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The BPM sector continues to grow throughout the world. Starting decades ago, Workflow technology has evolved into sophisticated BPM solutions. One of the fast growing companies is BP Logix, founded in 1995.
Paul Carman, SVP North America, recently sat down with Scott Menter, a Senior Executive with BP Logix and their Evangelist for their leading industry solutions.
 

Business overview
 
1) Can we start with an introduction of yourself and an overview of your company?
I’m currently serving as VP of Business Solutions at BP Logix.  Prior to that, I was head of technology for WaMu Investments, Inc., a national retail brokerage.  Earlier, I held technology leadership positions at the University of California, Irvine and Lehman Brothers.  I also spent 11 years operating my own software and consulting firm, specializing in identity and enterprise systems management. 
In 1995, BP Logix began by building enterprise IT security and network software products which were ultimately acquired by Computer Associates. Working with CA across time zones, we spent a significant amount of time marking up documents. Recognizing annotation as an ongoing need for both individuals and workgroups, we began building annotation software.  That led us naturally into the document management space which, in turn, led us to looking at the processes that were the foundation of these documents. Ultimately, we turned to building business process management (BPM) and workflow automation software solutions and have been doing so, exclusively, since 2008.
 
2) What are the primary products /services you offer and what is your key value proposition?
BP Logix offers on-premise and hosted BPM solutions. In 2010, BP Logix became the first vendor to introduce the dimension of time as a core component of BPM software.  Our Process Timeline™ technology enables users to predict the behavior of in-flight processes, based on prior performance and current status.  Our solutions are geared towards the business user, so no programming is required to take advantage of these advanced capabilities.
 
3) How do you position yourselves in the market?
Process Director scales from department level to the enterprise.  About half our customers come from IT, and the other half are business users, seeking a solution for their business process challenges that doesn't require a team of programmers. What they all have in common is a need to solve business process issues with a powerful, user-friendly and cost effective tool, which can be implemented within days.
 
4) Which business applications do you primarily address?
Our customers use Process Director across a variety of applications, from employee  onboarding and invoice processing to compliance reporting and property takeover.
 
5) Who do you consider to be your major competitors?
There are plenty of players in the BPM marketplace, but we consider our primary competitor to be "doing it the old way". Organizations that recognize the value of BPM and the advantages of early insight into business processes, will be satisfied neither with hard-to-manage homegrown solutions nor off-the-shelf products, lacking predictive capabilities.
 
6) What geographies do you service?
BP Logix is based in Southern California, with a direct sales force serving North America and distribution partners in Europe, Japan, Africa and the Middle East.

    
 
Market Dynamics

7) The ECM market in general, and the BPM market specifically, are undergoing further consolidation, convergence and evolution with the impact of web 2.0, SaaS, social networking, virtualization and other innovations and discontinuities in the market. What effect is all of this having on your business? Perhaps tell us about how you are participating in this consolidation and the M&A activities?
BP Logix has stayed at the forefront of these trends; with our .Net-based, multi-tenant architecture, our Process Director Cloud Edition (SaaS) solution, virtualization support, and web 2.0 technologies such as AJAX.  The user can embed HTML directly into their forms, providing support for social features such as Twitter and RSS feeds.
 
8) The traditional licence/server software sales models are now increasingly being     challenged by other subscription based approaches. Is this something you are offering?
Yes. Process Director Cloud Edition offers organizations a way to get the benefits of an advanced BPM solution with Process Timeline's predictive technology, without having to use their own infrastructure.  Among other benefits, Cloud Edition offers business users a quick but sophisticated way to address their business process challenges, without creating more work for their IT department.
 
9) Has Microsoft’s Sharepoint had any impact on your business?
Yes - A positive one.  A number of our customers have sizeable SharePoint installations.  Process Director already features several integration points with SharePoint and there are more on the way.  Business users value SharePoint for its ability to collaboratively store and create documents and lists and they value Process Director for its ability to leverage that information into easy-to-build, predictable and manageable business processes.
 
10) How has your business fared during the recent economic downturn?
Busier than ever! Our timing was good - We introduced Process Director 2.0 just as the country was emerging from the worst of the crisis, so we managed to catch a bit of the upswing.
 
11) What key market drivers are positively impacting your business?
Thanks to the economic downturn, organizations have been looking at every way possible to cut costs.  By 2010, they had maxed out their ability to reduce headcount, and were looking for new ways to keep expenses under control.  Fortunately for our industry, BPM is a great way to minimize exposure to compliance and process failure costs.  Using Process Director, you can predict where your process is going and take early action, if needed, to get it back on the right track. That predictive capability, translated into a proactive business response, results in real dollar savings.
 
 

New Opportunities

12) Is your company doing anything differently to increase sales and maintain customer loyalty?
Our proprietary Process Timeline™ technology, introduced in 2010, is definitely making waves. Analysts, customers and prospects appreciate the idea that time is an essential dimension of BPM and therefore, should play a role in BPM solutions. We are therefore, focused on getting the word out about Process Timeline™ and the role of time in BPM.  Our customers appreciate the fact that we are creating solutions to address their real business problems. In the end, it is all about valuing our relationship with our customers and working hard to meet their needs. If we do those things well -and I believe we do - sales and customer loyalty will take care of themselves.
 
13) Are you spending more or less on marketing this year than last? What has been the most effective marketing medium to increase sales?
While there is a plethora of programs that we believe are contributing to increasing sales, we believe video and social networking are amongst the most important. Everything we have done has, to some extent, helped us build mindshare and market share.
 
14) What are your top three priorities for the next 12 months?
 While we can’t disclose our road map, you can be sure it includes even tighter SharePoint integration, along with some pretty exciting enhancements to our predictive capabilities.
 
15) Do you have the right team in place to achieve these objectives?
We've got a great team and we're always on the lookout to add talented, experienced and personable new members to that team.
 
16) What are the main challenges for you to overcome?
Along with the rest of the industry, we want to make sure that organizations recognize the benefits of a BPM solution and educate them on how to avoid both the visible and hidden costs of point solutions or purpose-built software.
 
17) What has been the most important management lesson you have learned?
Working at BP Logix has reminded me how much real innovation comes out of small businesses.  I've worked in business, government and academia, in settings large and small, but nothing compares to the combination of innovation, entrepreneurship and agility of a small, aggressive company like BP Logix.
 
18) Which new technologies, markets or geographies are you looking to expand into?
We're always on the lookout for technology advances that could translate into benefits for our customers. There are markets that we feel are currently underserved by BPM vendors, for one reason or another, and we are paying special attention to those areas, though we continue to be a vertical-agnostic solution.
 
19) What is the mission and vision that drives your company?
Our mission is to become the preferred partner for every organization looking to improve its bottom line through better business process management. We’re doing that by offering innovative solutions at competitive prices, supported by incredible customer service. The formula isn’t hard: it’s all about the execution.
 
 
And finally, on a more personal level…
 
• Who do you most admire as a business leader and why?
Henry Samueli, co-founder of Broadcom. Henry is the child of Holocaust survivors who came to the United States. Everything he earned, he earned through his own hard work and ingenuity.  When Broadcom became successful, rendering Henry a wealthy man, he immediately became one of the leading philanthropists in Southern California.  Through the Samueli Foundation, Henry has made a huge impact on science, education, the arts and a number of charities supporting children and the needy.  Building a great company is hard, but building a lasting legacy in your community is even harder; Henry has achieved both.
Visit BP Logix Web Site