Some CIOs and enterprise architecture (EA) pros believe that business process management (BPM) is on the opposite side of agility — but they don’t realize that BPM technology itself is also evolving. Agility-oriented BPM platforms are the foundation of a digital business. I’ve recently published a report that discusses the four key areas that EA pros must focus on to accelerate digital transformation with BPM. Some of the key takeaways:

  • Modern BPM is critical for digital business. Process agility is critical to giving businesses the agility that powers digital business. BPM adoption is gaining momentum in China; EA pros must drive the use of modernized BPM platforms and methods to accelerate digital transformation. 49% of budget decision-makers in China from both the technology and business sides will increase their spending on enterprise process applications, which is higher than their global peers.
  • An outside-in approach is key to digital transformation. EA pros must understand key BPM platform capabilities and unique local demands. For the Chinese market, this means data-intensive user interfaces with integration and security needs, complex organizational hierarchies and ad hoc decision-making approval processes, and a unique social environment for cross-region collaboration. EA pros should then use these requirements to align the architecture for agility-oriented process platforms. Forrester has introduced a reference architecture for agility-oriented process platforms that consists of four layers: enablement, foundation, engagement, and management.
  • Jumpstart BPM agility with commercial solutions. EA pros in China should realize that building process platforms is complex and consider commercial solutions to help them accelerate BPM adoption to improve business agility and deliver digital value to their customers and operations. EA pros should take the lead in guiding the process of selecting a BPM vendor, focusing on its ability to cover emerging BPM technologies and its experience in verticals with a similar business context. Forrester sees three categories of independent software vendors for BPM in China, each with its own go-to-market strategy (see the figure).