We are aiming to deliver a BPM type platform that does just that. But throw into the mix adaptive ECM capabilities and active CRM and we get a far richer and more holistic approach, capable of dealing with long tail needs, the sweet spot that BPMS works well for, and much more….We can even takle the whole social media arena and problems (social bpm, social crm etc etc)…

But that doesn’t mean that the day won’t come for a solution that spans the whole spectrum.

I agree not all BPMS are created equal, but even those that are more flexible still execute a rigid process. Changes are made by authors only, and a change will only be implemented for new items in the process. This is one of my points re how we think of BPM and how vendors execute it….In addition, the business needs to the people on the floor to be able to update a process if it needs be. Thats the only way in which to process in a truely efficient and quick fashion.

I think we also have to look at the way in which individuals work, how they want to work and how they may well work in the future. I have read a lot now about a change in our working habits, rather working as individuals that communicate, we will swarm and work on the same peice of work at the same time more as a team. BPM solutions, at present, are too rigid to implement this.

Finally (sorry for such a long response, but is a good conversation), ECM/BPM/CRM as a single silo I see as a single silo. There is no need for integration between the three, because we are talking about a product that delivers all three as one. To my knowledge there arent many out there that actually do this, rather they integrate as best they can across the three. But the problem there is, that you still have three silos at the back end. How do you ensure that any one understands CCS (content, context, status) of the others? My vision is for the three to be lost within a single silo…

First, I’d argue that actually BPM does a pretty good job of addressing the “20 percent” (One can argue what the percentages are, but obviously structured BPM does not cover 100% of process use cases, and there’s no good way of calculating the total number… I think everyone can agree it is less than 100% and more than 0% however!)

I think a few software vendors share your vision of a combined ECM/BPM/CRM vision – but of course the key to pulling that off is to have these three “silos” actually act as one integrated product – for the transitions to feel natural.

Also, it happens that the 20% you describe are, generally, medium-to-high volume, high value, processes. This is based on both anecdotal data and data from conferences such as BPM2010. So, it isn’t as if implementing BPM is a bad idea for these processes even if they’re the only processes you can address with a BPMS.

Finally, not all BPMS are created equal. Some BPMS are highly constrained, and others give the designers and implementers a lot more flexibility. In some cases that flexibility requires technical people like myself to get involved, but at least the flexibility is there.

Because of this there is no dynamic BPM, its only a term and cannot really deliver real adaptive processes. Vendors that ditch the whole process designer / flowchart tool as their rigid process will be able to deliver into more areas of the enterprise. BPM currently is only good for less than 20% of business processes across the enterprise, because it is only great and improving process efficiency of proceses that are highly structured, simple and repeatable…Vendors that become adaptive offer a great edge and are capable to deliver process efficiency across the enterprise

However, that being said, the big difference between vendors will not be played out in just the BPM silo. Vendors who deliver a single silo for ECM, BPM and CRM provide a more holistic approach. This approach delivers far greater efficiency, but also reduces costs of delivery and ownership. The big problem with Social media illustrates the need for this…

http://andrewonedegree.wordpress.com/2010/11/26/why-bpm-ecm-and-crm-struggle-with-social-media/

The optimizing features in another tool (you know who you are) are quire compelling in theory – you can correlate inputs with outputs – not just optimize for time, but optimize for *outcomes*! which is really the magic.

But it needs a lot more work – and that's why I think there's a big opening for someone to drive a truck through with real innovation.

Regarding Case Management – I know, its “different” than the old CASE :) But you know, there's a reason we you don't re-use a label that has unfortunate historical context. And Case Management makes a lot of sense but to me it feels like slapping a new label on something that we've all been dealing with in BPM for the last 10 years! I welcome new tooling that is better suited to case management use cases, but I get a little tired of people pretending we just discovered this kind of work in BPM…

And of course the real prize goes to the vendor(s) who can make all these interesting features play off of each other to produce a sum greater than the parts…

Scott

As for Case Management, this is not 1990's Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE). The Case tools I have been associated with are not trying to be 4th generation development tools. As you say, Case Management offers a good fit to specific business problems. They are designed to codify the best practices of managing processes that incorporate ad-hoc tasks, documents and information from multiple sources. Here is my most recent attempt at finally highlighting what Case really is: http://blog.consected.com/2009/11/case-manageme… (getting closer after 4 years into blogging about it, but maybe still not quite there!). As almost a convergence with collaboration, I understand why there is such a buzz around Case. Its interesting that the big players are catching on to this and pushing it so hard with Forrester. Maybe everyone needs something to grab as Gartner's BPM vision appears to be a shambles.

And here's hoping we can all be the next Apple!

Cheers

Phil