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Blog: Craig Schiff« RFP Madness | Main | Cartesis Back on Track » The Fight with FinanceI just don't get it. There is a fairly consistent theme in our talks with BPM prospects: the business users driving the project (usually in Finance) are in a battle with IT. Corporate America, 2005, and IT and Finance are fighting. Over what? A lengthy list: who's in charge, what's really needed, and most importantly - what solution to purchase. I must be missing something. When I was in IT it was pretty clear to me that my job was to meet the needs of the end user. Now I have Finance organizations in major companies telling me their IT group won't let them get what they really want. The most common issue seems to be that IT wants to move into BPM by acquiring modules from their ERP provider. This is logical of course - IT is already trained on the underlying technology, the new modules will theoretically be well integrated, unified database, etc. However, the business users are more focused on ease of use, depth of BPM functionality, and reduced dependence on IT. The best-of-breed BPM application vendors usually top their list of desired solutions. So what typically happens? In many organizations it is a stalemate and nothing happens, they miss out on the many benefits of BPM. In others, IT does what it thinks is best, the system is never fully embraced by the end users, and it ends up being under utilized. In still other cases companies such as ours are brought in as an independent third-party to referee. I don't mind making money and we often succeed in getting everyone on the same page, but this is a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. Comments welcome.
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Comments
Hi Craig
It's not all that much of a surprise.
Unless one spends time figuring out and agreeing about where one wants to go (=CPM strategy), a fight over how to get there (=platforms) is inevitable.
The problem is that there are very few companies in which top management understands the criticality of a conversation about where one wants to go (figuring why that doesn't happen is the real challenge!)
In this vaccuum, the initiative falls on the shoulders of the functional heads and they have different perspectives (e.g. integration vs ease of use). The situation then goes rapidly downhill as the polarisation gets worse.
Regards, Ravi
Posted by: Ravi Warrier | August 31, 2005 9:55 PM
Its been what years since I'm in a confusion, whether or not I should finance my online project. It's showing failure every now and then and that's why I can't make up my mind.
Posted by: Kane | March 10, 2006 12:59 PM
Don't name IT COPERATION between france and USA as BATTLE. You might disturb the relations between two great nations.
Posted by: Sandra | March 15, 2006 2:53 PM