Successful adoption of business process management systems (BPMS) in South Africa is being held back by a lack of skills around the concept and technology in the market.

One reason that these skills are in such short supply is that there is a lack of vendor-and tool-independent training that focusses on the conceptual side of BPM, says Angie Doyle, a senior consultant at Ovations. “The lack of skills definitely inhibits BPM projects,” she says.

Although software providers offer their employees and clients training in the usage of their enterprise tools, few organisations offer training resources that address the fundamentals of BPM, she adds. The result is that BPMS implementations often stutter and return on investment drops when the consultants who helped roll out BPM leave the client site.