Staffware Sees Suite Spot In North American Channel
The business process management (BPM) ISV released the second version of its Staffware Process Suite (SPS) this spring and is hoping to make U.S. inroads with that offering, said Kuljit Bawa, CEO of Staffware Americas.
When Staffware Americas' London-based parent company was founded 15 years ago, it focused on small businesses with its workflow-centric product line, Bawa said. Today, many of the company's customers are enterprises with as many as 100,00 seats, and BPM is the focal point. "Workflow is very much departmental and content-focused ... whereas BPM mixes human tasks and system tasks," he said.
JUMPING THE POND
>> London-based Staffware hopes to extend its success to North America.
>> Developer shifts focus to enterprise customers with its BPM suite.
>> Channel partners with BPM software expertise are being recruited.
>> Staffware Process Suite has technology to control/adjust business processes.
>> Three-fourths of Staffware's overall sales are driven by or through the channel.
The BPM software competition is stiff. Pure-play BPM vendors such as Fuego Software and Intalio are gunning for customers' business, while IBM, Siebel and other giants with large customer bases are developing BPM products they can tack onto customers' existing implementations.
Bawa said SPS includes features such as Dynamic Process Orchestration to give Staffware an edge over rivals. DPO is software that controls and adjusts complex business processes.
The product "can cope with non-structured processes far better," said Bawa. "Now someone downstream [in a company's workflow plan] can predict how much work is going to hit them and when."
In February, Staffware launched a new partner program to tap into the BPM system expertise of North American channel partners. The three-tiered program, which includes Alliance, Premier and Premier++levels, is aimed at attracting integrators, VARs, ISVs and management consultants.
Partners at all levels receive technical and sales training, and Premier+ partners also receive marketing funds and leads and have access to Staffware engineers.
Three-fourths of Staffware's companywide sales are driven by or through channel partners, Bawa said. One of those is Countdown Technologies, Washington. "We were interested in [learning more about] the BPM industry," said Cecil Hollar, senior vice president and co-owner of Countdown, which generated about $800,000 in sales in 2002 and expects to break through the million-dollar mark by the end of the year.
Federal clients in particular must take a closer look at the processes they use to communicate internally and with the citizens they serve, Hollar said. "With the mandates coming down from on high to be more citizen-centered, we knew agencies would have to get their processes under control," he said. "We thought that software to automate the processes would be applicable."
Countdown's government clients include the Department of Energy, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles.