BPM as Service
March 2, 2007
Last month, two BPM vendors announced BPM as Service offering. First, Lombardi announced its hosted modeling offering, Lombardi Blueprint, which Bruce Silver covered here. Then, Appian announced a hosted version of its product, which again Bruce covered here. While these initiatives towards BPM as a Service are both welcome and inevitable, I doubt the true value of either. In fact, I find myself agreeing with Ismael’s blog Who Needs BPM as a Service on multiple counts.
The Lombardi Announcement
First, I doubt the wisdom of offering just Modeling as a hosted service. What will the users get out of it – more paper? Also, I find their positioning on usability as a distraction from the main issues. While Power Point is every business user’s dream, the main issue today is not the ease of use of modeling tool, but round tripping with the implementation model and operational results. Moreover, they seem to be disregarding the fact that analyst tools such as IDS Scheer’s Aris provide serious analysis and modeling capabilities.
In summary, cool tool. However, if you want more paper, may as well use Power Point itself.
The Appian Announcement
I confess I have not followed this closely. However, the following from Bruce’s blog caught my attention:
Human-centric processes that don’t require high-performance integration with ERP or other backend apps behind the firewall are the low-hanging fruit for Appian Anywhere.
In my experience, BPM is never a stand alone animal. It either integrates with existing applications or ends up building new application components including data objects and user interfaces around it. Since the first seems ruled out, the second would be the targeted use cases. In that case, I agree with Ismael, that companies like Coghead have a more compelling story. If truly no application components are needed, you essentially have a collaboration application. Again, companies like Ning or Jotspot (now Google) are the way to go.
In summary, interesting. However, what is the use case? And why not Coghead, Ning, or Jotspot?
March 8, 2007 at 5:23 am
Hi Manoj,
In re: your comments about Lombardi, above. As I read your critique, you seem to be saying that easier modeling _would_ be useful if it included “round-tripping with the implementation model and the operational results.” Am I reading this correctly?
Thanks,
Phil
March 8, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Yes, your reading is correct.
The other observation I am making in the defense of the traditional business modeling products is that they offer serious value to serious users.
BTW, from the screen shots I have seen, I find some of the ideas elegant. Congratulations!
About 2 years back, at Siebel, in our quest to understand business analysts better, we interviewed business analysts at many SIs and IT shops. An interesting observation was that the so called Business Analysts at a SI (such as Accenture) spends most of their time “selling” the solution to the customer; their tool usage is primarily Power Point to paint the picture. Even in the absence of round tripping, I suspect this community of users will be well served by your Blueprint offering.
July 30, 2009 at 5:22 pm
la importancia q tiene los procesos tecnologicos es principalmente una ayuda o una forma de transmitir informacion al conocimiento.
estos procesos son un poco innovadores para las personas ya que les ofrece muchos beneficios y facilidades de trabajo y comunicacion.
en conclusion todo prceso tecnologico comprende una serie de acciones que se emprenden de acuerdo al desarrollo del objeto que se quiere producir.
July 30, 2009 at 5:30 pm
la importancia q tiene los procesos tecnologicos es principalmente una ayuda o una forma de trasmitir informacion al conocimiento.
estos procesos son un poco innovadores para las personas ya que les ofrece muchos beneficios y facilidades de trabajo y comunicacion.
en conclusion todo proceso tecnologico comprende una serie de acciones que se emprenden de acuerdo al desarrollo del objeto que se quiere producir.
att johana gonzalez 10.5 mat……….
July 30, 2009 at 5:34 pm
la importancia q tiene los procesos tecnologicos es principalmente una ayuda o una forma de trasmitir informacion al conocimiento.
estos procesos son un poco innovadores para las personas ya que les ofrece muchos beneficios y facilidades de trabajo y comunicacion.
en conclusion todo proceso tecnologico comprende una serie de acciones que se emprenden de acuerdo al desarrollo del objeto que se quiere producir.
att johana gonzalez 10.5 mat……….