Shell U.S. Tax Organization in Houston wasn't in the market for BPMsoftware when it had a mandate to cut its monthly financial reportingtime in half and provide a clear trail in case of audits. The coreproblem--common to large enterprises--was the heterogeneity of thesystems involved, including geographically dispersed divisions runningprimarily SAPSAP R/3 but also J.D. Edwards and OracleOracle Financials, saysJohn Antaki, former technology adviser for the Tax Organization who isnow a managing partner with Matrix5 Consulting in Houston. Alles zu Oracle auf CIO.de Alles zu SAP auf CIO.de

Shell found that TeamWorks, the BPM software from Lombardi Software,could handle the enterprise application integration capabilities foundin many middleware products but didn't require extensive coding--theapplication was up and running within three months. And because theteam could quickly prototype business processes with the tool,financial analysts and IT people focused more on evaluating how theyworked, rather than the technical underpinnings of thesoftware.

"The key is the business process," says Antaki. "The effort is indeciding which area of the business process you want to automate andfinding the bottlenecks that have the greatest challenges."

Shell recouped its $1 million investment in fewer than six months andhelped derive more value from its $1 billion SAP investment, Antakisays. Now the company is looking to roll out BPM software in otheroperations, including exploration, refineries and financial services,he says.

Beyond automation, examining business process in a BPM implementationis also a significant benefit, according to users. "The tool andmethod force you to look at processes and understand how they work,"says Philip Parker, CIO and vice president of Addison, Texas-basedUnited Surgical Partners, a chain of surgical facilities. "As aresult, you tend not to automate what exists; you tend to ask, Whatdoes the process need to do?"