BPM Forum reports are the culmination of original qualitative and quantitative research, and secondary market analysis. The research efforts generally include in-depth interviews with an influential advisory board of third-party business and IT leaders, strategists, academics and consultants — subject matter experts in the field or topic under scrutiny. Online surveys provide the quantitative input and are fielded through the BPM Forum’s extensive network of professional associations, organizations, academic and media partners. From governance and compliance in a mobile environment, to enterprise decision-making, alertness and competitive readiness in a disruptive global environment, BPM Forum reports explore critical business issues that impact business performance.


Recent Reports & Research  |  Reports & Research Archive

Acceleration of Eco-Operation: A Milestone Study on Achieving Supply Chain Success and Sustainability
July 2009

Companies by and large are failing to achieve required visibility and eco responsibility across multi-tiered global supply chains, hampering their ability to drive business gain and reduce environmental strain. A new study released by the BPM Forum and E2open provides the most comprehensive and detailed analysis ever conducted around the state of sustainability and what companies are doing to make improvements in the extended value chain.

The study has major implications for supply chain, finance, operations, logistics, and procurement professionals and underscores the need for better ECO-Operation, sustainability measurement, and operations insight into multi-tiered supply chain networks. To receive the full report (free), please complete the registration form below.

Think Eco-Logical: IT Sustainability Imperatives in Digital Media & Entertainment Business
March 2009

The BPM Forum and GREEN set out to examine the current progress and pitfalls of the digital media & entertainment industry in a program called Think Eco-Logical. Through a series of online polling of IT professionals combined with executive dialogs and third party supporting research, the report has gathered perspectives from film studios, post-production houses, digital distribution outfits, broadcast outlets, and others in achieving environmental improvements and green gains. The study provides comprehensive data and insights into progress, issues, obstacles, and opportunities as IT professionals strive for reduced carbon footprint, improved efficiencies, and greater business gain from environmental practices in the data center and technology practices.

Think Eco-Logical: IT Sustainability Imperatives in Internet and eCommerce Business
February 2009

A resounding 97 percent of IT professionals feel that it is important for their Internet and eCommerce related businesses to reduce their carbon footprint, yet little real action is underway to reduce energy consumption in the data center, according to a report by The BPM Forum and GREEN in conjunction with Rackable Systems (NASDAQ: RACK) and Intel, around a comprehensive online survey and executive dialogs including insights from over 275 IT professionals.

Calibrate How You Operate: Improving Marketing Yield, Visibility and Process
March 2009

Current marketing operational models are becoming increasingly complex and more crucial to the strategic success of global businesses, but are facing significant challenges from entrenched corporate cultures, inter-departmental politics, and a lack of adequate data and information systems. According to new research, marketers fear they will be unable to implement the needed marketing platforms and automated processes required to effectively support strategic growth initiatives. The report reveals that global marketing executives are challenged by a lack of corporate mandate for alignment and integration. Some 41 percent of the 400-plus marketers audited point to siloed data and limited cross-functional feedback loops as major internal challenges subverting the marketing operational process.

New Study Finds Most Companies Ill-Prepared for Imminent Periods of Intense Data Flow
May 2008

Uptime @ Crunch Time has created a body of intellectual capital around the issues, obstacles, and imperatives around maintaining operational uptime in the face of exploding demands for data performance and processing. This latest research focuses on how most IT organizations are ill prepared to handle the onslaught and how they are planning to address the accelerating data demands driven by new applications and web services critical to business growth and success.

Marketers Are Flying Blind When It Comes to Leveraging Customer Data and Analytics, Reports the CMO Council
April 2008

The Business Gain From How You Retain study assesses the degree to which major global brands are unifying and centralizing customer data, undertaking effective marketing analytics, embracing advanced segmentation strategies, and empowering the frontline to act on customer intelligence and behavioral knowledge.

BPM Forum Survey Shows Finance Lacks Speed & Accuracy, Hampering Critical Corporate Agility In Challenging Economic Times
April 2008

The Perfect How You Project online survey of over 340 financial professionals reveals why and how companies suffer from financial processes that take too long, involve undue aggravation, and lack the necessary accuracy and agility. It also points to priorities, predictions, and changes for 2008 as these professionals navigate through the dynamic business climate.

