BPM in 2011: OpenText, Metastorm Union Shows BPM + ECM Opportunities 
Integration Developer News continues its series on “BPM in 2011” with a look at OpenText’s acquisition of BPM provider Metastorm. We’ll see how the purchase underscores the convergence of ECM and BPM, as well as the value of using structured and unstructured data for enterprise-wide BPM visibility and management.
Last month, ECM provider OpenText completed its $182 million acquisition of Metastorm, a major provider of BPM solutions. OpenText execs in their own words say that ECM + BPM equals new and big opportunities.
“With Metastorm, OpenText moves into the BPM market allowing customers to purchase leading solutions in enterprise content management (ECM) and BPM from a single vendor, which ultimately helps them improve their business in the most comprehensive way,” said John Shackleton, Chief Executive Officer at OpenText. “We see a lot of customer demand for solutions involving content and process improvement and Metastorm is the perfect fit, presenting a tremendous opportunity for OpenText.”
Metastorm’s Kevin Haugh, vice president of product marketing and management, sees a similar convergence, and described to IDN the architecture and business alignments now in place for 2011’s next step in convergence of ECM + BPM.
“One of the things that makes Metastorm unique in the BPM space is the fact that our product suite is not uni-dimensional – it works in multiple dimensions, including BPM, BPA (business process analysis) and enterprise architecture (EA),” Haugh said. “This focus at multiple layers lets us work in ‘Greenfield’ projects or to integrate across whatever a company already may have.”
Metastorm’s approach to combining BPM, BPA and enterprise architecture lets companies take an iterative approach to improving business processes – and extend those projects across the entire enterprise, Haugh told IDN.
With Metastorm and OpenText, the integration of ECM and BPM will bring a number of new benefits, including:
- Users can get provide greater process capability with enriched ECM capabilities.
- Users will use structured and non-structured data and reports</b> to validate their outcomes, and confirm the value of their current BPM.
- Users across different silos will be able to collaborate on more ad hoc processes, and help managers make the right decisions when handling exceptions or special circumstances.
- Case management will benefit from adding detailed unstructured information to structured data.
“End-to-end BPM is a great example of where BPM and ECM will work extremely well together.”
Kevin Haugh
VP Product Marketing & Management
Metastorm
“Enterprises want to take BPM beyond their departmental silo approach, and optimize it to support end-to-end processes and enterprise-wide BPM,” Haugh said. Metastorm’s approach also provides integration and infrastructure that allows silos to better communicate with one another, and even effectively hand-off processes to one another, he added.
ECM Will Drive Impact, Effectiveness of End-to-End BPM
“End-to-end BPM that avoids breakdowns will be a big BPM trend in 2011 and beyond, Haugh said, “and the more information you have from structured and unstructured data [sources] the better, and so this is a great example of where BPM and ECM will work extremely well together.”
Processes break down, Haugh said, usually where there are handoffs, where different parts of the organization come together. “When you look in silos, you can miss those breakdowns and even exacerbate the problem,” Haugh added. He described the resultant enterprise-wide workflow.
“The key then is to allow cross organizational boundaries and domain boundaries within a company. But, to do this, it will often require you have the ability to accommodate different architectures and let them work with one another,” he said. “It also requires different types of data, such as structured and unstructured, to support processes and models and otherwise communicate with one another so that processes can be managed and improved.”
For dashboards, Metastorm can provide its own or Smart Business Workspace, a composite mashup that lets users surface components, or the company can integrate into SharePoint, portals and existing UIs.
This approach lets customers share BPM views and analysis across departments, and even with supply chain partners outside their firewalls.
As an example, AmeriSource Bergen, a large pharmaceutical company, shares some primary processes with third-party suppliers to effectively create and monitor end-to-end processes, Haugh told IDN. This also sets the stage for a multi-point sharing using the cloud, he added.
This approach to ‘process sharing’ is especially valuable for compliance and regulatory requirements, Haugh said. “Regulations often have so many aspects, and often apply to different components of a process. So, people all the way down the process need to know what the regulation is, where is applies, how to monitor it and how to audit against it,” Haugh said. “In addition, the iterative BPM improvements need to be done in a context where you can implement improvements without falling out of compliance.”
BPM and Clouds Will Cooperate,
Cross-Pollinate in 20011 and Beyond
Another 2011 BPM trend will be cloud and hybrid [cloud and on-premise] BPM deployments, Haugh said.
“As cloud more and more takes hold inside companies, a mixed on-premise and cloud architectures, will offer new ways to improve business processes,” Haugh said. “That means IT organizations will need to morph from simple jobs of installing servers and configuring software to do higher-value tasks, such as integrating cloud and on-premise [resources] together, to deliver single sign on and so on.”
Metastorm M3 cloud environment allows technical and non-technical users to collaborate on a business process, blending modeling, whiteboarding, cloud and chat technologies.
OpenText To Deliver BPM, ECM
Value-Add for Microsoft Users
Finally, it would be amiss not to mention that OpenText also said the acquisition of Metastorm will help it fortify its relationship with Microsoft, and the development of Microsoft-centric BPM solutions.
Last year, OpenText execs stated their goal to expand their delivery of solutions for the top three software makers: SAP, Oracle and Microsoft. Last fall, OpenText acquired StreamServe, (a major SAP partner), and also reached an agreement with Oracle to create archiving, compliance and eDiscovery solutions for Oracle technology. With Metastorm, OpenText tightens its relationship with Microsoft.
Metastorm’s product strategy has long been Microsoft-oriented, and that will continue. “Personal productivity applications create a lot of structured and unstructured data that supports BPM processes,” Haugh said. “So, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and SharePoint all fit into many business processes on a daily basis.”
OpenText offers compliance and content lifecycle management solutions that help customers centralize the management of their SharePoint sites across the enterprise. Together, the combined companies can provide a powerful mix of process and content management solutions that integrate with Microsoft, continuing to add to OpenText's position as a leading Microsoft partner and a key provider of solutions that support and extend SharePoint.
