STAMFORD, Conn., Oct. 6, 2004 -- BPM Partners, the leading independent authority on business performance management (BPM) solutions, and the author of the "Beyond the Hype(TM)" series on the BPM industry, has opened the 2004-5 edition of the BPM Partners BPM Pulse Survey (http://www.bpmpartners.com/BPMSurveyCentral.shtml). The results of the study will populate the BPM Pulse, a dashboard and guide-at-a-glance to the success or failure of real world BPM implementations. Participants who complete the survey will receive a free summary of the survey's results.

"BPM as an industry has made tremendous strides over the past year but we're wary of calling it an unqualified success," said Craig Schiff, founder and CEO of BPM Partners. "While the industry is obviously growing swiftly - look at the financial results from some of the market leaders - is there real progress being made as far as the customers are concerned? What are their perceptions of both vendors and service providers? Are they receiving the results they have been promised? Are their implementations impacting the bottom line as they expected?

"Application maturity, availability of experienced consultants, and appropriate levels of service and support, are all important indicators of a market on the rise," continued Schiff. "But the most important gauge is the return on investment and costs savings organizations are able to derive from their implementations. Our annual review of the market is designed to help implementers justify funding, determine the necessary resource commitment and identify best practices in this emerging marketplace."

The 2003 BPM Pulse

(http://www.bpmpartners.com/bpmcentral_freetools.shtml) presented information and feedback from actual BPM users in today's forward-thinking enterprises in an easy-to-use graphical report. More than 200 financial, IT and corporate executives contributed to the project. Last year's results predicted the growth and potential of the BPM market segment as well as providing important information for BPM vendors and their customers:

-- In 2003, 40 percent of large companies were in the midst of a BPM project.

-- Contrary to the intense marketing surrounding Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulatory issues, compliance was not the most important driver of last year's BPM initiatives.

-- BPM initiatives were and still are being driven by the internal demand for greater accuracy and accountability and transparency of financial reporting, including shorter cycles for closing the books.

-- Almost 40 percent of the respondents questioned the accuracy and integrity of the financial data available to them from their existing systems.

In addition, BPM Partners creates the annual "Beyond the Hype" series of articles, white papers and Webcasts that review and grade the BPM vendor community, providing implementers with an impartial, objective view of the marketplace.

BPM is a combination of business processes, select measures (metrics, key performance indicators) and systems that enable an organization to understand, act on and influence its business performance. Budgeting, planning, consolidation, scorecards, dashboards, business intelligence (BI) and analytic applications all fall under the BPM umbrella. In addition, regulatory issues such as Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel II, and IFRS compliance are often business drivers for today's BPM applications.

About BPM Partners

BPM Partners is the leading independent authority on business performance management (BPM) solutions and a founding member of the BPM Standards Group. BPM Partners' vendor-neutral consultants guide companies through their BPM initiatives from start to finish, helping companies attain the maximum value from their business performance management initiatives. This is done through hands-on services that provide insight on how to collect and analyze the right information to address specific business goals. BPM Partners leads clients through vendor selection, evaluation and implementation of departmental or enterprise-wide BPM systems.

By analyzing and then matching the client's requirements with the appropriate vendor, BPM Partners helps companies narrow the selection of vendors from a lengthy industry list that includes Applix (Nasdaq: APLX), Cartesis, Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN), Geac (Nasdaq: GEAC; TSE:GAC), FRx Software, Hyperion (Nasdaq: HYSL), Longview Solutions, Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL), OutlookSoft, PeopleSoft (Nasdaq: PSFT), SAP (NYSE: SAP), SAS, Satori Group, SRC Software and others. For further details, go to www.bpmpartners.com.

BPM Partners 
John Colbert, 203-359-5639 
jcolbert@bpmpartners.com 
or
SparkSource, Inc.
Roberta Carlton, 781-274-6061, ext. 210 
rcarlton@sparksource.com