IBM BPM Reviews

We're using BPM in our policy area for when we deploy new rates. We're an insurance company. We change rates based on market trends, or analysis, or new vehicles in the market. We try to get those change requests in, process them, and get them back out so our rates are updated for market share.

We had been using a process that was very manually intensive. We use BPM to take that manual process and automate it from start to finish. When the product manager requests a change, it will go to the pricing analyst, they'll do their work and it's all organized and coordinated in sequence, so that they can make the right decisions at the right times for the process. And hopefully reduce the time that we get the rate revisions out to market.

We're not using it with Case Manager, it's just BPM exclusively at this point. In terms of workflow process, as I mentioned, the request comes in and it follows a sequence of events. The pricing analysts that work on these requests, they have a lot of decisions to make, a lot of documentation to look at based on state regulations or different product types. This helps them organize that and presents the information to them at the right step of the process, so they're not spending extra time searching through hundreds of pages of documentation to try to find what they need. It's all right there as they work through the process.

Right now we're about eight months in, and the processes are long. They can take multiple weeks, so we haven't had a chance to go through a number of those to realize the benefits. But just word of mouth, and talking to people using it, they're seeing value in more efficiency in the steps that they're working through, they have documentation presented to them. Word of mouth has been great, but we haven't actually seen the numbers yet because it's just been implemented recently.

It is having an impact on our ability to change or update our processes. There is information during the process that the analyst will look at, their procedures. We created a part of the application such that the business can change those procedures as needed, on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. As the reps go through the process, they don't necessarily know it's changing, they just know they have to refer to some documentation, and the business can keep that up to date. That's been a great way for them to make those changes quickly as they need to.

It's really helped our customers learn the process. Before you go into BPM you have to document the process. Working with the different groups that are involved with the process, there was good collaboration so they understand what the process is and how it can be most efficient, prior to adding the tool on top of it.

So, process analysis first and then applying the tooling, it's been working great.

I would like to see more inclusion of RPA technologies. If we have more manual processes, we can use robotic process automation and integrate that in with the solution. Other than that, it's meeting our needs with what the requirements were.

In production, it's great. We have about 60 or so users, so it's small. We are in the cloud. There was some learning early on in development of the application. We just had one, sometimes two, developers, and there were some things that we had to do in the cloud to allow for the performance. It was taking up memory and we didn't know it. We had to work with IBM support, create some scripts to clean up the environment on a weekly basis, so that we weren't loading up memory.

It was a little challenging early on because we had just started. We were having problems right away with just two developers, but we got it sorted out and support helped.

We haven't had an opportunity to scale it. From what I understand about the architecture, it's definitely scalable to the enterprise. But we haven't used it in that capacity yet.

We just have the one application and it has not been in production long enough to really see the ROI yet, in terms of scaling. But based on the project, cost benefit analysis early on, it was showing positive. But we're not there yet.

It's been good. They've been responsive. We've been able to escalate when we needed to. We haven't had any incidents in production. It was just, while we were developing a solution, working with it, there were some issues early on, and support was great.

No solution previously. We've been discussing BPM for a number of years, just looking for the right use case and the right time to do it.

When selecting a vendor, typically we look to see if we have strategic partners, strategic relationships with larger vendors, like IBM; if they have the product that meets the requirements. We tend to look at analyst information to say, "Okay, who are the players in this particular space?" We tend to go with that as a starting place, and go from there. If they're someone we're already doing business with, and we have a strategic relationship with them, that will be our first point of reference, and then look at the requirements, can they meet the requirements?

We went with IBM largely due to, from what I gather, the requirements, the technology and functionality, were very similar. And we weren't doing business with the other vendors, while IBM, we are.

It was straightforward from our perspective. It was in the cloud, they provisioned the instance for us. However, I think there were some things that we didn't know about that needed to be fixed, and those incidents happened early on. We were a little bit caught off guard. 

We thought there might have been a little more discussion early on about, "Hey, if you're doing this, set it up this way," or some best practices or some guidance that we didn't get. But we fixed the issues and were able to work through that. From that point on, it's been good.

