Gartner is currently the top information technology research company in the market. They have the most influence.
So obviously, I was interested to see how they research the BPM market.
I decided to do a bit of research myself – “research the researcher” on Gartner.
My “analysis” is based on information published on their website.
Let’s start with a tops-down:
Gartner has 28 “areas of coverage”, Business Process Management is one of them.
Gartner’s areas of coverage include BI, EA, ERP and others (but there is no specific coverage for ECM).
BPM (business process management) , BPM (business process modeling) , BPA , BPO and BPR appear in Gartner’s IT Glossary. (again: ECM, ACM – do not appear).
There are 12 analysts that cover BPM on Gartner’s analyst list (although I have found other Gartner analysts that write about BPM).
On average they have 30 years of experience in the IT industry and have been at Gartner for the last 11 years.
9 are from the USA and 3 are from the UK.
For most of them BPM is but one area to cover.
Most of the BPM analysts also cover “Application Development & Integration”
In addition to their research publications, four of them are prolific BPM bloggers: David McCoy, Janelle Hill, Elise Olding and Jim Sinur
So, how does Gartner define BPM?
Gartner’s IT Glossary Definition of BPM:
BPM is the newest process management theory, developed in response to the unpredictability of today’s global markets. BPM views business processes as assets that can be managed and adapted in response to constant change. Strategic business processes (the ones that convey competitive differentiation to an organization) are the ones that require the most-rapid and effective response to competitive threats.
The tenets of BPM as a discipline include:
Making the business process visible (and thus explicit) to business and IT constituents through business process modeling
Empowering business users and business analysts to manipulate a business process model to directly effect modifications in downstream implementations
Enabling rapid iteration of processes and underlying systems for continuous process improvement
What are Gartner’s latest predictions on BPM?
Gartner’s Key Findings from the BPM summit 2010:
- By 2012, 20% of customer-facing processes will be knowledge-adaptable and assembled just in time to meet the demands and preferences of each customer, assisted by BPM technologies.
- By 2013, dynamic BPM will be an imperative for companies seeking process efficiencies in increasingly chaotic environments.
- By 2014, 40% of business managers and knowledge workers in Global 2000 enterprises will use comprehensive business process models to support their daily work, up from 6% in 2009.
So, who are Gartner’s BPM Analysts?
Fabrizio Biscotti
Research Director,
Egham United Kingdom
Areas of Coverage:
* Business Process Management
* Application Development & Integration
* Software Markets
Mike Blechar
VP Distinguished Analyst
Trumbull, CT USA
Areas of Coverage
* Application Development & Integration
* Business Process Management
John Dixon
Research Director
Egham United Kingdom
Areas of Coverage
* Business Process Management
Janelle B. Hill
Research VP
Darien, CT USA
Areas of Coverage
* Application Development & Integration
* Web Services
* Business Process Management
Teresa Jones
Sr Research Analyst
Manchester United Kingdom
Areas of Coverage
* Application Development & Integration
* Software Markets
* Business Process Management
David W. McCoy
Managing VP
Conyers, GA USA
Areas of Coverage
* Emerging Trends & Technologies
* Application Development & Integration
* Business Process Management
Elise Olding
Research Director
San Jose, CA USA
Areas of Coverage
* Business Process Management
Bill Rosser
VP Distinguished Analyst
Stamford, CT USA
Areas of Coverage
* Business Process Management
Jim Sinur
Research VP
Glendale, AZ USA
Areas of Coverage
* Business Process Management
Bill Swanton
VP Distinguished Analyst
Boston, MA USA
Areas of Coverage
* Enterprise Business Applications & ERP
* Business Process Management
Jess Thompson
Research VP
Gulf Breeze, FL USA
Areas of Coverage
* Application Development & Integration
* Security & Privacy
* Business Process Management
Dale Vecchio
Research VP
Belleville, IL USA
Areas of Coverage
* Application Development & Integration
* Business Process Management
Adam Deane 
Adam, your research is a bit shallow. First of all, to call Elise Olding a “prolific” blogger is a bit of a stretch: she started blogging 3 weeks ago, and has created 4 posts. She has done some guest blogging on Jim Sinur’s blog previously, but still pretty scarce. Ditto for Janelle Hill: she started blogging in March, and has averaged 1 post per month since then. Even David McCoy, who used to produce some interesting posts, seems to have directed his efforts off to his non-Gartner humor blog, and hasn’t posted on his Gartner blog since June. Jim Sinur definitely blogs more than the rest of them (probably more than the rest of them put together), but his coverage tends to be lightweight teasers intended to drive you to their paid content. What amazes me is the number of vendors who slavishly comment on even his most trivial posts, congratulating him on great insights. The MQ maneuvering never stops.
Gartner is certainly an influential force in BPM public opinion, although their research of late lags a bit, and this definitely shows in the somewhat outdated content of their BPM conferences. There are so many great BPM resources these days that the influence of Gartner and Forrester, as the two big analyst firms in the industry, is starting to wane.
By: Sandy Kemsley on 20/08/2010
at 1:13 pm