Business Process Management (BPM): The Third Wave

From Publishers Weekly
Corporate re-engineering was a hot trend in the early 1990s, when businesses started streamlining to save money and "downsizing" came into vogue. Now it's economic uncertainty all over again, and managers are looking to shave costs while still dominating their sectors-and Smith and Fingar want to give them the management tools to achieve that. The authors, both IT experts, insist their management theory and practice will guide business leaders through the next 50 years. While many companies are savaging their tech budgets to survive, for instance, Smith and Fingar hold up General Electric as a current ideal; the company has actually boosted its information technology dollars, as it sees the next wave of business automation as full of promise. While heavy on corporate bafflegab, this book does break down how companies can boost productivity, discover savings and thrive in a harsh business environment. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
This book heralds a breakthrough that redefines competitive advantage for the next fifty years. Don't bridge the business-IT divide: Obliterate it! The book is the first authoritative analysis of how third-wave business process management (BPM) changes everything in business and what it portends. While the vision of process management is not new, existing theories and systems have not been able to cope with the reality of business processes --until now. This book describes a radical, simplifying shift in process thinking and technology that utterly transforms today's information systems and reduces the lag between management intent and execution. A process-managed enterprise makes agile course corrections, embeds Six Sigma quality and reduces cumulative costs across the value chain. It pursues strategic initiatives with confidence, including mergers, consolidation, alliances, acquisitions, outsourcing and global expansion. Process management is the only way to achieve these objectives with transparency, management control and accountability. The process-managed enterprise grasps control of business processes and communicates with a universal process language that enables partners to execute on shared vision --to understand each other's operations in detail, jointly design processes and manage the entire lifecycle of their business improvement initiatives. Process management is not another form of automation, a new killer-app or a fashionable new management theory. With the third-wave BPM breakthrough and its solid mathematical underpinnings, business processes can now be unhindered by the constraints of existing IT systems. Short on stories and long on insight and practical information, this book will help your business become the company of the future, the real-time enterprise, the fully digitized corporation --the process-managed enterprise. The book also offers continually updated information and a dialog with the authors at its Web site.

From the Publisher
The first limited distribution edition of this groundbreaking book was published in September 2002, and subsequently designed for "fast track" reads by either business or technology readers. The business impact is covered in the first 197 pages. Ten years ago, Computer Sciences Corporation's James Champy co-authored the New York Times best seller, Reengineering the Corporation, that set the world alight with over 2,000,000 copies in print. But that was last decade. Ten years on, Computer Sciences Corporation's Howard Smith, has co-authored the book that reinvents reengineering and sets the business agenda for the decade ahead.

About the Author
Howard Smith is Chief Technology Officer (Europe) of Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) and co-chair of the Business Process Management Initiative. With more than 24 years in the IT industry, he is a sought after speaker and advisor. His work in predicting and shaping technology at the intersection with business led him to take an active role in the development and application of the third wave. He is currently researching the application of business process management to corporate sustainability, innovation and growth, for which he has global research and development responsibility at CSC. Peter Fingar is an Executive Partner with the digital strategy firm, the Greystone Group. He delivers keynotes world wide and is author of the best-selling books, "The Death of 'e' and the Birth of the Real New Economy" and "Enterprise E-Commerce." Over his 30-year career he has taught graduate and undergraduate computing studies and held management, technical, consulting and advisory positions with GTE Data Services, American Software and Computer Services, Saudi Aramco, EC Cubed, Noor Advanced Technologies, the Technical Resource Connection division of Perot Systems and IBM Global Services.


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Corporate re-engineering was a hot trend in the early 1990s, when businesses started streamlining to save money and downsizing came into vogue. Now it s economic uncertainty all over again, and managers are looking to shave costs while still dominating their sectors and Smith and Fingar want to give them the management tools to achieve that. The authors, both IT experts, insist their management theory and practice will guide business leaders through the next 50 years. While many companies are savaging their tech budgets to survive, for instance, Smith and Fingar hold up General Electric as a current ideal; the company has actually boosted its information technology dollars, as it sees the next wave of business automation as full of promise. While heavy on corporate bafflegab, this book does break down how companies can boost productivity, discover savings and thrive in a harsh business environment. (Feb.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.


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