Just over half of organisations plan to increase their spending on business process management (BPM) this year, according to a survey by analyst company Gartner.

Of the 600 respondents, all from medium-sized to large end-user organisations, 54% said they planned to increase BPM spending by 5% or more in 2011. Nearly 20% said they planned an increase of more than 10%.
Gartner research analyst Teresa Jones said money was becoming available for BPM as it focuses on improving business outcomes and meets the requirements of return- to-growth strategies.

“However, there is a mismatch between what users think they will achieve from BPM and what they actually achieve,” Jones said. “Understanding the real benefits and how to measure them will help organisations create better business cases and get the expected business results.”

The report funding for BPM projects comes off line-of- business budgets rather than IT budget in 66% of cases, emphasising that business are happier to put cash into BPM because of its focus on business outcomes.
The most common initial investment in BPM across all respondents was $100,000, the survey found. Gartner noted that this figure was low in comparison with the cost of many BPM suites.

“The survey findings indicate that users might want some BPM software capabilities but not necessarily a full- blown BPM suite,” said Jones. “Many organisations do not aim to achieve full process automation throughout their enterprise; most people improve process-by-process.”