As such, the top two challenges from the Aberdeen survey were organizational: justifying a BPM investment and getting buy-in from business stakeholders.

The Virtusa and PRTM survey results confirm the magnitude of the organizational disconnects that can happen without business-side buy-in. In follow-up interviews with those who were surveyed, many indicated that they were investing in BPM initiatives even though the projects usually lacked senior executive sponsorship. Just 24 percent of respondents reported having a VP or a senior executive in charge of BPM, according to the survey results, and more than 40 percent said there was "no clear decision-maker in place to manage BPM programs."

Not surprisingly, the majority of those surveyed reported that their companies lacked a clear vision or roadmap for deploying and capitalizing on their BPM investment. Only 15 percent said they had a plan for BPM that had stated goals and objectives, and just 12 percent reported that they used a defined roadmap for business process improvements.

Survey respondents claimed that internal and external collaboration was "essential for effective innovation," and 72 percent reported that they had some form of an IT-enabled collaboration capability. "However, follow-up interviews showed that few of these solutions work well," stated the Virtusa and PRTM results overview. "Most were knowledge-management or file-sharing systems that are poorly structured, have inadequate version control and are disconnected from relevant processes."

How to Tame BPM

The Aberdeen Group report makes several recommendations on how companies can improve their BPM performance.

Document Your Processes. "BPM is business process management, not an application," states the Aberdeen report. "Understanding your key business processes is the first step to any BPM implementation. Invest the time to understand the flow of information through your enterprise."

Hire Help. Best-in-class companies, according to Aberdeen's metrics, understand that management consultants are one key improving their businesses. "Engage a consultant firm early," notes the report, "in order to lay the groundwork for choosing a BPM tool."

Plan for Enterprise Convergence. If companies are already using standalone BPM applications, Aberdeen recommends that organizations should explore ways to bring those applications together into an integrated system. "New development should be capable of integrating into the enterprise BPM solution," states the report.

In sum, BPM is becoming a competitive edge for companies that apply it effectively, notes the Aberdeen report. "Don't fall into the technology trap, though. BPM requires expertise and commitment on the process side as well as the product side."