The Forrester Wave™: Human-Centric Business Process Management Suites, Q1 2006

Many enterprises are now turning to business process management suites (BPMS) as a way to realize their strategic focus on business processes. To see how human-centric BPMS vendors stack up, Forrester evaluated 12 vendors across 215 criteria. The result? Lombardi Software, Pegasystems, and Savvion lead with comprehensive suites that foster rapid, iterative process design; Appian leads with a richly featured suite for people-intensive work; and TIBCO leads with a human-centric BPMS that leverages its integration-centric product. Fuego and HandySoft are strong performers with excellent integration. Metastorm, which is integrating its human and integration-centric products, and Global 360 are both strong performers with Microsoft-based products, but Metastorm relies too much on third-party software and Global 360 needs better process-aware reporting. FileNet by far offers the best support for document-centric processes, and both Appian and FileNet excel at combining structured and collaborative work. Fujitsu, another strong performer, leads in OEM deals and standards but requires coding to build out advanced functionality. And Ultimus —while lacking a full suite — is a contender with a competitive Microsoft-based product sold on a global basis.