The BPMI concepts are right on target …Savvy companies will embrace having a process-centric organization and will adopt Business Process Manage-ment software. –- AMR Research

Business process integration and automation pick up where BPR left off. Extending process integration and automation solutions beyond the enterprise delivers the efficiency that management has been seeking for decades. -– Computerworld

Business processes have been around since the beginning of business. Business Process Management Systems are the next step in making them explicit, executable and adaptable. –- Computer Sciences Corporation’s Research Services

It’s no surprise then that BPM is quickly emerging as the moniker for the next Killer App in enterprise software. Few areas of software will receive more attention in the coming months and years than BPM. Yet the greatest challenges to the BPM market are the very forces making it so attractive. –- Delphi Group

Firms will need process integration servers that model and carry out broad business processes. … The adoption of packaged apps and the development of integration standards like Web Services, has primed the market for a new breed of BPM suites. Firms should start BPM projects today to design, execute, and optimize cross-function business processes. –- Forrester Research

BPM’s potential for business improvements through advanced process automation is the most compelling business reason to implement an “enterprise nervous system” (ENS). Where ENS implementations risk being seen as infrastructure in search of a problem, BPM allows enterprises to raise the level of discussion and make specific business process support the primary reason for application integration efforts. –- Gartner

Enterprises should begin to take advantage of explicitly defined processes. By 2005, at least 90 percent of large enterprises will have BPM in their enterprise nervous system (0.9 probability). Enterprises that continue to hard-code all flow control, or insist on manual process steps and do not incorporate BPM’s benefits, will lose out to competitors that adopt BPM. –- Gartner

For the Fortune 2000 companies, the quest to implement the best business process management (BPM) solution is becoming highly desirable—akin to ac-quiring the “holy grail” in any given industry. BPM promises to streamline inter-nal and external business processes, eliminate redundancies, and increase
automation. –- IDC

"As companies are looking to make better use of their existing investments (by internal integration of processes), and to improve collaboration with business partners (by external integration of processes), BPM players are expected to provide cost-effective solutions for the development and execution of entirely new processes or dynamic business models, or even outsourced, externally managed
business processes. As a pioneer of the BPM market, CSC is in a fine
position to deliver on these expectations." –– Sophie Mayo, Director, Web Services Implementation and Dynamic Commerce Services, IDC

Business Process Management (BPM) is the identification, comprehension and management of business processes that interact with people and systems both within and across organizations. BPM is quickly becoming one of the hottest top-ics in the IT industry. Many believe the powerful integration story behind the BPM concept has the potential to unlock the e-business market. … In the current economic climate, business process flexibility is key to organizational survival. But the logic of business process tends to get hard-wired into highly expensive IT sys-tems that are complex and stifle innovation. … Demand from users for flexibility and functionality is driving the need for systems that can deliver across enterprise processes that are not reliant on a single application, or indeed are not constrained by the boundaries of the organization itself. –- Ovum.

Businesses need to constantly adapt their processes, yet they are often held back by static IT systems that aren’t designed to exploit future opportunities. Business process management is a new change management and systems implemen-tation methodology that overcomes this problem. –- Ovum

"The promise of new technologies to improve business performance cannot be fulfilled without understanding how to ultimately manage the business processes", according to Andy Efstathiou, Program Manager at the Yankee Group. He went on to say, "CSC has been a leader in the field of business process management for many years and this book represents the latest thinking on this critical subject." - Andrew Efstathiou, Program Manager, Technology Management Strategies, The
Yankee Group.

Excerpts from Business Process Management: The Third Wave, Howard Smith and Peter Fingar, ISBN 0-929652-33-9 Off-press November 2002, Meghan-Kiffer Press