At the beginning of May SAP rolled out a survey to see where our customers and partners are currently applying BPM methodologies and tools.  While our survey is not yet complete, we wanted to share some early findings.

In the first wave of our BPM survey, consisting of around 60% SAP customers and 40% SAP partners, the majority of partners report serving customers in multiple industries, while those customers participating represented a broad collection of industry applications.  With customers, manufacturing was the most prevalent application for BPM.  With partners retail and horizontal applications were most common with public sector being a close third. Chceck result of wave 1.

Chance to win free SAP Press Book: Business Process Management - the SAP Roadmap - participate in wave 2 of BPM market survey

Here are the details of the BPX session:This session is another great example of showing how SAP eats its own dog food in internal product innovation - The SAP Business Suite Solution Management follows a value scenario path to SAP product innovation - employing a value scenario methodology in its own innovation path and product lifecycle management. Register for Pre-Conference Link

A BPX Guide to SAP Business Suite Value Scenarios
Monday, May 11, 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
$495 ASUG member/$595 non-member

• • Inside look at how the SAP Business Suite Solution Management follows a business process modeling approach to define, configure, validate and ship a library of extended processes based on the comprehensive capabilities of the Suite.
  • These extended processes or value scenarios are designed to leverage information from across the Business Suite to engage multiple roles and lines of business.
  • SAP Solution Managers, together with customers and partners present how the value scenarios can provide the foundation for new capabilities and processes.

Session will cover:

• • What is a Value Scenario? 
  • Why Value Scenarios (the strategic reason - for SAP, and you)
  • How we are delivering these (our own product / process-scenario delivery process)
  • What you really get (the implementation content in the delivered scenarios)
  • What is already delivered - and the pipeline to come.
  • How you can apply Value Scenarios (how do I make them work)?

Session speakers together with a customer and partner include Robb Bush, Principal within the SAP Business Suite Solution Management organization and Ann Rosenberg, SAP Business Transformation Consulting Community Lead

On March 6th and 7th the SAP Executive Confernce 2009 took place in Cernobbio, at Villa d'Este premises (famous for hosting major business and political events in Italy).

SAP Italy main speech presented the BPM approach as one of the key drivers to concretely innovate  also in turnaround times.

Access the ppt presentation

Gartner EXP CIO report "Meeting the Challenge: The 2009 CIO Agenda" has been released, confirming that in this though economic environment, IT spending budgets will be ratheer flat in 2009. The survey addressed more than 1,500 CIOs worldwide in the last quarter, across 48 countries and 30 industries. It refers to CIO budget plans, showing flat IT budgets homogeneously spread across enterprises in North America and Europe. Slight increases are forecasted in Latin America and opposite trends in APJ.

In this scenario, according to Gartner's study, Business Process Improvement ranks n. 1 CIO Business Priorities, with reduction of enterprise costs and improvement of operational effectiveness coming next (being also strongly interdependent). Optimization of business process has been since many years on top of CIO agendas and in 2009 more than 57 percent of CIOs reported to Gartner business process improvement as one of their top five business expectations. Quoting Mark McDonald, group vice president and head of research for Gartner EXPwebsite: "CIOs need to develop business process improvement capabilities as part of the core of IT...This will enable them to respond to executive expectations that see business processes as important to business performance, as closely associated with application systems and as a responsibility of the CIO and IT." 

This of course implies great opportunities for BPM approach, related services and supporting technologies. Also the fact that Business Intelligence on one side and ERP, CRM and other enterprise applications respectively rank n.1 and 2 in CIOTechnology  Priorities is of great interest to BPX community, as they are enabling technologies that need to be aligned and integrated in any major business process optimization program.

Read more on Gartner website

The BPMXI recorded session from TechED2008 is now available on-line for SDN subscribers.

The session covers SAP´s 4 BPM deliverables:

1. SAP BPM Governance which provides in details a four-step approach to successfully implement BPM. The approach covers The BPM Strategy, The BPM Set-up, The BPM transition, and The Continuous improvement.

2. SAP´s new BPM Methodology which is a supplement to ASAP

3. SAP BPM Technology which cover Business to Model, SAP Enterprise Modeling applications by IDS Scheer and Model to Execution, and SAP NetWeaver Business Process Management

4. SAP´s new BPM certification for Business Process Expert (Associate and Professional).

The session is part of the Virtual SAP TechEd 08 Complete Package. This is the comprehensive assembly of the recordings from live, SAP TechEd conference sessions taken from the last Las Vegas TechEd conference.  With the sessions in this complete package, you get in-depth coverage to SAP's key platform, technology and strategic initiatives.  Each session is available as on-demand streaming video along with printable PDF presentation materials.

The full recorded session BPMXI from Ann Rosenberg and Marc Dietrich from TechED 2008 will be soon available on-line.

The session covers the SAP´s 4 BPM deliverables:

1. SAP BPM Governance which provides in details a four-step approach to successfully implement BPM. The approach covers The BPM Strategy, The BPM Set-up, The BPM transition, and The Continuous improvement.
2. SAP´s new BPM Methodology which is a supplement to ASAP
3. SAP BPM Technology which cover Business to Model, SAP Enterprise Modeling applications by IDS Scheer and Model to Execution, and SAP NetWeaver Business Process Management
4. SAP´s new BPM certification for Business Process Expert (Associate and Professional).

