In the 1990s, Michael Hammer and James Champy’s blockbuster book, Reengineering the Corporation, set off a tidal wave of business process improvement initiatives throughout corporate America. The two management gurus showed that redesigning a company’s processes, structure and culture could lead to a dramatic increase in performance. But a lack of attention to change management and the impact of these initiatives on employees yielded counterproductive results in many companies that tried to put Hammer’s and Champy’s ideas into practice. The once golden notion of business process reengineering took on a tarnish and fell out of fashion. Today, business process improvement has a new name—business process management—and is in vogue again. Spurred by the pressures of global competition, commoditization and government regulation, American companies are reexamining their business processes in search of more efficient ways to execute them through automation or even outsourcing. Companies again see business process management (BPM)—the practice of continually optimizing business processes through analysis, modeling and monitoring—as a systematic approach for solving business problems and helping them meet their financial goals.

“Companies are realizing that a good, solid understanding of their processes is essential to achieving any of their performance objectives,” says Roger Burlton, founder of consultancy Process Renewal Group. “Most organizations, if they’re not already doing something [with BPM], are starting to get into it.”

The Political Tussle

As BPM takes root in corporations throughout America, a struggle for control between the business and IT is ensuing. Historically, the business has managed its own process improvements. But the arrival of sophisticated BPM tools and IT’s ability to operate across the enterprise have given rise to the belief that IT should lead the charge.

It’s an idea that naturally incites pushback from the business. Burlton notes that BPM projects dealing with CRM or supply chain management initiated by IT often get subsumed into the business when a senior line executive realizes that the very processes IT is automating are those that drive his segment’s revenue. The executive worries that if IT screws up and his unit doesn’t meet its financial goals as a result, his bonus—and maybe his job—could be on the line.

Many of them also view IT as a bottleneck that adds cost and complexity to projects, so they’re hesitant to cede BPM to the CIO, according to Burlton. Finally, territorial instincts fuel their desire to control process management initiatives that affect their turf. (For ideas on how to work effectively with line-of-business managers who own BPM initiatives, read “Keeping Your Hand In,” this page.)