What Makes BPM Tick? A Q&A with Analyst Bruce Silver New Training and Certification Programs Success Stories: Hear About Analog Devices and TDC News You Can Use The Buzz About BPM Come See Us! News You Can Use Savvion Celebrates 55,000 Downloads! Discover why a record number of people are using Savvion Process Modeler to articulate and solve their process problems. Learn More "The Thorny Cultural Thicket of Outsourcing" Read what Patrick Morrissey, Senior VP of Savvion has to say about outsourcing processes to vendors in different countries. Read Part 1 Read Part 2 Integrators expand Business Process Management with tools and services Learn what the new, "holistic" approach to BPM means for today's organizations. Learn More The Buzz About BPM The Future of Outsourcing Firms in all industries are turning to outsourcing to reduce overheads. Discover who's outsourcing what, and the kind of impact it has on their bottom line. Learn More And to learn about Savvion full process lifecycle approach to better outsourcing, download the Solution Brief here. SOA and BPM Tools Outpace Customer Expectations How are enterprises integrating a new breed of BPM tools into SOA environments - and what does it means for process improvement? Learn More Here Sign up for Savvion Connect What Makes BPM Tick? Business Process Management Insights from Bruce Silver, Principal of Bruce Silver & Associates We asked industry expert Bruce Silver for his take on BPM. What companies should look out for, and what he believes can help make organizations who adopt BPM a success. See what he has to say about BPM and business. What do you see as the drivers for companies to adopt BPM? Why now?  We talk about a wide range of benefits from BPM, but the number one driver today is still improving operational performance – lowering costs, speeding cycle times, handling expanded volumes of work with no increase in staff. You can talk all you want about strategic benefits like agility, but hard dollar ROI is still the biggest motivator. An important driver that is not ROI-based is compliance and standardization across the enterprise, particularly as companies deal with M&A, increasingly global operations, and regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley. Do these companies have similar traits that can help predict BPM success? A good predictor of success is the willingness of process owners in the line of business, along with their staff, to get their hands dirty with the tools and technology. BPM is now giving a direct voice to the business side to direct the implementation of business process solutions, but that means making time to model and analyze the current process and proposed improvements themselves, not just delegating it to IT or a system integrator. BPM centers of excellence within the company can help process owners with a methodology and best practices. What's the most important thing for a company to consider when adopting BPM? My own interest is in the technology of BPM, so I'm always going to say the most important thing is matching the right tool to the task. BPM covers a lot of ground. Some people just want the modeling and analysis. Others want a full BPM Suite to automate and manage processes. And even there, some think of BPM in terms of improving human work, while others think of it in terms of business integration. There is a tool for each of those groups, but they're not always the same one. How does a company decide which processes to tackle first? Some say start with something where the consequences of failure are low. I think the bigger risk is that the project runs out of steam because its priority is too low. We know the technology "works". The issue is can you make it work in your organization. The best candidates are high-priority – even mission-critical – processes where the modeling and analysis indicates the possibility of significant ROI. That drives the management attention needed for success. What are the biggest changes you've seen in BPM so far? The biggest change I've seen in the past year is advancement in the degree of process design that can be done without any programming. In fact, the line between modeling – traditionally a business analyst function – and design – traditionally an IT function – has gotten quite blurred. Savvion is actually leading the way in that. Because IT is already overcommitted on many fronts, companies are beginning to see that BPM provides a way to get things done faster without adding to the programmer backlog. Read more from Bruce Silver at his Web site. Read Bruce Silver's bio. Get real-world experience and answers from BPM experts through Savvion training and certification! Savvion training and certification is designed to help you overcome real-world process challenges and equip you to help guide your organization - or your clients - toward success. And now, with a revamped program that includes new courses and improved interactivity, you'll have access to in-depth knowledge and skills, the chance to upgrade your training and a first look at the newest Savvion features. And our new Certification Programs give you the chance to demonstrate your proficiency to colleagues and customers alike. Whether you're a developer, analyst or administrator, new or experienced with BPM, you can get the answers you need. Choose from training sessions at our state-of-the-art classroom, host a dedicated workshop at your facility, or take a look at our online courses. Find out more, or sign up now! Success Stories Analog Devices shares how it integrates and streamlines enterprise processes with Savvion. Watch the video Hear how TDC uses Savvion BusinessManager to bridge the gap between IT and business. See it now Come See Us! See Savvion at the Brainstorm Summits in Washington DC and New York, and learn about BPM from some of the best in the industry. November 7–8: New York City Learn More And check back at www.savvion.com in a few weeks for details on our upcoming roundtable series with Intelligent Enterprise Magazine coming to NY, DC, Chicago and SF in November! You won't want to miss out on these marquee events featuring industry-expert insights and first-hand customer advice.