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BPM Software Revenues to Reach $10 billion by 2020

Joshua Hoffman
March 12, 2015

Business process management tools have been gaining prominence as a way to help organizations automate processes, particularly as companies try to establish better lines of collaboration between organizations. A recent study from WinterGreen Research found that this focus on automation as a means to collaboration will cause BPM markets that are currently valued at approximately$3.4 billion to climb to $10 billion by 2020. This significant growth can be chalked up to more than just automation and collaboration, as businesses are embracing process management software as a solution to deal with operational challenges brought on by emerging technologies like cloud computing and widespread mobile device use.

"BPM solutions need to be able to function as application development platforms."

Factors driving BPM software deployment

According to the news source, emerging technologies are contributing to increased BPM software use because organizations are realizing that they need to do more to manage how users complete tasks on diverse device and application types. The result is a growing move toward identifying the patterns in how people work and building out automation scripts that help to streamline collaboration between disparate user groups.

The report explained that BPM solutions can not only help an individual deal with operations within his or her department, but extend beyond operational silos to work as efficiently as possible.

Susan Eustis, lead author of the WinterGreen Research team that prepared the study, detailed how the BPM software market is taking shape.

"Cloud computing, mobile computing,and smart devices represent the major forces impacting business process management markets," said Eustis. "BPM is evolving cloud SaaS for business applications to accomplish work [sic]. The opportunity to implement apps that make automated process more responsive to the needs of customers, partners, suppliersand distributors, people use business process management as the need for automation tools to help workers is upon all of us."

Emerging technologies are making process innovation essential.

Using BPM software to keep up with emerging technologies

Discussions of new IT solutions that disrupt operations are nothing new. As organizations try to respond to emerging solutions, many are turning to proprietary apps and services that give them more freedom to customize functionality. As such, BPM solutions also need to be able to function as application development platforms that empower technical and non-technical users to adjust apps and services to align with process management goals. This ability to customize processes, often without needing to create new code, can give companies the flexibility they need to support users working on a variety of devices.