Why IS Organizations Do Not Do BPM

Based on the 1997 Gartner Group note "Nine Reasons Why IS Organizations Do Not Do BPM" referenced in the Smith and Fingar article, "BPM's Third Wave: From Modeling to Management" I have identified the following two reasons why IS organizations do not do BPM:

1)  "We cannot keep business and IT models in synch."  When business process models were mainly used as planning tools to help in the development of software and IT applications, it was somewhat easier to keep them in alignment, but when strategic BPM considerations entered into the picture, it became increasingly difficult to maintain a business/IT alignment.  Consequently, business process modeling now relies of business process or enterprise architectures which maintain the business/IT alignment.  A major concern to both IT and general business managers should be the alignment of the IT strategy to the overall business/organizational strategy, a concept referred to as business/IT alignment and identified by Pearlson and Saunders as the Information Systems Strategy Triangle.  As Pearlson and Saunders put it, “business strategy should drive IS decision making, and changes in business strategy should entail reassessments of IS.”   But according to Luftman, it is not so much a matter of aligning business with IT or IT with business strategy, but rather "how business and IT are aligned with each other."

2)  "Business changes too quickly to model it."  The hypercompetition models described by Pearlson & Saunders  draw attention to the "speed and agressiveness of the moves and countermoves in any given market."  In such a hypercompetitive environment (as described more fully in Peter Fingar's video "Extreme Competition") advantages are both created and lost with increasing rapidity.  Since the focus is on a company's agility, not on gaining and holding a specific competitive advantage, the relationship between IT capability and corporate responsiveness is a critical necessity.  Defining IT capability as the “extent to which a firm is good at managing its IT resources to support and enhance business strategies and processes” is really another way of saying business/IT alignment.  How does the IT investment increase a company's agility is the same as asking how well does the company align its business model or business process with its IT strategy.  Through the use of business process architectures, the need to "synchronize" different models for business and IT is eliminated.  Consequently , firms are able to respond more quickly and are better able to adapt to the "rapid evolutions required by the market."

Works Cited

Luftman, J., Kempaiah, R. (September 2007).  An Update on Business-IT Alignment: ‘A Line’ Has Been Drawn, MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 6 No. 3

Pearlson, K., Saunders, C. (2009). Managing and Using Information Systems: A Strategic Approach. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Smith, H., & Fingar, P. (2003, February 3). BPM's Third Wave: From Modeling to Management. Retrieved October 8, 2012, from http://www.ebizq.net/topics/eai/features/1515.html