Business Process Management Software Market to Exceed US $5 Billion by 2017

By brian | April 25, 2011 | BPM, business process re-engineering, Open Source

In a recent report, the GIA recently puts the market for BPM Software at $5 Billion by 2017.

According to the GIA report and press release, “Business Process Management (BPM) represents activities carried out by global enterprises in optimizing and adapting their business processes through the use of software tools. The global economic recession has emerged as a blessing in disguise for the evolving BPM market, providing a solution to deal with falling revenues and margins. The recession has affected the long-standing customer relationships of several businesses, forcing companies to focus efforts on adopting new initiatives for improving customer-centric processes. Adverse economic conditions have also brought to fore the significance of operational transparency, control and auditability, largely due to the cost-containment measures adopted by companies.”

In other words, thanks to the global recession, BPM is hot.

The GIA press release goes on to reiterate lots of things we already know, i.e. business is tougher these days and companies need to be more competitive.  In order to become more cometitive, companies need to enhance productivity, reduce expenses, and improve their business processes, hence the boom in demand for Workflow Software.

However, later on in the release, the report says something more interesting, “Further, the highly regulated nature of the market implies that global businesses are required to adopt agility, transparency and control in their business processes, for coping with the adverse market conditions. With enterprise application platforms such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) not offering enough flexibility to incorporate rapid changes in operations management, particularly during the adverse economic environment, the significance of BPM continues to rise.”

Now that is an interesting statement.  According to GIA BPM will become more important because CRM Software and ERP Software do not offer enough flexibility.

I am not sure I agree, but it is certainly an interesting comment.  There is a reason CRM Software is currently a $10 billion dollar a year market while the BPM Software Market is expected to hit $5 Billion by 2017.  See the irony, there?  Also, much of it depends on where you draw the line.  Most CRM software already has some workflow software type functionality, albeit weak or insufficient.

However, on the other hand, if BPM importance is increasing relative to CRM and ERP, then this would explain the growing need for CRM Vendors to partner with Workflow Software companies or acquire more BPM Software/workflow software type capabilities.   Salesforce did this through the acquisition of Informavores back in 2010.   This is now the Visual Process Manager that is found today in Sales Force.

So, perhaps, there is something very interesting in this statement and the corresponding report.  Perhaps, it will mean more interesting and agile partnerships between workflow software vendors and CRM software vendors.  Or perhaps it will mean more mergers and acquisitions with players that are in the CRM or ERP spaces acquiring BPM software technology or vice versa?  Let’s see what happens.