Greg Prickril delivers a Keynote at the first SAP Insider BPM2008 event in Marseille
What is a business process? 

Access the video from Greg Prickril.

The abstract of the book "Business Process Management - The SAP Roadmap", by Jim Hagemann Snabe, Ann Rosenberg, Charles Møller, Mark Scavillo,  is now available on-line.

In the abstract you will find:

• the table of contents and index for the whole book
• Chapter 2: The evolution of Business Process Management
• Chapter 10: Continuos Improvement
• Chapter 15: SAP's view on Business Process Management

Do not miss this opportunity to get this first insight into SAP new approach to Business Process Management blended with SOA!!

Click here to access the Abstract - Business Process Management - The SAP Roadmap.

After the great success and huge interest demonstrated towards SAP BPX in Las Vegas, a great deal of exciting activities are being planned for the BPX Community participation to Berlin TechED! Make sure you are part of it...!!

• 13th Oct - BPX Community Day: a full day dedicated to BPX related workshops, including the new SAP Certification Program for Business Process Expert, with the chance to directly interact and make contact with SAP BPX Community representatives. And even more interaction is being planned for the evening event: PROCESS DESIGN SLAM - be sure you do not miss that one either!! Read more...
• 12th Oct - SAP TechEd '08 ClueTrain: get the chance to join all the exciting discussion around SAP Community activities and inititatives even BEFORE the TechED begins! If you are registered for a Community Day, get a free ticket and share your journey to Berlin with 25 SAP Community members that will travel from Frankfurt to Berlin on the Deutsche Bahn on sunday 12th Oct, leaving Frankfurt at 16:17. Read more...
• 16th Oct interview to Ann Rosenberg on SAP BPX Certification Program. This will be a Community Clubhouse interview session, with questions coming from a mix of community members and top contributurs. It will be performed live in Berlin from 2:00 to 3:00 pm and also broadcast on the web on the Clubhouse TV.
• 14-16 Oct Educational Sessions: Within the TechED Educational Session, several workshops within the BPM and SOA tracks are dedicated to topics related to SAP BPX Certified Program. Among the others do not miss: BPM102 SAP Enterprise Modeling Applications by IDS Scheer; BPM103 Blending BPM and SOA.

Take a look at some of the highlights from the recent edition of BPX Community Day in Las Vegas on Marilyn Pratt's blog. 

Access the Berlin TechED News with news and comments on the BPX participation to the event!!!

LAS VEGAS - September 09, 2008 - SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the release of a book authored by the SAP BPX Community, using the collaborative capabilities of a public wiki as the writing platform, under the leadership of Marco ten Vaanholt, global head of the SAP Business Process Expert community. The announcement of the community-authored book's publication was made at SAP® TechEd 2008, SAP's premier annual educational event, being held in Las Vegas, Nevada, Sept. 8-12.

The first edition of Process First: The Evolution of the Business Process Expert  is available at no costs as a PDF on the BPX Community Wiki, and is available for purchase in a traditional printed format through online booksellers.

Read more...

In this podcast, Demir Barlas from SearchSAP.com interviews Arnold Jung, head of SAP Education for mid-market customers on the newly launched BPX Certification.

According to SearchSAP.com, BPM blended with SOA is "red hot" right now, as many experts identify this practice as a way to improve SAP project success.

At TechEd 2008, following announcement for SAP BPX Certification Arnold Jung provides insights on BPX certification costs, the course length, who should get it and how it will address the SAP skills shortage.

Access Arnold Jung podcast on SearchSAP.com .

SAP BPX Community will intervene at next ARIS Process Days Nordic event that will take place in Stockholm on 5-6 November 2008.

A seminar session will be dedicated to new SAP BPM approach, with focus on SAP 4 BPM deliverables:
1. SAP BPM Governance
2. SAP´s new BPM Methodology
3. SAP BPM Technology
4. SAP´s new BPM certification for Business Process Expert (Associate and Professional)

 Visit our Events page for more details

Press Release, LAS VEGAS - September 09, 2008 - SAP AG (NYSE: SAP)

Certification in Business Process Management Extends Employment Opportunities for Business Process Experts, Adds Resources for Customers and Partners. Read more...

See some of the news websites that have relaunched the press release:

International Business Time; Yahoo Finance; MSN.Money; BetaNews; NewsBlaze; eChannelLine;

Clieck here to read other articles appeared on the BPX Certification Program: Press Review

Interview with Thomas Volmering Lead Product Manager SAP BPM at SAP AG in Walldorf, broadcasted on ARIS TV.

The inteview  provides the big picture on how ARIS and SAP can be optimally combined for an optimized BPM approach and it gives an excellent overview of the tool architecture and use within an SAP and ARIS-based BPM environment.

Furthermore, he gives a more detailed explanation about the part of SAP BPM (Galaxy) and ESR.

Click here to access the video of the interview with Thomas Volmering.

Ann Rosenberg and Mark Dietrich held one of the sessions of BPX Community Day that took place on Sept 8th at TechEd Las Vegas, introducing SAP BPM Governance, BPM Methodology, BPM Technology and the recently launched training program for BPX Certfied Expert.

Click here to view the slide deck  that was presented during Ann and Mark workshop.

Read more on the BPX Community Day and see some videoclips from the session.