Business Process Management: A Practical Guide

Just as factory automation revolutionized manufacturing in the 20th Century, business process management (BPM) is poised to dramatically change the way 21st Century organizations conduct business and serve their customers. Although much has been written about the benefits of BPM, this is the first truly practical book that goes beyond the theory to provide an in-depth understanding of BPM and the way it changes the way organizations work.

BPM enables an organization to create automated "production lines" for processing information by leveraging modern software technology with the power and ubiquity of the Internet. Automated business processes enable the modern organization to reduce the time and cost for delivering information, goods and services to customers, while at the same time increasing accountability and metrics-driven performance improvements. Like a production line that effectively integrates workers and machines, BPM binds workers and line-of-business applications in a process that moves work at the speed of the modern network. It is essential for creating an agile organization capable of real-time response to business need.

Propelled by rapid advances in software technology, the pervasive growth of the Internet, and more recently, the rapid acceptance of Web Services, BPM is moving quickly to the business mainstream. It is therefore imperative for anyone concerned with improving productivity in a modern organization to understand the basic facts about this technology and how it is changing the way business is conducted.

This book is a practical guide to BPM. It devotes very little to the many benefits of BPM that have been amply covered by other authors, some of whom are cited in the bibliography. It is also not a book for software developers interested in the bits and bytes. Instead, it is devoted almost exclusively to the space where business meets technology. The goal is to educate the business people who are the ultimate beneficiaries of BPM. Unique to this book, readers who want to bring the concepts to life can request complimentary business process modeling and optimization software and examples for a hands-on BPM experience.

RASHID KHAN is the co-founder and CEO of Ultimus Inc., a pioneer in business process management and workflow automation. The company is a leading provider of Web-based BPM software solutions used by more than 1,200 customers including Dell, Sony, Microsoft and Compaq, and has won several industry awards, including the eWeek 2004 Excellence Award, CRN Editor’s Choice Award and PC Week’s Best of COMDEX.

Prior to establishing Ultimus, Khan was the founder and CEO of Sintech Inc., a leader in advanced software for mechanical testing. He founded Sintech in 1983, and after six years of rapid and profitable growth, Khan sold Sintech to MTS Systems Corporation, where he worked for five years as a vice president and general manager. During this period he took the company through ISO 9000 certification. This experience made him aware of the need for business process management and workflow automation.

Khan holds two undergraduate degrees from MIT in Computer Science and Political Science. He obtained a Masters degree in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. Khan was awarded three technology patents by the U.S. Patent Office, two of them in the area of business process management and workflow automation software. He has published numerous technical papers and business articles.