Oracle wrote a paper on the state of the business process management market 2008. In it they say that BPM is as much about organizational discipline as it is about technology. They say that BPM tools are far less effective without the methodologies and strategies for defining, measuring and improving processes.

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I would like to take this one step further; a company can manage their business processes without BPM software tools. If your processes are in disarray, you may be able to make significant improvements by following your methodologies and strategies for process improvement. As you make improvements to this process you will come to a point where improvements may or may not be improvements [the law of diminishing returns].

Using BPM software tools, you can make further significant gains in efficiency by automating your business processes. BPM software tools should provide control over the time a process cycle takes so that you can shorten your process lifecycles. BPM software should provide you with complete visibility into a process – status, documents, reports, etc. so that you can make sure your processes finish on time and that they are complete. BPM software can enhance your six-sigma efforts to improve your processes.

Lastly, change is constant. You will never create the perfect process because change is constant. This will test your methodologies and strategies for defining, measuring and improving processes and it will test whether your BPM solution can keep up. What I am saying is that managing your business processes is an ongoing event – you are never finished.

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