...(zalecorp.com); VP, research director, Gartner (gartner.com); and Rashid Khan, co-founder, CEO, Ultimus (ultimus.com). Read to learn what they have to say about this burgeoning field.

Q Lamont: What is BPM, and why has it captured so much attention lately?

A Sinur: BPM is the management of explicit business processes, like the ones needed to underwrite an insurance policy or deliver an order. BPM software products cover a whole range of capabilities, from simple administrative and task support to collaborative software and integration brokers that control system-to-system interaction. Pure-play BPM software has a runtime execution engine based on events. It can also model and simulate processes, and make "in-flight" adjustments when processes need to change. BPM products are effective at reducing costs and time to market, which is why they are attracting a lot of interest.

Q Lamont: How did Zales become interested in BPM?

A Magness: In fact, when we began, BPM was the farthest thing from our mind. We used a lot of forms in the general office, and we simply wanted to switch from paper-based forms to electronic forms. We wanted to create an online form for the time-off requests that got filled out by the employee and went straight into the system, instead of sending over a form to be keypunched when someone was requesting a day off. At that point, we were looking for a workflow system. We got into BPM as we were designing this process and realized we didn't necessarily want to follow the same process as before.

Q Lamont: So you began rethinking your processes?

A Magness: Yes. After the time-off form was automated, which took just three weeks, we realized that we didn't necessarily need to follow the same steps we had for...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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