One of the very important and very long discussions held on the SAP Community Day, Bangalore was the emergence, roles and responsibilities of a BPXer. Marc Dietrich explained the current presence of SAP in different phases of an enterprise. The following figure shows the 3 stages of a software life cycle a business may be in.
The products and solutions developed by SAP are very much present in the Build and Run phase of a software life cycle. In the plan phase it's very much important to emphasize on Business Process Modeling since if a business has to keep itself competitive, it needs change according to the situations. In order to be ready for changing it's crucial to know how the current Business Processes are running / modeled. Hence a documentation of business processes in terms process maps, underlying business rules need to be built. To do this we can use Enterprise Modeling Tools like Galaxy which is part of the SAP NetWeaver Technology platform. A BPXer would play a vital role here to help organizations to create better business models, build the required business rules, and understand from technology what's required to automate the processes.
Typically, when businesses are mapped into SAP the functional consultant interacts with the core users and passes on the requirements to the development team. So a functional consultant may later check with the technical consultant about the feasibility of building the required solution. But there may be situations where the technical feasibility may not be totally understood by the functional consultant alone and at the same time a technical consultant may not understand the underlying business functionality. From a client's point of view, it would be easy for him to talk with a person who can help him design the business process, and understand the technology without such gaps. A BPX can greatly improve this situation as he is a process consultant who clearly understands the business process, the enterprise services available from technology, Service Oriented Architecture and User Interfaces.
A BPX can quickly translate the business needs to create better business solutions. The solution need not always be an ABAP development or configuration alone. The BPX may suggest a better way of carrying out a business process; improve the current situation by proper user training, visualize business into IT with his deep process and technological expertise.
