As the modern enterprise grows in complexity and scope, managers have struggled to keep pace. The value-creating processes inside companies are more complex. More and more activities happen outside companies in extended business networks. Demands for increased compliance and better financial returns seem only to increase. The pace of change is faster than ever.

Business process management increasingly is seen as a way to master the swelling complexity of the modern corporations and coordinate the work of thousands of people through a focus on well-defined processes. Leading companies have shown that applying business process management (BPM) in the right way can fulfill the promise of IT to automate business processes and directly support strategy.

What is rarely described in discussions of BPM is the end-to-end picture. How exactly does the act of using the boxes, lines, and diamonds to describe processes ultimately lead to the goal of running a better business? What are the steps from start to finish to reach this goal? What value does an increased focus on business processes bring? How will an organization change in the wake of this focus? How does BPM transform the traditional solution-development lifecycle? What role does technology play? How does BPM incorporate ERP and the existing enterprise application landscape? How has the next generation of solutions, the so-called third-generation, been constructed using modeling, business rules, and SOA to fulfill the promise of BPM?

This paper aims to bring readers to a more complete understanding of what BPM means, how it works at many different levels, and how to get started. The authors intend to demonstrate that business process management is simply good management that emphasizes the central role of the business process. Business process management is the discipline of thinking first about how to optimally run your business through defined processes, and then finding a way to take advantage of the latest developments in technology to extend automation to achieve more effectiveness and efficiency.

The three questions executives at all levels should ask themselves are:

• Are we running our business with a process-centric management viewpoint?
• Are we defining and automating our processes with tools built for that purpose?
• Are we migrating our applications, infrastructure, tools, and program management processes to create a third-generation business process platform to support adoption of BPM?

This paper argues that companies will benefit from a process-centric approach that is supported by intelligent use of business process management technology. In making this case, the paper will start from scratch and explain the basics of both business process modeling, business process management, and a process centric approach. The paper will then move on to a detailed discussion of business process management-related technology.