We worked with IBM to implement. I think we implemented it at the right time. I don't think we needed to have started earlier. The business unit that's using it had some overarching projects to look at, in terms of efficiency and improving speed to market. As they were looking at different technologies or process improvements, one of the options was to try to clean up this process. In working with them and working with IT, we landed on using BPM for that. It was actually good timing for their overarching goals. They have other projects in flight that will work in parallel with this to hopefully reduce the time to market.

I think this solution is an eight out of 10. It has a strong place in the market. BPM is one of the leading tools, if not the best BPM solution out there. It has extensibility across the platform to allow you to do any number of things. It gives you scalability and functionality, breadth to handle just about anything you need to do.

Regarding advice, if you're not using a partner, use a partner, or use IBM to get some consulting services to help you get started. They have some quick-win programs that are designed to come in, they'll bring a developer in and they'll work with your developer to get you started. That's what we did and that worked really great. We got an understanding of the product, we got an understanding of how to deploy the product. And when we were done with that engagement, we were off and running. I would definitely say go that route. It works.

I'm a consultant. We are working for a consulting company, and we initiate solutions in IBM BPM at the moment, mostly for banks.

Overall, I'm satisfied with the product. It has a lot of capabilities and potential. 

This is technology, and there's always room for improvement. It would be better to have a single solution. Trying to have an overview in terms of this solution brings together the concepts of BPM processes, customer journeys, and an automation part for KPIs. All of this working together and coming up with a single solution with privacy is more commercial than anything else.

Because when you try and initiate things, we see that it's two different applications. But there's an effort to combine all of these applications and have an overview of internal processes. I believe they are making investments in this part, but they are probably delayed a bit.

Adding a control app or something easier in terms of maintaining the versioning will help. Make it easier to manage the patches so you can just do it and move on to the next one. Every time we tried to meet to do some upgrade of a version of the solution, it was a lot of work. Even minor upgrades always required a significant amount of work in intensities and trials.

From our side and our core customers, we didn't get any complaints.

Depending on the geographical area you're in, depending on the relevance of your customer, and if it's a big customer, the support goes very well. We don't have many complaints. If it's a smaller client in a smaller country, sometimes the support is delayed a bit, and we get some pushing from their side to make sure that we have a proper response.

We also have projects in our systems and projects with Comunda, and we are doing some parallelly. We also have some experience in using the BPMO methods and Software AG. It's not great, but for small things, it does the trick in terms of the licenses model. Sometimes depending on the situation, it becomes much more interesting for some of our clients.

The initial setup is kind of a pain when compared with other solutions like Comunda, which is more or less like plug-and-play and quite easy. The solution is quite quick in terms of IBM, and it's a bit more complex. Especially if you're talking about having a more enterprise environment, it becomes a bit complex. You have to configure a lot of additional components from that infrastructure to make sure it's running okay, and sometimes it becomes a bit complex.

It's expensive. All software is always extremely high. The manufacturing cost that we have compared to the selling cost, it's not like you're building a house or building a car. But putting that aside, considering that it's expensive, it's a lot of money. If you compare it with some of the other alternatives in the market, it's a similar price. For instance, if you compare it with Pegasystems, it's a similar price.

If you're talking about smaller companies or smaller clients, probably they're going for something more simple like Comunda or something else because it's much cheaper. Even the support becomes much cheaper than getting a full IBM BPM solution. 

If you're a very big company or a bank or don't want any headaches, you would probably prefer IBM. You know the old saying that no one has ever been fired for buying IBM. It's one of those things, and that rule still applies. 

I would advise potential users to get proper training and figure out the most suitable version that they need. Because in terms of internal versions and support, they need to be careful. Like all software, the latest versions always include some bugs. Older versions lack some support. You need to be careful about that. 

Have a proper solution architect that knows enough about the BPM system's ins and outs to make sure that you have proper internal support in terms of projects. Apart from that, try to build a close relationship with the vendor.

People who come from different technology backgrounds have some difficulty getting used to working with IBM products. If you compare it with other products, it's probably not as easygoing or as simple to implement as the rest. But after you get used to it, it works.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give IBM BPM an eight.

