Tuesday, December 25, 2001

Severna Park, Maryland --- December 5, 2001 --- Out-of-the-box integration is the hallmark of the newest release of Metastorm’s Business Process Management (BPM) software, Metastorm e-work. Availability of the release, improves the capability of organizations to accommodate Web services, and to access the knowledge and expertise of employees by cutting through departmental barriers associated with existing data-centric applications.

Metastorm Debuts ‘Enhanced Integration Release’ of BPM Software
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - December 13, 2001 - Savvion™, Inc., a provider of business process management software that allows companies to operate at peak efficiency, announced that it has implemented, in just ten weeks, a web-based automated volunteer recruitment management solution for a UK Government-funded program. The Experience Corps - a UK Government-funded volunteer program set up to encourage people between 50 and 65 to offer their skills to the local community, used Savvion BusinessManager to develop the system which enables The Experience Corps' 100 staff around the country to manage the process of contacting, recruiting, placing and managing volunteers.

UK Government-Funded Volunteer Recruitment Company Implements Savvion Business Process Solution in Just 10 Weeks

Monday, December 24, 2001

Michael Hammer, consultant, author, evangelical business revolutionary, unleashed reengineering on an unsuspecting public in the early 1990s. Now he's back -- with a new book and a new agenda. The basis of his new thesis? Business process management.

Who Has the Next Big Idea? [source FastCompany]
There has been a major shift in the way companies are approaching the subjects of business processes and return on investment (ROI). This shift has been driven by a realization that inefficiency in any part of the business can lead to severe competitive disadvantage. Smart executives have come to realize that business wars are won not with the best product or the clever advertising slogan but rather through a disciplined approach to managing the transactional aspects of the organization.

The Hidden Treasure of Business Process Automation: Six Steps to Improving ROI [source ebizq.net and Optika
Since high-tech stock prices began their freefall, companies have been selling out, buying out and retrenching to survive. Several recent announcements show an evolutionary pattern for integration vendors. While messaging vendors add functionality to offer full platforms, platform vendors are focusing on targeted solutions. They include process models to support vertical industry-specific processes; document vocabularies, such as invoices and shipping notices; transformation maps; partner workflows; exception workflows; stylesheets for device-specific interfaces, such as PDAs and other mobile devices; a business cockpit; and reports.

The Evolution of the Integration Market [source ebizq.net

Friday, December 21, 2001

DALLAS, Texas - October 29, 2001 - Fuegotech™, a global leader in providing process-driven enterprise software solutions, announced it has secured $22.3 million in Series C venture capital funding bringing the company's total investment capital to $45 million. Trinity Ventures, based in Menlo Park, Calif., led this round with a $10 million investment. Previous investors including Sevin Rosen Funds, Stephens Group, SSM Ventures, and Star Ventures also participated in this round.

Fuegotech, Inc. Secures $22.3 Million Series C
SAN MATEO, CA – November 5, 2001 – Intalio, Inc., the Business Process Management System provider who has led the development of BPML and developed the first standard-based BPMS, announced that the company has raised a $9 million round of financing led by Woodside Fund and 3i Technology Ventures and joined by prior investors.

Business Process Management System (BPMS) leader raises $9 million

Thursday, December 20, 2001

The Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) was founded in August 2000 by 16 companies. Today it has 160 members. It's kick off meeting was in September 2000. It published the first version of Business Process Modeling Language (BPML) to the public in March 2001.

BPMI press releases members and specifications
The Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org), Popkin, Casewise, MEGA and Computer Sciences Corporation announced the formation of a Working Group to develop a standard notation for business process modeling. The notation, named Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), will be developed within the Business Process Management Initiative and will support the semantics of the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML).

The following vendors are involved: Sterling Commerce, SeeBeyond (chair), Rational Software, Proforma Corporation, Popkin Software (co-founder), MEGA International (co-founder), Intalio, Infosys Technologies, Genient, FuegoTech, CSC (co-founder), Casewise (co-founder).

Business Process Modeling Notation [source bpmi.org]
Business process integration (BPI) has become a vehicle for achieving sustainable value for corporations. BPI projects help foster revenue growth, increase customer satisfaction, facilitate e-business deployment and meet cost-reduction targets. Specifically, BPI enables functional integration across segregated business units, extends vertical process management into supply and distribution chains, and provides companies with e-business integration capabilities.

Critical Success Factors in a Business Process Integration Initiative [source ebizq.net]
Of all the words in the e-business dictionary, none is more overworked today than 'process.' Take the words "business process," and now add any one of the following: 'management;' 'integration;' 'optimization,' 'automation;' 'modeling;' or 'simulation.' All of these combinations have some meaning and historical context, but mainly, they're flung about interchangeably, often by software vendors positioning their products for maximum implications in a business setting.

What's BPM? Marketing noise clouds strategic mission [source line56]
When all is said and done the differentiator in any business is speed of building and executing processes. Business process management (BPM) and Web services are all about the business practices and technology architectures that organizations deploy to speed their market response, partnering, and value chains.

BPM/Web services [source Delphi Group]
The current economic downturn is causing a general retrenchment of e-business strategies and deployments. As the vendors begin releasing their next generation of e-business integration solutions, it looks like business process management (BPM) is becoming the holy grail of e-business integration. Whereas last year only a few vendors offered it, now all vendors are rushing to market with BPM solutions.

Vendors Jumping on the BPM Bandwagon [source ebizq.net]
The challenge of dynamically adjusting the way in which organisations perform certain functions has led to the emergence of business process management (BPM) software. AMR Research defines BPM as "software that integrates data, applications and people through a common business process". In short, BPM software provides customers with an administration layer that presides over an organisation's enterprise software packages, coordinating and managing the business relationships between those packages and, increasingly, across traditional corporate borders. Information Age reports.

Model behaviour [source Information Age]
IBM is embarking on a technical crusade to tie up key elements of its software and drive its users closer to the Holy Grail: business process integration and common access to structured and unstructured data.

IBM connects its software layers [source infoworld]
What has surprised everyone in the last few years is how challenging it has been to actually do e-business. One of the reasons why this is so is that companies have found it difficult to manage their business processes, especially when they stretch across multiple systems, software applications, companies and countries. That's about to change. CSC reports on the business drivers for process management.

Making Business Processes Manageable [source CSC]
With an eye toward helping users do a better job of linking their e-business initiatives to other facets of an enterprise, IBM will detail this week its Business Process Management (BPM) initiative, intended to help Big Blue and its partners clear new paths between its messaging middleware and WebSphere application server offerings.

IBM sews up the middle [source infoworld]