Part 10: Enterprise BPM framework; The maturity of the SAP BPM framework can be improved !

The Enterprise BPM framework has been used to identify the currently available SAP software and SAP BPM methodologies which can be used to implement BPM. This resulted into the following SAP BPM framework:

SAP BPM framework

The following SAP products and BPM methodologies have been identified:

Business strategy: The SAP business model in which the core business objectives are linked to the functional process decomposition within the SAP solution manager

Program management: The new ASAP methodology in which BPM and the SAP BPR is integrated within the different project phases and method add-ons.

Change program: The Enterprise BPM Roadmap Assessment in which the benefits of BPM can be demonstrated to key stakeholders in order to create buy-in.

Financial management: The integration of BPM within the SAP Value Management methodology to determine the benefits of BPM.

Business management: SAP PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) in which a relation can be made between the product requirements and the related business processes

SAP design: The business processes and the enterprise architecture are modelled in ARIS by the business users and EA architects for documentation and information management.

Organizational design: The SAP Organizational Change methodology can be used to identify key stakeholders and engage the E2E process owners

Quality management: The SAP & ARIS QM methodologies (e.g. Lean, Business Optimer) can be used to improve the E2E processes and manage business improvements.

Business transformation: The SAP Business Suite is focused on E2E business processes and supported by an ESR to improve business agility

Configuration management: The Netweaver Process Platform (process composition and integration) and the integration of ARIS with SSM assures the alignment between processes and SAP configuration

Change management: The alignment of BPM with SAP Identity & Access Management assures the integrity of business responsibilities and security

Knowledge Management: The integration of the company knowledge (SAP CMS) with the processes assures the right information at the right place

Communication management: The integration of BPM user roles within the SAP/ARIS business process portal assures right information at the right time

Support management: The progress of the E2E SAP and non-SAP processes can be aligned and managed by the SAP Solution Manager

Governance: The SAP Process Lifecycle Management methodology ensures that the BPM roadmap can be managed and that the escalations are resolved.

Objectives management: The SAP Process Performance Indicators can be managed by ARIS PPM or Busines Objects to compare the process performance of the different entities.

Based on the SAP BPM framework the following observations can be made:

1 The vision of SAP on BPM is much more than Netweaver BPM only. 
2 The usage / integration of BPM in each of these 16 areas differs and BPM has different priorities within the SAP product development roadmaps.
3 SAP is working hard to resolve these BPM maturity issues in order to deliver an integrated Business Process Management operational platform.
4 The SAP market communication of the BPM strategy and BPM vision (including the ASAP methodology) should be improved in order to get the BPMS message across to the SAP customers and market research firms.

SAP BPMS Evaluation by the market research companies

Many market research companies like Gartner and Forrester analyze the BPMS (Business Process Management Suite) capabilities of the different vendors.

Forrester uses the following overview to position SAP within the BPMS market;

Forrester has divided the BPMS market into the following 3 different areas:

1 The traditional business process management vendors focus on human centric capabilities with good enough content management and integration capabilities.
2 The integration-centric vendors focus on enterprise service bus, service repositories, and large service-oriented architecture (SOA) initiatives.
3 The emerging catageory of dynamic case management vendors focus on highly variable processes with associated content management, integration and analytics capabilities.

Alignment SAP and the SAP BPMS research companies

When the SAP BPM framework and the Forrester BPMS positioning of SAP are compared the following observations can be made:

1 The Forrester BPMS vision of SAP is mostly based on the capabilities of the SAP Netweaver process platform and not on the complete BPM vision of SAP
2 SAP needs to better communicate their complete BPM vision, especially towards the market research companies like Forrester and Gartner.
3 The SAP platform is not considered the best of breed BPMS platform by the market research firms like Gartner and Forrester. It is considered a leader by Forrester in the integration solutions area 
4 The BPMS capabilities framework of Gartner and Forrester could be extended in order to capture the capabilities the SAP platform can offer.

SAP as an organization is working hard to improve internal alignment (maturity!) to ensure they will provide an integrated operational BPM vision and platform which will receive analysts credits at an appropriate level.