The BPM Bubble

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, said George Santayana

BPM is not in a bubble, nor do I believe it is becoming a bubble, but learning from other’s mistakes is always smarter than learning from your own.

I was reading Laurence Buchanan’s blog on how the CRM industry bubble burst:

CRM went through boom and bust because:

• As an industry we applied a technology-centric solution to a business problem. Both vendors and consultants positioned technology as a silver bullet
• Powerful technology was used and abused with little thought given to the customer experience
• Nothing like enough attention was given to the people / change aspects of customer-centric transformation.
  I have personally seen call centre agents with a shiny new CRM system, hang up on customer’s as they answer the call in order to try and get their AHT down! Incentives drive behaviour more than any technology.
• Front office technology was layered on top of fragile back-office foundations. CRM exposed toxic data and processes directly to customers.
• Projects bit off more than they could chew. CRM is an elephant. Eating an elephant requires bite-sized chunks.

It’s easy to sit back, smile and say da!, but it’s a lesson worth learning from.
It happened to them. It could happen to us if we are not careful.

The CRM industry is enjoying a steady growth nowadays.
They have learnt from their mistakes, and are slowly building solid customer solutions.
They are one of BPM’s neighbours. I have been seeing quite a lot of activity around them lately.
Maybe we should pop in and say hello…

Enjoy your weekend