BPM and SOA

A good first step to implementing a BPMS is to "develop a simple and flexible integration architecture, especially if the BPM application will be used as a monitoring or orchestration layer placed on top of existing transactional applications", says Dennis Korevitski, former director of supply chain systems for T-Mobile. If a service-oriented architecture (SOA) or middleware layer already exists, BPM platforms can leverage this investment by rapidly orchestrating available services into a business process. For example, T-Mobile implemented Lombardi Software's TeamWorks BPMS to recover lost revenue from a complex returns process. The process involves customers and OEMs as well as internal financial and customer care groups. TeamWorks was able to take advantage of some existing integration points in T-Mobile's Tibco infrastructure, allowing the BPM team to focus on improving the process.

Sometimes BPM drives an organization towards an SOA. "We would have got there eventually," says Doug Schwinn, CIO at toy maker Hasbro. "But BPM gave us the justification to open up to our partners in a secure manner with SOA." If an SOA is not available, many BPMS platforms provide toolkits for legacy systems integration.

Although the emergence of improved integration technologies and SOA have made legacy integration easier, "you need to have respect for the hard-core challenges of integrating to legacy systems", says Phil Gilbert, CTO of Lombardi Software. "It is hard work, and it takes more time than most businesspeople would like."

Gilbert recommends that BPM initiatives decouple the integration effort from process design - in other words, IT should manage the underlying systems integration while the business analysts are working on process design. This approach gets functionality into the hands of end users faster, even if additional systems integration shows up in later releases and further streamlines the process.

Process management challenges can arise as BPM spreads throughout an organization. Changing process flows or data sources can cause unintended side-effects. But the potential to measurably improve overall organizational performance makes it well worth the effort to manage those risks. Gilbert says that the industry has only begun to scratch the surface. "The strategic value of BPM technology is process governance and providing a holistic view into all of a company's running processes - whether [the BPM platform] executes them or not."

"The ideal BPMS essentially will be a database management system for your business processes," says author Fingar. "The real breakthrough is in creating a definition of your process as abstract data." To remain competitive, organizations will have to build the capabilities to manage processes as quickly and effectively as they currently manage data.

Mark Cooper is a managing partner with Athens Group, a consultancy in Austin, Texas. He can be reached at mcooper@athensgroup.com

EDITOR'S NOTE: Athens Group clients include two of the companies mentioned in this article: Lacks Valley Stores and Lombardi Software.