Quelle: CIO, USA

Credit giant TransUnion's nascent mortgage and personal loan businessis growing fast, and Executive Vice President and CIO Len Lombardowill not let technology slow it down.

"We don't want any software package putting restrictions or dictatinghow our business can act," says Chicago-based Lombardo. "Our productguys are very creative, and there's so much competition out there.We've got to be able to react."

Lombardo's need for speed and flexibility rings true in nearly anybusiness. Ideally, companies should be able to quickly automate theirbusiness processes while also being nimble enough to optimize thoseprocesses over time. In practice, companies often find themselvesbound to the business rules hard-wired into their enterpriseapplications because modifying the software is so difficult.

Business process management (BPM) software seeks to turn the tables.BPM tools are designed to let CIOs and end users take aprocess-centric approach to IT projects and to track the effectivenessof those corporate processes. With many companies doing the sameamount of work with fewer employees, business process efficiency maywell be the next stage of business-IT innovation.