Business Intelligence Network

Blog: Craig Schiff

« Best and Worst of the Year Update | Main | Decision Time »

Aren't Things Confusing Enough Already?

Companies evaluating business performance management (BPM) solutions in 2008 are still trying to make sense of all of 2007's mergers and acquisitions. Which vendor owns which products? Will all of these sometimes overlapping products survive? Do I need to own the transactional and/or BI products from a vendor to get the full benefits of their BPM solution? What is the timeline for integration? While BPM prospects are pondering these issues they don't need anything else to muddy the waters. Well, along comes IDS Scheer with an attempt to ride the performance management wave that can only serve to further confuse prospects.

I saw this press release today and it bothered me. They are experts in 'the other BPM', business process management. It's bad enough the acronyms are the same, but do they have to co-opt the words 'performance management' as well? The theme of their conference is 'Improve Business Performance'. There will be a discussion of how BPM = process = performance. The new version of their product will be labeled the business performance edition. They optimize business processes and workflows which certainly is of major importance to most companies. In effect, they improve the performance of these business processes. However, it is not business performance management - aligning a company around the corporate strategy and measuring and managing the execution of that strategy. I think with this marketing approach they are doing a great disservice to prospects of both BPMs and will be setting false expectations. What do you think?

  Posted by Craig Schiff on February 7, 2008 10:16 PM |

Comments

Craig: you're right. Plain language always helps customers, and software vendors should be encouraged to use it.

But perhaps the event referred to in the press release isn't going to change things much. They say: "With more than 300 professionals expected to attend, ARIS ProcessWorld 2008 is the industry’s leading Business Process Management event".

Whichever BPM is being talked about - and both of them deserve attention - I don't think an event attended by 300 people is likely to be thought of at this stage as an "industry leading event" by those prospects who understand plain language.

Posted by: Matthew Goldsbrough | February 11, 2008 1:56 PM

I agree, but in the long run both BPMs might be covered in the same peace of software. They will probably never be the same(as written in press release) because they are looking at the same thing from different perspective (bottom up vs top down). Its like saying that microeconomics and macroeconomics will be the same (or quantum pysics and astrophysics). I am somewhat familiar with both BPMs and it looks like Aris (from IDS Scheer) is going in that direction. But its certainly a long way ahead to Hyperion or like.

Posted by: Tomislav Zrnc | February 26, 2008 5:53 AM

Post a comment