Business process management (BPM) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) cannot live in isolation.
This was the finding during an executive forum hosted by ITWeb and presented by Tibco, at Monte Casino, yesterday.
The conference aimed to unite business leaders and CIOs to discuss business process strategies and IT trends.
Catherine Lynch, head of Tibco product marketing for Northern Europe, Middle East and Africa, spoke on the influence BPM has on SOA.
“A unified approach to BPM and SOA adds strategic value to the organisation. Business models are changing rapidly from a pull model to a push model, and businesses need to be innovative and market their products within a short time frame.”
Lynch added: “Tibco is seeing trends where IT departments are having a less exclusive role and are supporting mission-critical processes with business objectives.”
Terry White, director of MarketWorks and author of Reinventing the IT Department, said one of the biggest challenges facing BPM is that the business' roles are not externalised and that leaves the door open to corruption.
Jan Labuschagne, enterprise architect for Telkom SA, said establishing a BPM culture through various interventions, such as workshops and training, will drive business benefits.
Pieter Langenhoven, Tibco project manager, said it is critical for businesses to create a single partnership of people, processes, IT, customers and vendors, “to unify stakeholders, create partnerships and create an awareness of BPM at all business levels of the company”.
He pointed out that a specialised BPM manager should be employed and a competency centre should be started in the initiation phase. Companies must also identity the right people for the job and the requirements of the business model, and always consider time, cost and quality, he added.
Langenhoven said having the right resources at the right time makes it easier to plan for project management. “You can be the best project manager but if you don't have communication, you will fail. A development approach is key - focus on getting the business exposed to quick wins. IT cannot create BPM in isolation, it needs to work in a partnership with the business leaders.”
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