Forrester – developments with BPM platforms

Forrester has published a report “BPM Platforms for Digital Business” which covers many of our ‘Software for Domain Experts’ themes – you can download it here (registration required).

Forrester thinks Pegasystems, Appian and IBM are best, followed by Software AG, Oracle, Newgen Software, OpenText, Bizagi, K2 and DST Systems, followed by Red Hat and TIBCO in level 3.

It says “when asked, most enterprise architects will share that the people and process dimensions of digital business are the most difficult to transform”.

So coming onto our arguments, we think the software should be designed principally to serve people, enterprise architects see people as one of 100 things they need to get right and get annoyed when the people part of it doesn’t work.

It says ” many companies are dumping traditional process methods — including process modeling and Six Sigma techniques — in favor of design thinking and lean experimentation techniques that support rapid delivery”.

I think “design thinking” basically means looking at something from the perspective of people who use it, so that sounds quite close to what we have been talking about.

It says ” BPM platforms must support different work patterns, including casework, heads-down processing, customer collaboration, straight-through processing, and procedural work. And in some cases, the platforms must support all of these work styles across a single end-to-end process”

So that’s about moving beyond software = filling in forms.

Forrester is also assessing the tools on the basis of their ‘low code toolset’.

It thinks Appian, IBM and Pegasystems have the best broad support for “digital scenarios”  ie they can be used in many different ways, including on mobile phones.

Bizagi, DST Systems, K2 and Newgen software are best for fast development (low code etc).

OpenText, Oracle and Software AG have a broad range of software available for companies, including analytics and master data management.

Red Hat and TIBCO are best for systems which integrate with other software.