5 Tips for Selecting the Best BPM Software Vendor for your next BPM Project

By brian | July 14, 2011 | BPM, RFI, RFP

The following is a list of recommendations for selecting the best BPM Software or Workflow Software Vendor for your next BPM software project.  I have read various versions of this list produced from numerous BPM Software industry analysts.  Here is what the analysts tend to say about the best way to select BPM Software or Workflow Software:

1. DO NOT Create an RFP or RFI in order to select a BPM Software Vendor
2. Shortlist 3 vendors and invite them onsite to do a Proof of Concept
3. Choose an outside facing process as the business process or workflow to be used for the POC 
4. Use a workflow process that has 1 or 2 integration points and presents an easy way to measure improvement
5. Insist your personnel work side by side with the vendor’s personnel so that they can ask specific questions regarding why the vendor chose to do this or that when creating the workflow process

On a final point, remember that if you do a POC based on these recommendations, it will not demonstrate scalability.  The best way to evaluate the scalability of a particular workflow automation solution is to ask for references and speak to those references. 

It is hard to argue too much with these recommendations.  They are sound.  Some of them are not always realistic.  If the vendor is not bidding on an enterprise wide, $200k per year plus project, then it probably is not realistic to expect competing vendors to come on site to do a POC.  However, in this case, a hands on, remote POC or Workflow Software Quick Start would be a good option and will serve the same purpose.

The really important points here are the truly obvious ones like don’t make your selection based on an RFP or RFI.  I receive at least one RFP or RFI per week for companies that are working on a BPM Software purchase.  And as I look at the RFIs, my response is always the same – what were these guys thinking?

If you were buying a car, would you sit down and make a list of features and then send it out to a bunch of car manufacturers and then base your purchase on the responses they submit?  Of course not!  Or what about buying a smart phone – do you look at a list of features and purchase your phone because you can “check-off” the key features?  Of course not! 

The fact is that a software feature is not a software feature.  This is true for cars, phones, or BPM software.  In life and technology, there are well designed and elegant features, and then there is poorly thought out junk.  A MontBlanc pen serves the same function as a standard drug store purchased disposable Bic pen, right?    But are they the same?

The point is you probably didn’t buy your current smartphone without first touching and trying it out or at least reading reviews of the phone or getting some recommendations from a few friends.  The reason is that on paper, they all tend to sound the same.  That is exactly what happens with the RFIs.  I laugh when I see a list of features like the following:

1. User friendly bpmn 2.0 designer – yes or no? 
2. Intuitive Web Forms design tool – yes or no? 

How is a BPM software vendor supposed to answer these questions?  Of course, we all have these features, and of course we are all going to put a check or a “yes” in these boxes. So why waste our time and yours when trying to choose a vendor for your workflow software or BPM software?

In my next post I’ll explore why many entities, especially public entities, rely so heavily on the RFI and RFP process for selecting software (not just workflow software and BPM software but all enterprise software).  Not all BPM Software or Workflow Software is the same.  So, just remember a simple bit of advice.  Think about how you bought your smartphone, and then think about how your organization is analyzing it selection for a BPM software or workflow software…does it make sense?