New CMO Council Study Finds Personalized Communication Programs Still Under-Utilized and Under-Tested
March 2008

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Counci released the findings of its new global survey, "The Power of Personalization," which shows that inadequate customer data is the key obstacle facing top marketing executives in their adoption of personalized communication techniques. The findings were announced at The ON DEMAND Exposition & Conference – the preeminent event for commercial printers, publishers, and in-plant printing professionals, which is taking place this week at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

(download will redirect you to our affinity partner – CMO Council)

Competition at the Crossroads: Strategic Planning and Action in Disruptive Markets
June 2007

The new study by Deloitte and BPM Forum finds that companies are having difficulty anticipating market change and are limited in their capacity to make effective course-correcting action, in large part due to insufficient investment in strategic planning, getting the right information and having the required talent that can look beyond today’s sales, profitability, current products, customers and technologies. Only 35% of technology executives say their companies are very effective in managing market altering changes. This is a key finding from a landmark study, “Competition at the Crossroads: Strategic Planning and Action in Disruptive Markets”, conducted by the Business Performance Management (BPM) Forum and Deloitte Consulting LLP’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) group. The study surveyed more than 180 technology industry executives, including qualitative interviews with senior executives involved in strategic planning. 

Password Pain Poll
June 2007

Confidential IT data breach is rampant across businesses of all sizes and industries as password pass-along and post-it pinup rates soar amongst IT professionals. And, as the study shows, the members of the C-suite are the worst offenders when it comes to sticky-note password exchanges. The survey reveals that according to IT and security professionals, corporate password pains are proliferating to the point of presenting a disastrous business threat with costly network data breaches.  Yet, while companies have tools at their disposal like fingerprint readers or other biometric tools, few are actually deploying these security solutions…

Green Report: “Garbage Is a Terrible Thing to Waste”
May 2007

GREEN has completed a comprehensive report on the management of biodegradable waste at American organizations-it includes findings from an insightful survey, firsthand quotes from professionals at well-known organizations, brief case studies, and more.

Venture Vitality Index Report:
Innovation Is The Way in San Jose
January 2007

Increased venture financing translates into immediate jobs and the prospects for strong future growth, since VC-funded companies outperform their counterparts in terms of jobs and sales revenue.

Business Traction From Better Decision Action:
Driving Decision Quality, Velocity & ROI in the Enterprise
January 2007

In today’s environment of accelerated business cycles, non-traditional global competitiveness and financial accountability, making good decisions is one of the most important functions of a business. However, decision making may be one of the least understood or defined processes within the organization. Executive decisions have become more costly, complex and yet critical to a company’s success…

(PDF 1MB)

Performance and Talent Management Trend Survey
January 2007

The global talent war is upon us. As organizations struggle to find, retain, motivate, and develop their people adequately, they face an ever-dynamic talent landscape that is more globally competitive, demanding, and expensive than ever before. The struggle for talent has gotten more intense over the last year. More and more leading-edge companies are looking to identify, foster, and develop better performance from within. See the perspectives, trends, challenges, priorities, and successes of organizations in the midst of the battle…

(PDF 1MB)

Comply On The Fly : Keeping Pace With the Challenges of Mobile Data Management
November 2006

Data security and compliance are hot-button issues in today’s business world. Now with the growing number of mobile communication devices – being used by evermore mobile and global knowledge workers – come new security and compliance imperatives. Are companies doing enough to address the emerging challenges? This timely report poses the question and delivers insights, answers, tactical responses and best practices…

(PDF 2MB)

CEE: The Future: Building the Compliance-Enabled Enterprise
September 2006

This groundbreaking study underscores the gap between management focus on compliance-related issues and IT’s lack of ability to implement critical policies and procedures—while revealing the state of corporate governance and legal discovery readiness, identifying potential vulnerabilities and offering recommendations for improvement…

(PDF 500KB)

Market Vigilance Product Diligence: Powering Product Marketing Effectiveness
June 2006

