February 25, 2008 – Nashville, United States. BPM Focus and the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) announced here today the names of the Gold and Silver winners for the 2007 Global Excellence Awards for Excellence in Business Process Management (BPM) and workflow implementations. These prestigious awards are used to recognize organizations that have demonstrably excelled in implementing innovative solutions to meet strategic business objectives.

“We congratulate the 2007 winners for the particularly high standard of innovation shown in their BPM and workflow implementations,” said Nathaniel Palmer, Executive Director of the WfMC. “The positive impact on their business objectives has helped them move the goalposts for their respective industries.”

In judging, particular attention was paid to implementations that showed processes extending beyond the corporate boundaries to support customers, suppliers, trading partners and more.

Industry Analyst Derek Miers from BPM Focus commented on the strength of the entries, especially those from Asia and United States. “With a wide range of industries represented, the critical importance of driving performance improvement through more effective management of business processes was plain to see. The Case Studies presented provide some compelling reading, and clearly demonstrate the growing recognition of business processes as key business assets.”

The following list identifies the winners from each region and the overall Global Winner, a new award category.

•  Natuzzi Spa, Italy - nominated by openwork, Italy

•  infoCaja, Spain - nominated by BizAgi Ltd., UK

•  Wells Fargo Financial, USA - nominated by Lombardi, USA

•  Supreme Court of Louisiana, USA - nominated by BEA Systems, USA

•  Geisinger Health System, USA - nominated by TIBCO Software, USA

•  Eskom, South Africa - nominated by Graham Technology, UK

•  The Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank, LTD., Taiwan - nominated by Flowring Technology Corp., Taiwan

•  Mallesons Stephen Jaques, Australia - nominated by Metastorm, USA

•  MONEDERO, Argentina - nominated by PECTRA Technology, Inc., USA

•  Government of Bermuda, Bermuda - nominated by Project Performance Corporation, USA

•  The Shanghai Commerical & Savings Bank, LTD., Taiwan – nominated by Flowring Technology Corp., Taiwan

Now in their 14th year, the Awards were presented on Monday, February 25th, 2008 in conjunction with the BPM Awards and Technology Showcase (http://www.bpmfocus.org/events) held from February 25-26 at the Sheraton Nashville Downtown, in Tennessee. The awards are jointly sponsored by BPM Focus and Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) with support from industry associations Object Management Group (OMG) and media organization, BPM.com.

The BPM Awards and Technology Showcase is a 3-day forum designed by a team of leading independent consultants and industry analysts in the field of BPM. This program was designed for organizations to minimize risk and accelerate decision-making around BPM. Based around an assessment framework and onsite introductions to the leading BPM vendors, it provides an opportunity to fast track your BPM projects and technology assessments.

The WfMC, founded in August 1993, is a non-profit, international organization of workflow vendors, users, analysts and university/research groups. The Coalition's mission is to promote and develop the use of workflow through the establishment of standards for software terminology, interoperability and connectivity between workflow products. Comprising over 300 members worldwide, the Coalition is the only standards body for this specific software market. The creation of the WfMC Standards Reference Model has proved its importance in other areas of technology, most notably the ISO Seven Layer reference model for computer communications.

BPM Focus (BPMF) is a new member network formed by the recent merger of Enix Consulting and WARIA (Workflow and Reengineering International Association). The new organization extends the traditional services offered by Enix and WARIA through a range of educational services focused around the BPM arena. The BPMF Learning Framework is a program of BPM Development & Deployment courses incorporating best practices for BPM project delivery and supporting techniques from the very best thinkers in the industry. Both organizations have traded continuously since 1992 and this merger is a natural extension of a long tradition of collaboration.

The  Awards Program is managed by Future Strategies Inc., the Awards Director is Layna Fischer in collaboration with Derek Miers of BPM Focus.org, with sponsorship from the following organizations:

BPM.com is the leading destination site for industry news and opinions on Business Process Management.

• OMG - The OMG is a major international standards body. The Business Modeling and Integration Domain Taskforce is actively involved in developing Business Process related standards such as BPMN, BPDM and BPRI. The OMG hosts the BPM Think Tank.

• WfMC - The Workflow Management Coalition has been the long term supporter of the Excellence Awards in BPM and Workflow. Along with developing the Workflow Reference Framework, the WfMC is the home of standards such as XPDL and Wf-XML.