Like its open source software brethren in general, Bonitasoft is about democratizing the business process management (BPM) software category for organizations of all sizes and industries that face challenges from tighter compliance requirements to overworked information technology (IT) departments and more competition. With Bonitasoft, organizations can model, automate, and optimize process workflows in finance, human resources, marketing and sales, supply chain, e-government, and more business areas. The fast-growing BPM vendor and its open source community deliver a sizeable ecosystem of connectors for nearly any application and/or system. Since its inception in 2009, Bonitasoft has had more than 2 million downloads, 600 customers, and a community of more than 60,000 contributors.

Recently, BonitaSoft announced the rollout of Bonita BPM 6—the company’s biggest platform upgrade in 3 years, offered through 1- or 3-year subscriptions that include all software, support, and maintenance. Bonita BPM 5.0 was released 3 years ago, but there have been 10 updates (5.1, 5.2, etc.) since then. Bonita BPM 6 builds on the company’s aforementioned vision to “democratize BPM,” where process owners (business users), at all levels in an organization, can take greater control over improving their operational performance.

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TEC is pleased to announce that AuraPortal’s business process management (BPM) solution has recently been certified and joins the ranks of TEC certified BPM systems.You can see TEC’s complete profile for AuraPortal here.

To obtain TEC certification, AuraPortal completed TEC’s detailed research questionnaire and went through a formal comprehensive product demonstration with TEC analysts.

This demo provided TEC with a first-hand look at the outstanding features of AuraPortal’s application, and at how AuraPortal works to help organizations design, deploy, operate, and monitor their process management projects. It also provided insight into how AuraPortal supports more than one hundred features and functionality sets that TEC was particularly interested in taking a closer look at.

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Eccentex Corporation provides dynamic case management (DCM), a.k.a. adaptive case management, software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions using its multitenant cloud-based AppBase platform as a service (PaaS). DCM solutions should support what the evolving knowledge worker needs and allow organizations to optimize case outcomes, improve customer services, and mitigate risk.

Eccentex recently announced the launch of AppBase 5.0, which includes user-friendly creation tools and templates or frameworks (referred to as AppTemplates) for quick delivery of case management systems by business analysts and line-of-business personnel (rather than IT staff). The vendor is hereby trying to redefine the fundamental processes and user interfaces of the modern knowledge worker. Read the rest of this entry »

In its ongoing competition with IBM, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Moxie Software, salesforce.com, and KANA Software, Pegasystems (a.k.a., Pega), an upbeat provider of business process management (BPM) and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, announced the latest version of its process-centric CRM solution. The latest release, Customer Process Manager (CPM) enables real-time collaboration amongst customers, the customer service representatives (CSRs), and supporting back-office teams across the enterprise.

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Informatica Corporation, an independent provider of data integration software, recently acquired Active Endpoints, a private business process management (BPM) provider.

As a public company with over $800 million in annual revenue and over $500 million in cash, Informatica seems to be a great new home for Active Endpoints’ technology and customers. Not only will Active Endpoints technology be integrated throughout Informatica’s product line, but Informatica pledges to continue to support every ActiveVOS BPM customer and partner (although the jury is still out on whether Informatica can deliver, given that BPM has not been its core competency). Read the rest of this entry »

In many service industries, such as financial, insurance, utilities, healthcare, government, and others, case management is the lifeblood of the business. These highly unstructured (dynamic or adaptive, if you will) processes where the next process step’s best action depends on the outcome of the previous step require apt human process stewards, a.k.a. “knowledge workers.” These knowledge workers, characterized as workers whose main capital is knowledge, are aided by a multitude of tools such as sophisticated business rules engines, knowledge bases, predictive analytics, etc. in executing tasks exactly when, where, and how they are needed to achieve customer satisfaction, while maintaining corporate governance and compliance requirements.

Yet, Eccentex Corporation, a provider of AppBase platform-as-a-service (PaaS) applications for dynamic case management (DCM), just announced the results of a recently conducted survey, which found that companies are failing to equip their employees with the tools they need to thrive in today’s work environment. Survey results, which included responses from knowledge workers in a variety of industries, pointed to widespread demand for mobile and cloud-based access to business-critical information systems and platforms needed to do their job.

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On December 4, 2012, Pegasystems (a.k.a. Pega), a prominent business process management (BPM) and customer relationship management (CRM) software solutions provider, announced its new Pega Process Extender offering. The product aims to enable organizations to leverage their SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications with new work automation and user experience capabilities. Pega has significant experience complementing SAP ERP applications, and large enterprises can now take advantage of all of Pega’s BPM, dynamic case management, and next-best-action predictive analytics solutions to unlock and leverage their data, logic, and processes in SAP.

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Dyer Engineering, a UK-based sub-contract fabrication and specialist engineering company, has apparently selected the Epicor next-generation enterprise resourcing planning (ERP) solution to replace its existing local ERP solution. Dyer Engineering claims to have always been an early adopter of advanced technology, and the company has used its existing ERP solution since 1999. While ERP is already embedded in all departments there were areas of missing functionality, and the software was unable to perform in the way the management team required to aid in reaching the company’s growth target. In other words, spreadsheets were “supplementing” the ERP system. The competition for a new ERP system included a global mid-market and another local British competitor of Epicor. Read the rest of this entry »

SAP has just announced the availability of SAP EPM OnDemand, SAP’s Business Performance offering in the cloud. Launched during the ASUG SAP BusinessObjects User Conference, this new solution will deliver specific enterprise functionality for capital and project planning, real-time profit and loss analysis, as well as expense analysis.

