Hosted app simplifies BPM

Lombardi will extend its business process management (BPM) software platform today with the launch of Blueprint, a major new hosted suite designed to deliver process management and modelling capabilities to a wider range of executives.

Phil Gilbert, chief technology officer at Lombardi, said delivering the functionality through a web interface would make BPM functionality more accessible to executives, who can modify and model processes using a " wiki-style" approach to collaboration.

"Process modelling is always a collaborative effort involving different departments" Gilbert said. "But a lot of the BPM solutions are desktop-style packages. As a result, the tool of choice for working out your business processes is often Excel or PowerPoint, which may be accessible but are really unstructured."

Gilbert added that Blueprint, which is available from $500 a month for 10 seats, would make it easier for geographically dispersed teams to collaborate when developing business processes.

The Blueprint solution integrates with Lombardi's existing TeamWorks product, which then automates the mapped business processes, according to director of product marketing Jim Ruddin.

"You can develop the process based on your business goals in Blueprint and then publish the process into TeamWorks, which will manage the work flow and task assignment for you," Ruddin said. "Data on the performance of the process can then be seeded back into the reporting capabilities in Blueprint so execs can spot process problems and make further changes where necessary."