BPM Changes the Game for Financial Services

For years, when IT departments considered ERP software, they went to J.D. Edwards, Oracle, SAP or one the manufacturing-centric packages now marketed by Infor. Among the latter is the Manufacturing, Accounting and Production Information Control Systems (MAPICS), developed by IBM 30 years ago. ERP itself is derived from a 1960s manufacturing term, materials requirement planning (MRP). With that history, it is easy to understand ERP's manufacturing centricity. However, there has always been an ERP-like product set in other industries. In healthcare delivery, the resource is primarily the caregiver's time. In retail, the MRP idea gets flipped and is called merchandise management. In financial services, resource planning revolves around customer acquisition/retention. As with the familiar manufacturing-centric ERP concept, there... [read full story]