Your options for BPM

It's essential for businesses today to begin focusing on automating their manual processes so they can become agile and remain competitive by adopting a form of BPM. As EWeek points out, your company has three options: build, buy or BPM.

When you are buying, you should consider these seven questions:

1. How often will the business processes addressed by this application change?

2. How easy is it to change the application? (Speak with a technical contact from the vendor to understand what mechanisms are in place to extend or change existing functionality.)

3. What types of skills will be necessary to change the system as needed to ensure competitive advantage?

4. Does the vendor provide a well-documented API for integration with third-party systems?

5. How easy is it to train business and IT users on the system, thus reducing reliance on the vendor for ongoing support?

6. Is the package overkill for your business problem? Will the superfluous functionality negatively impact the user experience, impeding adoption, and making support and upgrades difficult?

7. Are adaptors required to interface the application with third-party systems? If so, what is the cost of the adaptors you will require?

When you're considering building, you should work with your IT deparment to put an applicaiton together that fits all your pre-determined needs which will streamline an application designed for your specific functional need. It does take a lot of time to design, build and test this new application.

Has your company undertaken the task to build your BPM solution? What was your turn-around time, and what were the results for you?