Product Description
Speed, quality, low cost, flexibility, agility and effectiveness of business processes are universal goals that have been around as long as there has been competition. Your business enterprise is only as effective as its business processes. The accelerating pace of business change and globalization over the past decade has made it mandatory for business to continuously improve these attributes. Many separate management disciplines (Six Sigma, business process reengineering, business process automation) and technology solutions (workflow, enterprise integration, collaboration, etc.) have evolved to achieve these goals. Business Process Management (BPM) is the federation of these technologies which targets managing and continuously improving the business process. BPM is the greatest opportunity companies have to become process managed. BPM is a Killer way of working born out of the need to manage the continuously changing business process.
BPM is not a new management theory, but it is a new way of working. BPM includes, but is not limited to supporting Six Sigma, Balanced Scorecard, Total Quality Management, Business process re-engineering, etc. BPM products provide the set of tools and services needed to manage the business process no matter what combination of management theory you use. When a business process is automated and managed using BPM tools the end result is a BPMS (Business Process Management System). BPMS (Business Process Management Systems) will enable the extended enterprise to manage its business process value chain across enterprise applications, customers, suppliers and partners. The BPM product will provide all the necessary services needed for end-to-end process management. BPMS is the business process management platform that orchestrates the business process with all the human and system participants giving complete visibility and control to the business managers.
But there has been extensive hype, confusion and different versions of what BPM is by various vendors and consultants. Many people think workflow in BPM. Workflow vendors have just renamed their products to BPM products. EAI vendors believe connecting applications and allowing smooth flow of data is being process managed. So EAI vendors have added some new features to existing EAI products and declared their products to be BPM products. Some think BPM is about redefining business processes . BPM vendors claim that business users can implement BPMS without the need for programming and IT department. This book clears all these misconceptions.
Having implemented mission critical BPMS for over 3.5 years I write this book from the other side of the fence. This book is about the need for BPM, what is BPM, BPM concepts from a management and technology standpoint, designing and implementing BPMS. This book covers the "what and why" of BPM presenting examples why BPM cannot be ignored by companies. Then the book covers the "how of BPM" mentioning in details the process life cycle (design-deploy-monitor-optimize) coupled with best practices and implementation strategies. The book also covers the "when and where" of BPM and how companies are profiting from being process managed. I make clear that implementing BPMS is a challenging task and is not very easy. It requires clear understanding of BPM. This book will be useful for BPM implementors and stakeholders to understand the need for BPM, the high level planning and commitment needed, BPM implementation and best practices and Process Excellence examples. This book provides a vendor neutral roadmap to implement BPMS.
From the Author
In today's Knowledge and Service based economy, business processes are key assets of companies. Companies deliver value to customers by executing their business processes. Yet most companies say their business processes are opaque, rigid, inflexible and cost inefficient. Before BPM the technology did not exist which enabled companies to automate and manage business processes in real time. BPMS enables companies to manage business process change, unlike today’s IT applications which mitigate business change after the fact. I have implemented BPMS (Business Process Management Systems) and have seen the power of real time process management.BPM is the greatest opportunity businesses have to become process-managed enterprises.