We have encountered different use cases with our clients. For example, in the financial, oil field, and automotive areas, we have used the solution for onboarding applications.

IBM BPM is equipped with all the functionalities which are needed for building BPM enterprise-level applications. The integration is very good by using the restore service. The UI has improved and it is now a lot better.

There needs to be better documentation for IBM BPM in a central place. There is not any standard documentation for each component available and has been a barrier for developers.

I have been using this solution for approximately nine years.

The IBM engine is very powerful, it is highly stable.

IBM BPM has been scalable our my experience.

The support needs to improve.

The initial setup was complex and can be made simpler by starting with better documentation.

I have evaluated Pega and Appian which have come to be major competitors for IBM in the market. IBM BPM site is lacking documentation and that is why customers are going to other solutions.

I would advise those wanting to use IBM BPM to have very experienced consultants at the time of implementation because it is essential to have the infrastructure properly configured. The solution is available on-premise and on the cloud, it is important to follow best practices with the developers, if they are ignored, then the infrastructure and applications will be in trouble. It is important to have good supervision from an architect, without one, IBM BPM will not be as useful as it could be.

I rate IBM BPM a six out of ten. 

The use cases include security and network processing for internal purposes.

It streamlines processes, benefits other projects, and integrates with other solutions.

I appreciate its high user capacity and standard compliance. It's also helpful for multi-project deployments, design assessments, and general deployment processes.

Integration is a big plus for me.

There is room for improvement in the stability. 

I have been using it for ten years. I work with the latest version. 

Overall, I would rate the stability an eight out of ten.

It is a scalable solution. We have below 100 end users in our company. 

The customer service and support are good. They are responsive. 

The configuration and installation are easy. The deployment took around one to two days. 

The deployment began with an assessment, followed by requirement confirmation and sign-off by various stakeholders. We deployed it on the cloud and managed the process internally.

We only needed two people for the deployment. 

We have a yearly licensing model. It is not expensive. There are no addition costs to the standard license. 

Overall, I would rate the product an eight out of ten. I would recommend using this solution. 

It is easy to use, good price, is easy for developers, easy to install and configure.

We use IBM BPM for banking transactions. 

The tool's workflow function is very strong. 

IBM BPM should become cloud-native. It should also add a cloud deployment feature. 

I have been using the product for ten years. 

I rate IBM BPM's stability a nine out of ten. 

I rate the tool's scalability an eight out of ten. My company has 1000 users. 

IBM BPM's support is good. 

The tool's deployment is complex. 

Integrators helped us with deployment. 

I rate the tool's pricing a seven out of ten. 

The most valuable feature of the solution is IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation and how it's integrated with case management and the RPA and all these things with flexible deployment.

UI is an area with a shortcoming that needs improvement.

I have been using IBM BPM for six and a half to seven years. We're currently working on a migration project from IBM BPM Version 8.5.7 to IBM BPM Version 21.0.3. My current company is a platinum partner for IBM.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

It's a very scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

In my current environment, the solution has more than 500 users.

I rate the technical support a seven or eight out of ten. Sometimes IBM support takes a long time to respond or responds wrongly on some issues, and there is some fixed practice at their end because of which they take some time to come. Hence, I lean more toward seven.

Neutral

I rate the setup a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy. If you are using the UI to do the installation or setup, the rating would be nine. But if you're using shell commands on AIX or Linux, I think it should be almost two or three since I did the shell commands for the services. It also included some server performance tuning and stuff, like, database connections for BPM databases and all such things. It's not easy.

Since I am working in the banking industry, the tool is deployed on-premises.

The deployment takes around two days since there is a need to prepare a development environment.

One person can do deployment with help from a database person. Some database scripts should be deployed on Oracle or Db2.

On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a ten. It is an expensive product compared to other tools.

I evaluated options like Appian, OpenText AppWorks, and Pega. However, I prefer IBM BPM over other solutions owing to its level of integration and the already existing adapters, and how it is easy to create your files to be connected with IBM BPM.

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.