SAP will keep expanding EPM OnDemand by adding more specific functionality and is designed to complement other SAP solutions, such as SAP Business Planning and Consolidation. EPM OnDemand counts on mobile-ready features powered by SAP HANA and has features to offer mobile and on-demand users an improved user experience.

It will be interesting to see how SAP can compete with strong players in the cloud EPM market, such as Adaptive Planning and Host Analytics.

SOFTWARE SELECTIONS

Mid-sized refractory products manufacturer selects EnterpriseIQ ERP from IQMS
Industry tags: manufacturing
“The reasons why Riverside Refractories Inc. decided to replace its existing ERP system aren’t unique—the old legacy system’s inflexibility and inability to support manufacturing needs in the changing business environment had started impeding the company’s operations. The company selected an ERP solution from IQMS—its EnterpriseIQ ERP package designed for medium-sized businesses. This software was preferred over others for a few major reasons: ease of use and a ‘comfortable’ user interface; flexibility and capability to run on multiple hardware types; and a reasonable cost. And the last reason the company mentions is pretty interesting: lack of the usual sales pressure. This example clearly shows the importance of intangible and subjective factors during the software selection process.” — Aleksey Osintsev, TEC Analyst

Overview: IQMS EnterpriseIQ
Compare IQMS EnterpriseIQ head-to-head with other leading ERP solutions.

SYSPRO ERP selected by Hardy Machine and Design
Industry tags: manufacturing
“This company, which engineers, designs, and fabricates precise machine metal parts for clients in various industries, decided to replace its existing software because it lacked processes for cost tracking and had poor scheduling capabilities. After evaluating multiple systems, Hardy concluded that SYSPRO ERP was the best choice. Among other selection factors it cites three major ones: underlying cutting-edge Microsoft technology, a full range of functionality focusing on the metal machining industry, and a local software reseller to provide back-up and support.” — Aleksey Osintsev, TEC Analyst

“SYSPRO ERP replaced the Exact JobBOSS and Sage Peachtree combination at Hardy, specialists in oil and gas, aerospace, and health care industries, as the combined software was not providing good job cost data for individual jobs and had weak job scheduling capabilities. SYSPRO ERP outcompeted four ERP products for the new contract, one of which was SAP Business One by SAP Americas Inc. Hardy reported selected SYSPRO ERP because SYSPRO seems to be on the ‘cutting edge’ of Microsoft offerings; the software offers a full suite of capabilities focused on Hardy’s industries, and the local SYSPRO reseller offers excellent backup and support.” — P.J. Jakovljevic, Principal TEC Analyst Read the rest of this entry »

TEC is pleased to announce that WorkflowGen, Advantys’ business process management (BPM) solution, has joined the ranks of TEC certified BPM systems.

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The multi-channel customer experience management software market represents an attractive US$5 billion-plus market opportunity, which IDC recently forecast to grow at between 5 to 12 percent through 2015 (a 6 percent compound annual growth rate [CAGR]) within the larger overall customer relationship management (CRM) space. To that end, in July 2012, KANA Software, a longstanding customer service software provider, which has lately been on an impressive comeback and acquisition trail, announced that it has acquired the upbeat and innovative contact center customer service company Ciboodle from the Sword Group.

The official press release cites that this move creates a more powerful independent provider for multi-channel customer service solutions across agent, web, social, and mobile experiences. The acquisition is further evidence of consolidation in this attractive sector, as marked by Oracle’s acquisitions of RightNow, InQuira, and several smaller social computing companies, and salesforce.com’s acquisitions of inStranet, Radian 6, and other smaller companies. Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Yammer might also have some relevance to this CRM segment. Read the rest of this entry »

KANA Software is a global provider in customer service solutions delivered on-premise or in the cloud, and these solutions unify and maintain context for customer journeys across agent, Web, social, and mobile experiences. The vendor’s solutions have reduced handling time, increased resolution rates, and improved net promoter score (NPS) at more than 850 enterprises, including half of the Global 100 and more than 250 government agencies.

The KANA Service Experience Management (SEM) platform combines the realms of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Business Process Management (BPM), Knowledge Management, Text Analytics, and Social Media to support the delivery of good experiences on brands and on budget across multiple customer interaction channels. Most recently, at the IQPC 2012 Call Center Week event, the vendor introduced new capabilities in its enterprise customer service solution, designed to support the new strategic imperative in Web Customer Service (WCS) — customer acquisition. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been my experience in the business intelligence (BI) and business performance management (BPM) fields—and I’m sure it’s true in other software areas—that one of the most difficult tasks of all is to put theory into practice. Business theories are usually not set in stone and need to be adjusted to reality, or modified to suit specific cases. This is particularly difficult in the measurement of service performance because of the many considerations to be taken into account that involve both quantitative and qualitative criteria. Read the rest of this entry »

After coming across the Forbes article The End Of ERP and quite a few spin-off articles about the imminent death of ERP, I became somewhat concerned about how this topic was being handled by “people in the know” and other IT experts. Here’s my take on it.

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