Easily identifiable business process management defects “will topple” ten global 2000 companies by 2014, according to analyst house Gartner.
Gartner said the standard of business process management will increasingly help separate firms that perform well operationally and those that don’t.
“Between now and year-end 2014 an intensifying focus on process-related skills, competencies and competitive differentiators will increasingly separate process excellence leaders from the laggards among the Global 2000,” said the analyst.
Gartner analyst John Dixon said, “A key theme in our BPM predictions is the rising focus on making business process improvement (BPI) a core competency of the organisation, and on the capabilities and tools required to gain that competency.”
He said, “Increasing process skills in the Global 2000 will further separate the companies with enlightened process experts from those that are simply competent in the basics, and will intensify the negative repercussions and devastating consequences from public exposure of process weakness.”
Gartner has made key predictions for business process management (BPM) in 2011 and beyond. One of these is that between now and year-end 2014, overlooked but easily detectable business process defects will topple ten Global 2000 companies.
“Many detectable process defects remain undiagnosed throughout the Global 2000, even though today’s state-of-the-art BPM practices and technologies could spot many of these issues before the damage is done,” said Gartner.
The analyst said companies should build organisational competencies for business process excellence, and invest in the skills and roles, and tools and techniques that are needed to analyse and improve processes.
General BPM certification will grow in value but “will not be materially relevant to BPM hiring decisions before 2015”, added Gartner.
It said that as BPM maturity progresses and the roles within it become more stable, it is natural for the industry to try to create a certification scheme to validate BPM skills and experience, to provide recruiters with a degree of confidence that applicants have the core skills required of the job.
However, said Gartner, until BPM certification reaches a critical mass and its value is recognised by hiring companies, organisations will have little to act on in terms of selection criteria.
For individuals seeking certification, or for employers seeking to “upskill” their BPM employees, the best approach to take today is to consider general BPM certification as an individual development or continuing-education opportunity, and to reassess the industry uptake for certification on a year-by-year basis, Gartner said.
