The long term view of business process management (BPM) starts in many minds with Michael Hammer who wrote an influential book on the subject called “Reengineering the Corporation” in 1996.
For IDS Scheer, the concept dates back farther to the company’s founding in 1984 by August Wilhelm Scheer in Saarbrücken, Germany. “The first ten years was like university research … at first it was like a startup,” Joerg Heistermann, IDS Scheer CEO of the Americas, told InternetNews.com.
“Once BPM became the buzz in the boardrooms around the world, because of the Hammer book, the business changed and in the 1990s SAP began to roll. Many of our implementations complemented SAP,” said Heistermann.
Business process management started at large companies, which in Germany meant chemical companies, financial institutions, and automobile makers, according to Heistermann.
“BPM is more widely adopted in Europe than in the U.S.,” Heistermann said.
“Culture might have an impact. In the U.S., the focus is on sales and marketing. In Europe, we are more technicians. We optimize the organization for what’s coming,” he added.