SAP and BPM: Special Report

Business process management continues to be a hot topic for SAP users, with disagreement among experts as to where SAP stands. SearchSAP.com wraps up BPM month with this Special Report examining SAP's activities in the BPM market. We will continue to watch the BPM topic closely and bring you news and analysis throughout the year.

• SAP in BPM: Leading player or losing ground?: Guest columnist Dennis Byron considers SAP a BPM market leader, disagreeing with Forrester's assessment.
  
• SAP slips in integration-centric BPM market: Despite its heavy emphasis on business process management (BPM) recently, SAP has failed to keep pace with some of the competition in one area of the market, according to a Forrester study.
  
• SAP, Oracle playing catch-up with BPM technologies: Large software vendors are 12 to 18 months away from catching up to the established pure-play business process management vendors, according to an analyst with Gartner Inc.
  
• Top SAP Stories of 2006: SearchSAP.com ranked BPM as one of the top SAP stories of 2006.
  

• Gartner, IDS Scheer outline BPM success factors: Leadership and corporate culture are just a few of the things companies need to succeed with BPM, according to a Gartner analyst at IDS Scheer's ProcessWorld.
  
• SAP implementation braves Hurricane Katrina: Community Coffee was ramping up its SAP BPM implementation when disaster struck. The project succeeded despite an unwelcome visit from Hurricane Katrina.
  
• SAP to focus on business process management: SAP is forming a Business Process Management Expert Community, with experts and independent software vendors, to address gaps in its BPM software.
  
• Companies set business process management priorities: Firms that are moving forward with business process management projects are beginning to report some rewards.
  
• NetWeaver demands a long, hard look at business processes: Service-oriented architecture planning and SAP NetWeaver projects are forcing companies to adjust business processes across the board, according to the CEO of IDS Scheer Americas.
  
• Global competition forces process changes: Some companies are wrapping business process management plans with service-oriented architecture projects to boost competitiveness on a global stage.
  

• BPM expert Andre Truong speaks out: Q&A: SAP's BPM push has been well documented; Andre Truong answers some burning BPM questions for SAP users.
  
• BPM and SOA insight from Mathias Kirchmer Q&A: IDS Scheer's Mathias Kirchmer discusses some of the themes from ProcessWorld, including open business process management, SOA and SAP.
  
• Podcast: SAP sets sights on BPM with new community: As customers look to improve their business processes, SAP is trying to provide some help. Mark Yolton discusses SAP's new Business Process Expert Community.
  
• Podcast: SAP implementation challenges, potential pitfalls: James Smith, IT director of dishware and stemware maker Rosenthal USA, discusses the challenges and potential pitfalls of an SAP implementation.
  

• Should we believe the hype around business process management (BPM)?: Joshua Greenbaum responds to the BPM hype with his own viewpoints on large vendors vs. best-of-breed in this BPM expert tip.
  
• Using IT practices and IT scenarios to understand SAP NetWeaver -- End-to-end process integration: End-to-end process integration is an IT practice that enables disparate applications and business partners' systems to exchange information and execute transactions smoothly, operating as if they were a single system. This tip looks at capabilities related to SAP NetWeaver Process Integration.
  
• Why NetWeaver matters as a composition platform, Part 1: An introduction to the benefits, challenges and opportunities of NetWeaver as a composition platform.
  
• Why NetWeaver matters as a composition platform, Part 2: A look at the methodology used to successfully manage business process requirements into business process models that are ready to be specified and implemented into composite processes.
  
• Why NetWeaver matters as a composition platform, Part 3: An introduction of the Enterprise Process Framework translating the Business Process Models into executable and manageable Enterprise Business Processes.