BPMXchange

CSC's Jim Boyd, senior director of products and solutions for the financial services market in Europe, made a provocative and well received keynote presentation to delegates at the recent inaugural Business Process Management (BPM) Exchange, organised by IQPC.

Citing other industries, he drew delegates' attention to how technology can be used to not only improve how existing processes are managed but also how new technology and techniques, such as web services, can be used to create radically different ways of doing business.

"The overriding benefits of applying the discipline of BPM with the application of the most effective technology to resolve process issues mean that companies can do existing things better and do new things entirely such as create hybrid products or divest of non-core functions "Jim explained. "Given the complexity of processes today, having the agility and flexibility to simplify these is what companies are crying out for today. This is what BPM can achieve and this is where its real power lies."

Jim went further and suggested that BPM could bring about new growth opportunities for financial services companies to specialise by market differentiating competencies. Companies specialising in the management or servicing of a particular kind of risk could more easily join up with similarly specialised organisations to provide complementary competencies - so effectively operating in a virtual enterprise.

But he also warned that the substantial level of hype in the BPM technology area could lead to levels of expectations that cannot be met and undermine what can be achieved.

"What we're trying to advocate is that the effective application of technology needs much more than just technology," he said. "The real point of these new technologies is that they will only deliver their potential when used imaginatively by experienced practitioners."

The organisers of the BPM Exchange concur, having received overwhelmingly positive feedback about the event and its place as a forum for healthy discussion. Tim Mann, general manager for the IQPC Exchange events, comments, "Certainly one major theme that came out for us was that of the human and cultural challenges of BPM implementation being of greater significance than the technology challenges. Clearly, success with BPM will be dependent on internal buy-in and take up from those affected by any changes."

The BPM Exchange in London saw more than 130 vendors and end users networking to engage in debate about best practice and workable solutions in the BPM space. More than 200 pre-arranged meetings took place that had been pre-selected by both practitioners and solution providers.

To download a copy of Jim's presentation (2.9MB), please go to:
http://www.csc-fs.com/bpm/bpmxchange.pdf