According to analysis by Market Reports Hub, the BPM market size was $4.71 billion in 2014 and was expected to grow to $10.73 billion by 2019 with a compound annual growth rate of 17.9%. It would be fair to say that the BPM software market is still fairly small and has remained small for many years. Also, some may say that the traditional BPM market segment may be facing something of a crisis of confidence as studies have shown that 75% of BPM projects fail in some way.
So what are these reasons of failure and do these contribute to the BPM software market still being relatively small? Some of the commonly cited reasons are as follows:
- Business personnel may not have the knowledge to document their processes with proper standards. The inability of business to properly communicate requirements through documented processes often leads to business needs not being met.
- BPM implementation automates processes without prior proper thought on how the process integrates with other processes across departments, and whether the appropriate goals and measures have been selected.
- BPM implementation is perceived as a one-time automation exercise without a focus on continuous improvement to align processes with changing market dynamics.
- Benefits of BPM implementation are not managed and communicated effectively due to lack of Organizational Change Management (OCM). This can lead to the focus moving away from realized benefits to what is missing from their earlier reference system or procedure thus leading to dissatisfaction with BPM implementation.
- Process excellence team and appropriate visionaries with thought leadership to extract most value from BPM implementations are usually small in number in most organizations. Additionally, they usually focus on methodologies more than BPM implementation tools. Thus BPM implementations don’t always get the right BPM advocates and guidance for success. The lack of advocacy also sometimes manifests as business choosing ERP or CRM software to meet their short-term automation requirements instead of investing in a BPM implementation and starting their organization’s journey towards matured and disciplined processes.
If we analyze the above reasons, they are not inherent failures of a BPM tool or BPM ideology. Instead they are indicative of the need for greater organizational process maturity and effective change management throughout the BPM implementation lifecycle. For instance, accurately documenting a process is critical to realizing the expectations of business, which is just Level 1 of most prominent process maturity models. Nevertheless, this is a good starting point in an organization’s evolutionary journey towards higher process maturity. We do anticipate as organizations become more aware in the area of process maturity, the success rates of BPM implementations will continue to improve. We do foresee the BPM market continuing its strong double digit growth since BPM initiatives when properly implemented lead to improved customer experience, increased revenues, reduced operational costs, and more agility.
Don’t let your organization’s BPM project fail in some way. Contact us at info@polariseme.com for expertise in ensuring success of your organization’s next BPM implementation.