Bpm best practices: centers of excellence for bpm

March 26, 2008

Best Practices: Centers Of Excellence For BPM
by Mary Pilecki and Andy Salunga for Business Process & Applications Professionals

Making Leaders Successful Every Day

For Business Process & Applications Professionals
Includes Forrester user interview data and case studies March 26, 2008

Best Practices: Centers Of Excellence For BPM
COEs Help Bridge OrganizationalSilos
by Mary Pilecki and Andy Salunga with Sharyn C. Leaver, Connie Moore, Colin Teubner, and Mary Ann Rogan

EXECUT I V E S U M MA RY
Businesses across all industries are looking to business process management (BPM) to help gain new efficiencies, create a more consistent customer experience, and provide better data insights. Yet many firms have multiple implementations of the same type of BPMtools, or their siloed departments don’t leverage work done in other divisions when improving processes. Forrester spoke with a variety of large firms adopting an emerging trend: developing centers of excellence (COEs) for BPM. We uncovered best practices in five areas: 1) executive sponsorship; 2) process methodology and governance; 3) staffing skill sets; 4) vendor alignment; and 5) key performanceindicators (KPIs).

TABLE O F CO N T E N TS
2 BPM Initiatives Are Inconsistent Across Large Organizations 4 Centers Of Excellence Help Bridge Organizational Silos 5 Best Practice No. 1: Appoint An Influential Process Czar 6 Best Practice No. 2: Establish A Methodology, Independent Of BPM Technology 9 Best Practice No. 3: Co-Locate Technical, Project, And Business Expertise 11 Best Practice No. 4:Align With BPM Vendors And Consultants 13 Best Practice No. 5: Establish KPIs That Tie To Strategic Objectives 15 BPM Centers Of Excellence Next Practices 17 Identifying Your Challenges 18 Case Study 19 Supplemental Material

N OT E S & R E S O U R C E S
Forrester interviewed 18 vendor and user companies, including B3G, Bank of America, GD Animal Health, and Wells Fargo.

Related ResearchDocuments “The EA View: BPM Has Become Mainstream” February 19, 2008
“Organizational Silos: Can’t Live With Them, Can’t Live Without Them” October 2, 2007 “Business Process Management Suites Implementation Best Practices” June 8, 2006

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Best Practices: Centers Of Excellence For BPM
For Business Process & Applications Professionals

BPM INITIATIVES ARE INCONSISTENT ACROSS LARGE ORGANIZATIONS Business process and applications professionals across all industries are looking to BPM as a technology and overallmethodology to improve their customer-facing and back-office processes.1 In fact, 53% of respondents in Forrester’s Enterprise And SMB Software Survey, North America And Europe, Q3 2007, indicated that they are currently using a BPM technology, and 10% of those not currently using it are planning to implement within 12 months. The benefits are clear — increased efficiencies, better customer experience,improved management insights, greater process consistency, and overall business optimization. But large organizations often use multiple BPM methodologies and governance structures, and many have invested in more than one BPM suite for the same types of processes, depending on the line of business (LOB), channel, or type of project.2 The result: overspending and lost opportunities. Why don’t...