Performance Guys in the Spotlight

We here at the Performance Guys are not usually in the business of tooting our collective horns (as our grandmother was fond of saying), but it must be pointed out that our own Performance Guy Pat is on tap to deliver the keynote at the big Shared Insights Business Performance Management Conference this week in San Diego, CA.

Aside for getting the deluxe accomodations that always come with being the head honcho at one of these swanky swank resorts that host these sort of shindigs (the Hotel Del Coronado takes center stage for this particular event), Pat will be sharing both his wit, charm and actually, spot-on knowledge of where the process management market is heading, which, in light of all the acvtivity in the BI space, should make for an interesting speech.

To our multitudes of fans down in San Diego, if you're dried out from the weekend, try to crash the party and go see Pat in action!

Business Intelligence and BPM - Looking for a Clue

Clint Boulton wrote an interesting take on the intersection of BI and BPM for Datamation where he explores the ramifications of the Tibco's announcement of the purchase of Spotfire. I commented on this in a earlier post. Boulton describes this as a "head scratcher" but then does a nice job of finding some other people to comment on what it means for BI and BPM, and where the market might move. His summary - more intelligent business process capabilities.

I think the article provides a good perspective on what is happening in the market and how BI and BPM might work together as well as where the market is heading. I find it interesting that he notes that "leaders" in the market include IBM, BEA, Tibco and Software AG. Maybe true if you approach BPM as an integration issue, not a people, process or strategy issue. Not completely incorrect, but this is kind of like judging BI vendors by their data integration capability. While this is a key part of the puzzle, it is a lot like deciding to build a house. When you decide to break ground for your new home, the first person you call is not the plumber.

Boulton's article also illustrates gaps in understanding of the intersection of BI, BPM and performance management by analysts like Mark Smith of Ventana. Smith comments

"Most corporations weren't built on business processes...the challenge with process management is that it makes good common business sense, but most corporations aren't designed or managed by process, right? It's not because they're doing the wrong thing, it's because companies aren't mature enough to manage their business by process."

What?

Last time I checked, ERP was all about how to capture, automate and replicate key business process. Anyone been to an ERP or supply chain conference in the last 15 years? Maybe you might have heard of business process engineering - armies of consultants documenting business processes in the 80's and 90's. How about the holy trinity of performance management: Kaplan, Norton and Jack Welch.

BSC and Six Sigma are process methodologies designed to improve performance. This may help explain to Smith why BI, BPM and platform vendors spend so much time and money to offer BSC dashboards and scorecards, Six Sigma graphing tools, strategy maps, and ABC costing options for their finance analytics, Total Quality Management frameworks, and more. Regardless of size of company, I have yet to meet any company of any size where senior executives cannot explain their quote to cash process.

I am not sure if Smith's comment implies that companies are actually managed via Excel, planning and ad-hoc reporting, or if he truly believes companies are not mature enough to understand and manage process. If that is true, how in the hell did all the ERP, CRM, PLM, MRP and analytics get sold over the last 30 years? And why is process so important to so many people? Jack Welch or not, Smith's comment displays a clear lack of understanding of the issues and the market.

It is not clear if Tibco's move is a single data point or an early indicator of more BI and BPM intermingling. Regardless, more analytics linked to business process is likely a good thing, and I think most of us are mature enough to handle it.

TIBCO acquires Spotfire - Another One Bites the Dust

This just in from the land of M&A - TIBCO announced its intent to acquire Spotfire, a small BI vendor who positions themselves as next generation BI and analytics. However, this BI acquisition is different for a variety of reasons including who got bought, who did the buying and the fact that this really has less to do with BI and more to do with business process management and platforms. While many people have been writing about the intersection of BI, BPM, BAM and performance management, this time a player in BPM (as in business process) purchased a BI company. This represents one of the first acquisitions in the space and may well change the game for a variety of reasons.

TIBCO positions itself as a leader in BPM, but their focus and background is in integration centric process management. They tried to move up-stack and expand their footprint and relevance with the acquisition of Staffware a couple years ago, but they have had limited success in selling it. Gartner positions them as "process-aware middleware", but market reality is that they are an industrial strength ESB trying to come upstack to position themselves as a BPM player with focus on SOA - much the same aproach as BEA, just without the focus on application servers and aqua anything. They have clearly lacked optimization and analytics, something BPM vendors get very hot and bothered about. Enter Spotfire.

Spotfire positions themselves as the information insight company, and the leader in actionable analytics. They also position themselves as a leader and TIBCO promotes the same. Like most things, this is a function of what angle you look in the mirror. In the Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI Suites, published in January, Spotfire appeared for the first time, but smack in the bottom left quad. Gartner gives them credit as the only new entry in the category and calls out excellence in interactive analysis and in-memory analysis with capabilities for business analysts, not IT. This last piece is critically important to TIBCO and why this acquisition makes sense for all parties. Gartner also docks Spotfire for the things they don't have as a platform to compete in BI. Turns out maybe this is not about BI, especially not for TIBCO.

Among the things Gartner calls out is that Spotfire had limited channel strategy and reach. Joining the TIBCO family and getting access to their resources solves this problem in a big hurry. TIBCO's recognition that Spotfire gives them some sex appeal, solves their optimization gap and gives them something to talk about in analytics helps this make sense. It gives them something else to throw at market leaders like Savvion, Lombardi, and certainly BEA, who they most resemble. At a minimum this keeps things interesting.

A couple other observations:
1. There is not much precedent for infrastructure vendors to come up-stack and get relevant to business audiences in a business context like analytics and business intelligence. TIBCO's prior acquisition of Staffware for human centric process management has not proved to be successful to this audience, so this round either changes fortunes or looks like groundhog day.
2. The hype around optimization and analytics for process management by vendors and analysts just got a $200M validation. Does this signal something bigger?
3. The Gartner MQ for BI notes that the BI industry has now adopted a "process and strategy driven vision of BI." Interesting that the first real play in the space was not a BI company, but an integration focused BPM company putting their money where their website claims they are. Is the reality that BI is a nice add-on to BPM, not the other way around? Is the tail about to wag the dog?
4. The Gartner MQ notes an expectation of "co-mingling" between BI and BPM and calls out TIBCO and BEA by name. How long have these vendors been talking to Gartner about this? Who is next?

Interesting that today BEA announced a miss and the impact was speculation that BEA is next on the block to be acquired by Oracle or HP. Maybe we should be watching for BEA to make a play for a BI vendor. Look for things to get even more interesting.

What’s Hot this Week in BI?

In this week’s review of “what’s hot” I wanted to focus in on BPM, aka Business Process Management a rapidly growing category that fits under the BI umbrella. In 2007 the BPM market exceeded $1 billion and analysts predict an average growth of 24 percent through the year 2011.

What is driving such "hotness" you ask? Today, more than ever technologies are driving a more collaborative work environment and information assets (ie. data organizations are producing) are also growing at a more rapid pace. This relates back to IT searching for ways to optimize their systems to adapt to these changing business conditions, enter SOA (aka Service Oriented Architecture). SOA and BPM go hand in hand as their is a substantial dollar figure tied to an organizations ability to connect their systems to repeatable, streamlined business processes.

What’s the result you ask? Well you can be sure to watch for your favorite BPM vendor get snapped up by one of the larger software players as they look to capitalize on this growth area and build on organizations investments in SOA. Here’s an article that adds some additional color to this topic.