Ensuring that IT is in step with the business is a constant challenge and any tool that allows applications to be developed for the business quickly, using terminology that line of business managers understand, will find a ready market.

One such technology – perhaps the only such technology – is business process management. BPM is not specifically an IT term: rather it is a management practice that sets out to look at how a business runs its processes, improve them, and ensure that the company then keeps running according to that best practice.