If anyone asks me what is happening in the BPM Systems (software) market the reply I give, without any hesitation, is that BPMS IS DEAD.

Now that certainly doesn’t seem to make any sense if you look at the sales growth of BPMS vendors and market predictions from analysts covering BPMS. The reality is that the BPMS market is continuing to grow in respect to the amount of money being spent on the purchase of BPMS software products and the growth of that expenditure shows little sign of abating.

So why would I claim that BPMS is Dead?

The issue is not one of current market trends. Anyone with a bit of time on their hands can assemble some statistics on what is happening (from a sales perspective) and what has happened (historical), then produce a set of “predictive” trend statements. There are plenty of high school students I could hire for a song and a dance to do that.

Adding in surveys - the quintessential means analyst and research firms have for creating those insightful perspectives from the “trenches” - brings forth a rudimentary snapshot of likely buying habits for a 6 to 12 month window. Ok, so that is what people intend to do. But what happens to all of these trends if the realization hits home that the BIG 3 KPIs are NOT being delivered on? Crash and burn, baby. Crash and burn.

The BIG 3 Key Performance Indicators

We all know that KPIs are an integral part of our daily corporate lives in the pursuit of business success. Because many of our organizations are so big and so complex, we have identified the need to measure and manage against Key Performance Indicators that we believe are inherently linked to business success. Trends in KPIs should be reflections of business success.

That is a very important point. If KPIs truly serve their purpose then when KPIs are trending up, our business success had better be trending up as well. Conversely, if our KPIs are trending down this should be reflected in a reduction of business success. If KPIs are truly representative of business success this relationship must exist without any ambiguity. It’s the foundation of the KPI concept.

Now in regards to business success, I only see three KPIs that make any sense…

1) Increased Revenues
2) Decreased Costs
3) Improved Customer Satisfaction

These are the BIG THREE KPIs as we see it here at the Bennu Group, and if the work we are doing – or the investment we are making – is NOT delivering on at least one of these KPIs then we flirt dangerously close to our work or investment falling into the “dumb stuff” category.

BPM Systems – The Vision is Lost

For BPM systems market drivers (what customers think they want) have driven product vision into creation of processes that struggle to deliver on anything more than incremental reduction in cost. That’s one KPI… but the story doesn’t end there.

Unfortunately the Trifecta of Business Success too often operates in a give and take mode, where a gain in one area produces a loss in one or both of the other areas. This is the most common case for processes implemented in BPM systems.

It’s not that the software isn’t well-designed, robust and feature-rich. That is NOT the problem. The problem is how people use it – and unfortunately in the vast majority of BPMS applications the results produce a net loss when all the BIG 3 KPIs are factored into the results equation.

When this realization finally hits home the BPM market will do the BIG FLUSH and that is why I know that the BPMS market is already DEAD.

BPMS is DEAD – Long Live BPMS…

However, this cloud of gloom and doom does have a silver lining. While the current application of BPMS products is fueling the rush to the big flush there is a saving grace at hand – the inherent flexibility of BPMS products.

We now know that to successfully deliver against all of the BIG 3 KPIs simultaneously requires the identification of process Points of Failure and Causes of Work followed by the reduction in both. That ALWAYS means we will be removing waste from our process models (yes, there is waste there – lot’s of waste. Current practice only understands the Tip of the Iceberg).

So when we finally see the light – or when we are dragged kicking and screaming to it – we find that our processes immediately undergo significant change.

If processes are stuck inside a traditional enterprise application then the work required to actually change the process model is probably not worth even considering – assuming we can even find a way to accomplish same.

Yet if the process model is in a BPMS we can indeed change what needs to be changed – that’s one of the fundamental concepts of BPMS products – without ripping out our hair or committing hara-kiri.

For that reason alone – even if you haven’t seen the light nor want to – the investment in BPMS for technology used for executing process models makes more sense than most of the other choices.

But remember, the reason you are buying it now is not the reason you should be buying it… unless you are one of those that has already seen “the light.”