Five Business Process and Application Trends for 2008
A Forrester analyst outlines the changes in next-generation applications, architectures and business process management that lie ahead.
So what's new for SaaS in 2008? "Vendors like Salesforce.com now offer highly flexible architectures, so the tradeoff between cost and flexibility is fading," Leaver says. "Plus, the largest app vendors are finally getting into the game—the latest being SAP's new Business ByDesign offering. The result is that more business process and applications professionals will embrace SaaS for key 'edge' processes like sales, talent management and procurement, and some will even consider SaaS for more core apps like human resource management systems."
Business Process COEs. "It's no surprise that organizations are looking to business process initiatives to improve their customer-facing and back-office processes, and many see new BPM technology as the panacea to their process standardization and innovation problems," Leaver writes. "But individual lines of business often don't see the benefits of collaborating with other lines of business. This means that business process and applications professionals with cross-functional knowledge and BPM technology know-how will have a golden opportunity to expand their influence and increase their visibility." But just how do they do that? According to Leaver: By spearheading BPM COEs, "which provide expertise around BPM technology, a common project methodology, and a method to store reusable process assets to reduce rework."
The Evolving Business Analyst Role. "The advent of Dynamic Business Applications and business process excellence initiatives will further complicate the already hard-to-define business analyst role," Leaver notes. "Business-oriented business analysts will need more IT skills, and IT-oriented business analysts will need more business acumen. Expect a concerted effort by business process and applications leaders—as well as CIOs—in 2008 to communicate the strategic nature of the business analyst role and assess their current inventory of business analysts." She also writes that we will see "more descriptive and distinguished titles like process architect and information architect attached to much clearer development road maps and career paths."
