The early days of cloud computing were heralded in by conversations about all the ways you can eliminate hardware costs by turning to the cloud. Even the early development of cloud BPM tools were focused primarily on this cost-cutting effort. However, if you look closely at the kind of news that was coming out at that time, you may also notice an undercurrent of conversations about business agility. It was almost as if the marketing hype was shouting about costs to get attention, but then emphasizing agility as the major highlight.
The time has come for the cloud to deliver on those promises of business agility, and organizations are increasingly turning to cloud BPM to drive efficiency across a variety of operational areas, TechTarget reported.
Using cloud BPM to drive business agility
Craig Le Clair, an analyst for Forrester Research, told the news source that the move toward business agility has created a new focus for cloud BPM deployments, highlighted the overarching shift going on in the industry.
"The first phase of the move to the cloud was really around avoiding infrastructure cost, but now it's business agility," Le Clair told TechTarget.
Organizations are turning to the cloud to improve business agility.
This shift comes as organizations even have users download trial versions of productivity apps and look at their technology purchases as a broad ecosystem, Le Clair explained. This broad shift in perspective is changing how businesses strive for agility, and the trend is impacting development.
Cloud BPM solutions are starting to function as application development platforms, positioning organizations to quickly and efficiently develop process focused apps. Carl Lehmann, analyst at 451 Research, told TechTarget that many organizations will purchase a cloud BPM suite to solve a specific problem, but within a year they will build as many as 10 or 12 process applications using the cloud platform.
Driving app development efficiency through BPM
Cloud computing has long been discussed as a major boon for app developers as it makes it easier to manage the entire environment surrounding development processes. The result has been an increased focus on proprietary cloud and mobile apps to meet various business needs. Cloud BPM solutions give organizations the tools they need to build out their portfolio of applications and services in an agile, efficient way without having to cut corners when it comes to quality or sophistication. The result is an opportunity to drive value through process automation in every facet of business.