In an environment where one false forecast can mean a loss of billions of dollars, product marketers are under pressure to make fast, informed decisions in critical areas such as competitive analysis, product forecasting and pricing. For that they need accurate, real-time intelligence. This report details the challenges – and opportunities – in this key process…

(PDF 800KB)

Accelerate How You Differentiate: The Alert Enterprise Audit
June 2006

Driven by increasing competitive, regulatory and market pressures, the pace of business today is accelerating rapidly. As a result, enterprises are confronted by the need to strengthen and hone their capacity to both anticipate and respond to change. While executives have long suggested that this is a top priority, the evidence suggests that signifi cant roadblocks continue to exist within this journey. As a result, important questions are being asked today of all businesses: Where are companies in this evolutionary process of becoming more nimble, responsive and perceptive creatures of their competitive environments? Which areas of their business are most critically in need of change? What is the role of IT in enabling this transformation, and how satisfied are executives with their progress?…

(PDF 900KB)

Remote Revolution: Uptime Issues, Implications and Imperatives in the Mobile Workforce
December 2005

As the world’s mobile and remote workforce expands rapidly, to an anticipated 878 million by the end of this decade, companies are increasingly grappling with tough questions about how to best support, secure and empower their workers. Employee expectations are rising for ubiquitous real-time access to messaging and data, and 24/7 support for the devices and applications that can help deliver it. Each new mobile worker represents not an incremental impact on security and support requirements, but a multiplier effect, since the average worker uses multiple devices, each carrying multiple new applications accessing the corporate network. The demands of IT support and security for mobile workers is on a growth curve that threatens to rapidly overwhelm businesses, becoming a serious business performance issue for companies of all sizes…

(PDF 600KB)

Crunch Time: Global Competitiveness Audit Full Report
April 2005

If you’re an executive in the North American high technology or telecommunications industries, there is a high probability you are feeling the heat of increasing global competition. In general, your competition is bigger, tougher, and decidedly more global than ever before, and it is often coming from companies that heretofore did not sell into your market space. Unfortunately, there is also a strong likelihood you have not taken all the steps necessary to prepare for this tougher and fiercer business environment. If your company is like most North American technology businesses, you are not conducting formal company-wide assessments of your competitiveness. There’s no executive who is formally assigned to that task. What’s more, your efforts and investments in product innovation, customer intimacy and operational improvements may be insufficient to keep pace with your tougher competition…

(PDF 600KB)

Crunch Time Executive Summary Report
February 2005

If you’re in the technology or telecommunications industries, how do you rate your company’s competitive preparedness? If you think you’re in a “very good” position, consider yourself very lucky because the odds overwhelmingly suggest you shouldn’t be that confident. In fact, more than 70 percent of executive in these industries say their preparation is good or fair, with another 15 percent sinking even lower. As the competition heats up, if you lack a competitive strategy, there’s enough room for your rivals to take a lead. Knowing your industry is changing and understanding the essential drivers of future competitiveness are the first steps in closing this gap…

Case Study : freightquote.com
January 2005

Problem: Web site traffic and fast growth brought an unusually high percentage of bad debt customers. Management found itself limiting customer credit to avoid large write offs. Consequently we were losing business because of the self-imposed credit ceiling. Hot prospects turned cold when asked to pay in advance. Or, they simply turned elsewhere because freightquote would no longer assume the risk. As the company registers thousands of accounts each month, purchasing a credit report for every account did not seem prudent. In 2002 freightquote required 30 credit checks per day. With business only growing faster, freightquote.com needed a scalable way to manage credit without time-consuming, business-delaying procedures…

Software Drain or Business Gain:
Assessing Application Value, Relevance and Cost to Your Company
December 2004

This report is a new BPM Forum Thought Leadership Initiative that looks at the state of software deployment and return on investment in today’s enterprise. The study measures executive satisfaction with the value of software in their organizations and examines what companies are doing to ensure that applications are satisfactorily aligned with business strategies and relevant to current needs. Study results indicate that companies are highly challenged to keep their software infrastructures aligned with current business strategies and needs. However, this isn’t only a problem of companies finding it difficult to build the right software when they need it; it’s also a problem of not being able to get rid of it when the time comes…

Gauging the Cost of What’s Lost:
Improve the Return on the Resource Burn
November 2004

Improve the Return on Resource Burn is a new thought leadership initiative that studies business performance in one of the most critical areas of endeavor for the modern commercial enterprise, business demand acquisition. Creating and managing the new business pipeline – the process of generating, capturing, qualifying and converting
business opportunities – is essential to the growth and profitability of companies across every industry and geographic market. As this study shows, business demand acquisition is a mission-critical process in which companies invest heavily, but generally are dissatisfied with the results. Put positively, it is a business process ripe for performance improvement..

