Depending on who you talk to, there are variously said to be between 200 and 400 vendors in the BPM market space. As if that is not confusing enough for end users, there is also the fact that now we see just about every other form of application being marketed as a BPM Solution. Vendors in the Business Intelligence, EAI, Decision Support, Help Desk and CRM markets, to name but a few, appear to be re-badging their offerings in an attempt to catch the wave.

Of course it is not just the number of vendors that cause the problem, even the very acronym meanings differ. BPM has been variously said to mean Business Process Modelling, Business Process Management and now is seen by many to relate to Business Performance Management.

The reality is that most people would like to achieve increased Business Performance Management, which of course can be done in many different ways with Business Process Management being one of these. However, the bottom line is that you can't change what you can't see, measure or test and so Business Process Modelling becomes a required part of your activity.

But where should you start and which pieces of the jigsaw are the most important to you? These are the issues upon which the marketers have seized and with which they are able to sow greater confusion, in the hope that they can deliver the desired growth in their own organisations.

Small wonder then that in the eyes of end users this confusion is said to be one of the prime reasons that they are already starting to ignore the BPM acronym, whilst at the same time identifying a strong need to get greater visibility and control over their business processes. Such a simplistic view is a shame because there are many good BPM solutions available in the market and an ever increasing number of success stories emerging about significant business gains from the application of BPM systems.

The challenge for users, as with so many areas of business, is to try and find ways of identifying the wheat from the marketing!

In an attempt to help users pick their way through the plethora of offerings in the market and to compare them more easily, the BPMG Group (www.bpmg.org) runs a series of events known as the BPM Technology Showcases. These events are designed to allow users to compare and contrast the offerings of leading vendors in a single day. Last April's event in London attracted over 170 delegates from all over Europe. December 1st 2004 sees the next event take place in London, where delegates will be able to learn more about the offerings from Vendors such as MetaStorm, Fujitsu, Tibco, IDS-Scheer, Pega Systems, Filenet, Proforma Corp, Exigen, BizAgi and Graham Technology. Details can be found at www.bpmg.org/tech_showcase.php . Next year the group takes the event to the USA with events planned in Dallas, Chicago and New York, with Oracle, Ultimus and Fuego already signed to appear.