BPM Program Implementation – An Important Checklist for Success

Since the emergence of Business Process Management (BPM), organisations adopting it have had a wide variety of experiences – some successful and others less so. Some would argue that because BPM is so amorphous that any project is considered to be analogous to ‘boiling the ocean’ and therefore the outcomes may vary from exceptionally successful to, in some cases, disastrous.

Typical challenges that often cause concerns during a BPM initiative include:

• Focus on automation supersedes process excellence and continuous improvement
• Complex transformation programs end up in failures, as the business scope is not prioritised and the program roadmap not defined in advance
• Traditional Waterfall business requirements & process analysis phase takes  an average of 6 – 9 months  with no results to show in production for at least a year and as a result, business sponsors often get disillusioned with BPM
• Lack of alignment between the investments across business strategy, process improvement and automation activities

Who’s next on the HP BPM Aquistions list?

After the recent news that Open Text is to acquire Metastorm, it has been revealed that the long rumoured HP talks with Tibco have not gone as planned.

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According to a Reuters article,

Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) had considered buying business software company Tibco Software Inc (TIBX.O) until two weeks ago when talks fizzled, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The Reuters article goes on to say that

It was not clear why the talks fell apart or if they will be resumed, although the tech giant is currently scouring the industry for other software targets, the sources said.

Tibco has been the subject of takeout rumors for the past several years, yet the company has never disclosed that it has been in talks to sell itself.

The question now is who will HP target to fill its capability gaps? Doug Henschen (InformationWeek) thinks that

If HP is now shopping for other companies, as Reuters’ report suggests, Software AG and Progress Softwareare both potential targets, given their integration, SOA infrastructure, and business process management software. Software AG is larger than Tibco, with about $1.4 billion in revenue last year. Progress is smaller, at $156 million in 2010 revenue.

What are your thoughts?