Knowledge Gap on Business Process Management Hampers IT/Business Alignment
By Steve Lee and Lane F. Cooper
BizTechReports.Com

Business process management may be on the lips of many, but it is being actively pursued as a dedicated discipline by relatively few in the corporate world. This is one conclusion of a critical study on BPM from the folks at AIIM. The non-profit organisation says that 57 percent of respondents surveyed reported the absence of a specific group responsible for BPM initiatives in their organisations.

As a result, many IT managers are confused and potentially misinformed about the actual state of business process effectiveness in their organisations.

“Whether processes are documented or undocumented, manual or automated, optimised or sub-par, [knowing this status is] the core of any functioning organisation,” states AIIM Vice President Carl Frappaolo. “The spread of process excellence, from the manufacturing industry into the world of ‘knowledge workers,’ across all industries, has been a long, slow journey. And many have yet to embark on the journey.”

Perhaps the biggest shift that must take place is in the minds of IT managers.

Rather than thinking of BPM as a project that has a beginning middle and an end, it should be conceived as an ongoing activity that is tied to all technology and business activities that are critical to enterprise operations.