A Business Process Management System (BPMS) is a complex and expensive system. As a consequence, the introduction of a BPMS needs to be well planned, starting with the evaluation process and ending when integration has been successfully completed. Overall project duration in the range of 12+ months is the rule, rather than the exception.

Viewed from a managerial standpoint, there is a danger to focus too much on upfront license costs.
However, in general, license fees generally account for less than 10% of overall costs, which are often in the multi-million range. 

As a result, the selection of an inadequate BPMS product suite may cause the organization to miss productivity targets, involve excessive rework, considerable delays in processing, and can even put the entire business at risk.

This evaluation guide focuses on major areas that deserve particular attention in a BPMS project. As a general rule, omissions and/or mistakes that are made early in the process are almost always by far the most expensive to remedy.

We will cover critical areas in a series of installments. We start with organizational aspects and will then work our way towards more technical issues.

There are a couple of reasons why evaluations fail. Having touched that subject, we can now concentrate on bridging the gap between organization and IT right from the beginning.

The Business Infrastructure

To be continued