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Catchy New Phrases?

In talking with vendors recently some new phrases were used that I found intriguing. There are many phrases that I hear again and again in the business performance management world. These include things like: 'one version of the truth', 'profitability optimization', 'unified platform', and other equally boring stuff. It's refreshing to hear something new once in a while. I don't know if these two will catch on, but I like the concepts behind the words. The first one is 'BPM Squared'. This is based on the fact that BPM stands for both business performance management and business process management. The company using this term, Inforsense, is basically saying that their solutions bring business performance type analytics to everyday business processes throughout the organization. The other term is 'difference-maker'. In BPM we often talk about giving every decision-maker the information they need to make the right choices. Microsoft, in using this term when talking about PerformancePoint, is essentially saying there is a broader group of workers that have an impact on the business that should be included in the solution. This goes along with their 'pervasive BI' message. I doubt that these phrases are trademarked so feel free to use them and make them part of the language we use to discuss BI and BPM.

  Posted by Craig Schiff on June 26, 2007 9:17 AM |

Comments

This isn't an indictment of InforSense, but I do have a problem with the term BPM squared. Business Process Management requires process intelligence, which implies there is an understanding of processes themselves, such as process steps, sequence, loops, etc. To understand and measure your process, you have to be able to model it. Business Performance Mgt deals with data at a different level. It looks at the results of things as a proxy for the things that happened. Dimensional models, for example, can't work with process intelligence.

I think it is possible to bring the two together, but it shouldn't start with a new term.

Posted by: Neil Raden | July 6, 2007 10:21 AM

Craig,

I agree with you that this field has a problem with semantics. Other new terms I have heard are "Performance Management 2.0" and "Next Generation Performance Management." My sense is it will be less important what we call things and more important to discuss what do they do ... which ideally lead people to taking actions to improve performance.

Posted by: Gary Cokins | July 26, 2007 11:42 AM

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