When employing the homonym “BPM,” it is important to clarify the difference between Technical BPM and Business BPM. Technical BPM covers not only the IT tools for business process automation, but also contributes as another available resource for a company to perfect its process management.

Business BPM has a broader comprisement than an IT tool, being commonly known as “Process Management.” With that in mind, I would to like to present my opinion as to its contribution to the Business architecture.

A lot of companies say that they employ Process Management, and in fact they do, otherwise such companies wouldn’t have products with more or less value in the market. However, the question I would like to raise – therefore verifying the applicability of Business BPM to Enterprise Architecture – is if the manner by which companies manage their processes is disciplined.  Not less important is realizing that some specialists impose that if the process is managed within the department, it’s not a process. On the other hand, I believe this to be a matter of some arbitrariness.

In any case, in all the companies I’ve been through, I realized that numerous isolated attempts are made, most of them ceasing even before accomplishing the specific goal. Furthermore, in most cases, companies mix up process modeling initiative, analysis, and improvement proposal with process management. According to prof. William A. Scheer, when documenting, carrying out in accordance with documentation, measuring, and continuously improving aiming the established goals, you have Business Process Management.

Therefore, when talking about Business process discipline, it is necessary to think of a Vision that sustains it, the maturity level of each business process, and a time window for which to achieve the Vision and desired maturity level for the established goal. It is inadmissible to speak of Process Management without the above being with the following requisites: documentation in data repository – independent of certain goal – consonance with the maturity and other elements that contribute to a clear definition of business goals, along with delivery of value added products and services to the customer.

Thus, the contribution of Business BPM to Enterprise Architecture is not only providing business process architecture, but also considering the contribution of its approach providing the representation of other company components that contribute to the clear definition of business goals, and the influence of these components to the Management of Business Processes.


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