Sterling Commerce says Jeanne Baker, the company’s vice president of technology, has been elected chairman of the board of the Business Process Management Initiative organisation (BPMI.org), an international association that aims to promote and develop the use of Business Process Management (BPM).
Previously a director of BPMI.org, as chairman of the BPMI.org board of directors, Baker says she is looking to bring her expertise and leadership to the organisation at a time when BPM’s role in multi-enterprise collaboration and commerce is increasing.
“Business process modeling languages like BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) and BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation) were designed to help enterprises extend their business processes beyond their four walls to their business partners, giving companies greater visibility into their supply chain and ultimately a competitive edge,” she says.
Baker outlined her priorities for BPMI.org as delivering a graphical notation standard for business processes; raising the industry’s awareness of BPM; advocating, clarifying and extending BPEL, the standard for business process execution approved by the Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS); and working with other standards bodies to improve the simplicity, interoperability and usefulness of complementary standards.
Layna Fischer, executive director of BPMI.org, says Baker “has an enormous amount of energy and dedication to advancing the adoption of business process execution standards. Given her combination of expertise and ability, she is the ideal person to lead our efforts.”
Sterling Commerce Chief Marketing Officer Nolan Rosen reckons Baker’s knowledge of BPM will “help companies align IT projects to the true needs of their business. Companies that extend their business processes beyond their enterprise to collaborate with their trading partners will dominate competitors that try to go it alone.”
Sterling Commerce says it supports open standards by staying active in industry groups that are defining the standards. In addition to BPMI.org, Sterling Commerce is represented on technology committees for RosettaNet, OASIS, Uniform Code Council, Inc. (UCC), Electronic Product Code (EPC), Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG), Open Applications Group, Inc. (OAGi), and the American National Standards Institute X12 (ANSI X12).