Business Process Management:
Taking ERP Beyond Departmental & Data-Centric Boundaries
A White Paper by Exact Software (2004)

The ERP technology boom in the 1990’s gave organizations a means to start obtaining much needed operational visibility but was limited to product and order processing with other related functions and thus did not provide a complete, consolidated view of their entire business. In today’s global enterprise, numerous business processes occur each day that are outside the scope of ERP-from filling out a purchase request, to interacting with business partners, to assigning documents for review and approval: the effectiveness of each one, and the overall efficiency of your organization, is dependant on integrating these different tasks throughout your entire business and with ERP systems..

The Key Chapter In “Open-Book Management”
BPM Technology Spells Success of New Organizational Initiative
By Mark N. Clemente (2004)

Technology helped a western state utility curb water usage during a severe draught that affected the region two years ago. Today, that same IT system helps the utility better manage the “data deluge” that keeps many firms from gaining maximum financial returns. Companies succeed based on the quality and timeliness of the information they rely on for management decision-making. For one leading utility and other companies today, the challenge is successfully managing voluminous data and intelligence. The utility acted upon the challenge. By instituting open-book management as a means of better harnessing organizational knowledge — and, most importantly, bolstering employees’ communication, commitment and sense of ownership — the utility has heightened productivity and lessened costs…

BPM Is Just-In-Time Solution For Applying Real-Time Performance Management Data
By Dean Trachtenberg and Dan Hurley (2004)

Just-in-time (J-I-T) is a management discipline that relates directly to manufacturing. The underlying principles of J-I-T, however, also pertain to the “raw material” of today’s knowledge-based enterprises: business performance information…

White Paper: BPM Technology Delivers Tools For “Working Capital Management”
By Harnish Kanani. July 2004 

It has been said that, in business, “cash is king.” If so, working capital is the power behind the throne in any commercial enterprise. Working capital refers to the money that companies use to fund their operations. The flow of working capital is a cyclical phenomenon. Cash comes into the business via accounts receivables. Cash goes out via accounts payables. The companies that effectively manage this “working capital cycle” are best able to attain profitability and effect sustainable corporate growth…

BPM Member Executive Poll Report
December 2003

The Business Performance Management (BPM) Forum has undertaken a survey of its membership base designed to determine their attitudes, concerns, and priorities about performance measurement, compliance, and business performance management. The survey report represents the first look inside the members of the BPM Forum, an organization committed to acquiring, creating, and sharing knowledge that advances the cause of business performance and continuous performance improvement. Its members include company executives, board members, academics, business consultants, regulators, and others from major institutions and companies around the world…

Benchmarking the Board: The Performance Accountability Audit Report
October 2003

The BPM Forum has completed a report on its "Benchmarking the Board: The Performance Accountability Audit," the first major survey from a corporate board member perspective looking at issues, drivers, and trouble spots around performance accountability, Sarbanes-Oxley, and business performance management. This study, which was conducted via an online survey, received over 150 responses and represents another piece of intellectual capital from the BPM Forum…

Corporate Culture Issues In Creating The Performance-Driven Organization

Raj Aggarwal explains the role corporate culture plays in a successful BPM deployment. Failing to address communication and corporate culture issues while rolling out a BPM program can factor into your ultimate success or failure. Aggarwal says that an information sharing-oriented mindset should be adopted across all levels of the enterprise and offers strategies to help get you started. Aggarwal is a BPM Forum Advisory Board Member and Firestone Chair and Academic Director of the Finance Ph.D. program at Kent State University…