We currently use IBM BPM in our company to digitize platforms, to ensure that whatever we are currently doing in terms of manual operations, gets digitized. It means that anything a customer needs becomes an STP journey straight through processing instead of requiring any manual work. We chose IBM BPM because of that. I'm the head of enterprise platforms and we're a customer of IBM. 

It has a good user interface and I think the easy add option to build features with deployment in six to eight weeks is one of the key features. Also the add option, being an industry linker, simplifies things with the scale of production and all our production processes.

We place a lot of importance on security and one area they could make improvements in is to definitely increase the vulnerability and security patches to make it more robust and stable. As a financial institution we're always concerned about product and security vulnerabilities, it's an important parameter. The product could be more competitive in terms of cost. 

In a future release, I'd like to see more business related KPIs that can be measured from a digital transformation perspective. If they could build more on analytics reporting and help businesses to derive more benefits out of the solution that would be beneficial. I think they need to probably make it more business friendly and get more insights based on analytics.

Both stability and scalability are fine. I think we have been able to manage the monumental growth of the processes over the last three to four years. It has been pretty encouraging. It's been a success story for us. 

We get very good support from IBM on whatever issues and challenges we have. I think they are very quick to respond. We have a good, healthy relationship with IBM in this regard.

I'm pretty sure licensing is on the pricier side, but it depends on the use case and the benefits that you realize from your investment. There are different versions of the product; a standard edition and an advanced edition. Each is based on the number of PC users, CPU's that you license out, and the cost varies based on your instrumentation and the number of processes.

I have no serious complaints, it's basically the combination of pricing and the security vulnerability that are concerns. I think they also repackage a lot of their products within the new upgraded version of IBM BPM, a BAW - Business Automation Workflow. 

For anyone contemplating using this solution, it's important to study the entire landscape of your business operations. A solution needs to be chosen based on your business needs and there are multiple solutions available. If you're a smaller company, for example, there are other tools like Zing that have less scalability, but it's a reasonable alternative. If you're in the big league, then IBM BPM is the way to go forward.

We have used it for e-office. We have done a unification in a shared service center for our procurement activities and payment, and we have rolled out almost 180 processes.

We were on version 8.6, and we have recently upgraded to Business Automation Workflow (BAW).

Its workflow and integration with SAP are the most valuable features. It is also a stable solution.

We are a government organization, and we are the largest government power sector in India. We generate around 30% of power in India. Therefore, our processes are quite complex. Although IBM BPM is a low-code or no-code software, if you want to have extremely complex workflows, just the business process diagrams are not helpful in creating those workflows. While implementing complex workflows, only the process flow diagrams did not help us. We had to write a lot of Java scripts and Java queries to achieve what we wanted. 

Its integration capabilities with the SAP environment have to be improved. At present, we are only talking at the web services environment level. Its price also needs to be improved. It is currently expensive.

Previously, Active Directory required a heterogeneous environment, but now they want a homogeneous environment. We had onboarded employees through Microsoft Active Directory, and now I have to implement Microsoft AD only from the cloud for my vendors.

I have been using this solution for more than two years.

It is definitely stable. It comes from the IBM stack, so it is a stable solution, but the stability also depends on the partner who is developing your IBM BPM solutions. There could be issues if your partner has not written the artifacts or the business process diagrams properly or the checks and balances are not proper. IBM BPM interfaces with so many things. It interfaces with middleware, ECM repository, SAP, etc. Therefore, all the checks and balances have to be properly coded. Otherwise, certain problems or errors will keep on cropping up. You require really good developers who can develop these kinds of solutions.

Because it is an on-prem solution, we had initially provisioned sufficient cores and storage. It is at an enterprise scale with the data center and the disaster recovery center. So, we can scale up, and there are no problems. We have already done it. 

We have around 15,000 users of this solution.

IBM is managing our solutions.

Its price is on the higher side, and it can be improved. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs. 

I would recommend this solution to others. It is a good solution. The only thing is that you should have a good technical team to implement it before embarking on this journey. It is not an easy solution.

I would rate IBM BPM an eight out of ten.