BPM solution versus BPM offering....Are you aware of the differences?

by Emily McKenzie on Wed, Nov 12, 2008 @ 03:46 PM

There have been some recent announcements from some of the largest technologies providers about new business process management offerings.  While it is exciting to see that BPM is being recognized as a valued software offering by the largest of software vendors, I am careful to read the fine details of what is being "offered".  Large software application providers have the convenience of associating their numerous and often disparate applications together as a single enterprise offering.  What this means to the customer is that there is some work to connect the separate applications as a single and cohesive software solution.  There are some positives and some concerns with building an enterprise in this way:

  • Positive:  You can mix and match applications (or pieces of those applications) to build your enterprise BPM application as you wish
  • Concern:  In order for the applications to collectively serve as an enterprise application, you have to specifically manage the data transfer between these applications
  • Positive:  You are probably using some of these applications for other uses (and as such, you are already familiar with how they work individually)
  • Concern:  While each individual application works well on its own, its fit with other applications could be described as "forcing a square peg in a round hole"
  • Positive:  The large software vendors are constantly releasing new features and functions
  • Concern:  As each individual application has its own release schedule, you must ensure the new application versions are compatible with one another (and do not "break" your pieced together enterprise application)

On the contrary, utilizing a BPMS that is organically grown as a comprehensive and singular BPMS overcomes the concerns listed above.  By investing in a BPMS that is not a collection of individual applications, you can ensure that:

  • the data you collection in one module is accurately represented in the other BPMS modules
  • each module in the BPMS is designed and tested to work seamlessly together with one another
  • you will not need to constantly manage application updates to just one part of the BPMS (each new version of the BPMS is offered as an update to the entire BPMS itself)

One point not discussed thus far is the mixing individual applications with a collection of custom code and/or workflow engine APIs.  Collectively, a workflow offering could be developing by utilizing this concert of technologies.  But remember that each line of code you develop on your own is not just an investment, but also can be considered a liability (in that special care must be made to ensure your custom code continues to compile and execute as your BPM needs change).  Moreover, if you choose to develop your own custom code to serve your enterprise application needs, then you must ensure that you have the proper change management, code security, and code management policies in place (to ensure inadvertent or improper changes to your code do not adversely affect your live BPM implementations).

With all this in mind, why not leave the work of developing and offering a BPMS to a pure play BPM vendor and put your time and money where it should be....on your business.

 

Chris Adams
VP of Product Marketing and Management
Ultimus

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This post was written by Emily McKenzie