As forces such as globalization and electronic commerce put more pressure on manufacturers to quickly and continuously optimize business processes, more will turn to an emerging class of technology dubbed intelligent business performance platforms (IBPPs), according to a recent report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
IBPPs, the report predicts, will consist of tightly integrated business process management, business intelligence, and business rules management tools. The tight integration of these tools, PwC says, will enable several key benefits:
- Gain better use of real-time data from business processes. Using monitoring tools, organizations will be able to "watch business activities, compare performance against established thresholds and targets, and identify exceptional events," the report says.
- Report real-time data in user-friendly presentations, such as portals and dashboards.
- Use real-time data to optimize business processes and enhance responsiveness.
"When successful, an organization's ability to execute this optimization cycle on a consistent basis will be a defining competitive advantage," the report predicts.
The PwC report notes that few fully integrated, robust IBPP products exist today. "Today, with heroic effort, these applications can be stitched together to guide management and facilitate process enhancement," the report says. Organizations taking on such a task will first need to have defined existing business processes and developed internal expertise in service-oriented architecture tools.
Over time, the report predicts, business intelligence, business process management, and business rules management vendors will begin to partner in order to assemble full IBPPs.