This was a question asked by many conference attendees who stopped at the IDS Scheer booth, staring at our graphics with a puzzled look on their faces. The press did the same – they came to the conference to cover the latest news from BI vendors and to their surprise, they found a BPM vendor there.
Needless to say, IDS Scheer raised some eyebrows and provoked a new way of looking at BI – through the lenses of PROCESS.
As soon as we explained to the press and to the conference attendees that BI alone does not provide a clear picture of how the enterprise is performing – that BI provides the end result which is valuable, but the true value comes from knowing the root cause of which business processes led to those results – then a light bulb went on "I see!" One editor even stated "Gartner should consider combining events for BPM, BI, Data Management and Application Integration since "process" pulls it all together and gives it context." So you see, BI and Process Intelligence with BPM are distinct yet related disciplines. Gartner was positioning "making processes more agile with BI" – IDS Scheer could argue that BI becomes more valuable with processes. Either way companies look at it, BI and Process need each other. Senior analyst Bill Hostmann came by the booth and specifically requested a briefing because he just hosted a customer roundtable where a CIO mentioned that he viewed "process" as the "stabilizer."
That's right, PROCESS is the stabilizer. While people and technology are always changing, process becomes a company's corporate memory. Especially during these tough economic times, people are transitioning roles or losing their jobs as they take critical company knowledge with them.
IDS Scheer had the benefit of briefing key Gartner BI analysts in advance of this conference which was key in having IDS Scheer mentioned during a session by analyst Bill Gassmann for being the only processed-based BI provider. He personally referred an attendee to stop by our booth. Over 100 new contacts were made through booth traffic and the IDS Scheer vendor solution session given by Helge Hess and Mike Wheeler – that's over 100 people who have opened their eyes to a new way of looking at business performance!
Dr. Helge Hess, Don Magnuson, Steve Woyicki and Mike Wheeler talking to conference attendees
A detailed ARIS PIPM demo and discussion by Mike Wheeler with conference attendees
