems for Business course of the Professional MBA program. It covers all the must know concepts of BPM in a very entertaining story-telling way. I consider it a great first book on BPM. The author Dr. Garimella at one time called in during class to have a dialog with students on BPM discussions, an experience many students found very useful and unique.

"The Power of Process: Unleashing the Source of Competitive Advantage" not only makes the value of business process management clear to business executives by cutting through the technical swamp and buzz-words that go with with Business Process Management, but also does this in a lively and interesting way. I would strongly recemmend this book to business leaders who would like to leverage technology to foster agility and innovation in their organizations.

- Amit Mitra, Senior Manager, TCS Global Consulting Practice

While BPM is first and foremost a management discipline that focuses on improving corporate performance by actively managing a company's business processes, some have used the term "BPM" when referencing process redesign efforts, six sigma, balanced scorecard, identifying business managers to manage processes, and software that automates the runtime execution of a process. Dr. Garimella explains BPM in terms and context that are easy to understand across a variety of audiences. While the book has a technology angle, it does explain how the management perspectives, six sigma and LEAN methodologies, software tools, and change management thinking can be combined to create a more effective organization. For this reason, the book is well worth the investment.

I bought this item as a result of my believing that four/five star reviews always means something.

WHO IS THE BOOK FOR?
For those believing that story-telling can be of assistance in more substantial way than academic, intellectual and managerial rigour.
For those madly loving a corporate talk without even trying to wonder whether some of 'wise' CxO-like phrases mean anything.
For those who study 'best-selling' books about 'moving your cheese', 'the power of saying no', 'the power of saying yes', 'searching for happiness', et cetera.
For those constantly wishing to have silver-bullets, golden-rules, 101 ways of doing things right/doing right things.
For those managers who prefer easy reading to hard working and thinking.

WHO IS GOING TO WASTE HIS TIME WHILE READING THE BOOK?
1. Experienced BPM consultants.
2. BPM instructors.
3. Business/system analysts.
4. Application developers/architects

With certainty, this book is not for all those who already know some famous titles created by John Jeston, Ravi Anupindi and John O'Connell (and others, of course), except if you are bored with reading more substantial stuff.

Kiran's conversational approach to BPM and how IT enables it via SOA infrastructures(read Enterprise Service Bus(ESB) products) that includes Business Activity Monitoring(BAM) capabilities giving business users/managers near realtime visibility into the business processes hits the crux of Enterprise Architecture(EA) though he never mentions EA. This is a must read for Architects, Technical Managers, CFOs, CEOs and CIOs.

The Power of Process has been most useful in understanding emerging technical concepts through the art of story telling. The story is well "spiced" with humor and flows very well. I recommend this for all business and IT managers - irrespective of the industry type.