E-mails Role in Business Process Management

This article discusses how e-mail, instead of being simply a supplement to BPM, has morphed into a tool that is increasingly taking up more and more of an employees time. The author, Ramon Padilla, quotes Ross Mayfield, President of Socialtext,

“(Employees) spend most of their time handling exceptions to business processes. That’s what they are doing in their inbox for four hours a day. E-mail has become the great exception handler.”

Padilla further expands by discussing reasons as to why e-mail has become time consuming in organizations:

1. [We are] Making it up as we go along
2. Not enforcing business process
3. Business processes that are not automated or automated with software that is outdated or doesn’t fulfill the user’s needs
4. Lack of communications within an application or integration with other communication mechanisms
5. Lack of communication alternatives besides e-mail

These points raise questions regarding organizations use of BPM. If e-mail is taking up much of an employees time as a way to deal with exception in BPM, does this mean that the company does not have effective business processes in place? Do you agree with the author’s points? Is there anything you would add or detract from the list above?