What is BPM?

Here are some of the important features of a good enterprise grade BPM tool:

• Low Code
• Visual Workflow Modeling
• Case Management
• Integrations
• Reporting
• Performance Metrics
• Automation
• User Interface

Here are some of the most widely used enterprise level BPM tools:

• Pega
• Appian
• Oracle BPM
• IBM BPM

What is Blockchain?

Blockchain is an immutable distributed ledger technology (DLT) which is maintained by a number of nodes spread throughout the world or group of organizations. These nodes are nothing but a computer or a group of computers running the code at different locations, maintaining and validating the shared ledger i.e. what can and cannot be written to the shared ledger. Each node has a copy of the shared ledger, which in turn has a record of all the immutable transactions.

Permissioned Blockchain

If nodes are maintained by an organization or a set of organizations and you need their permission to join the node network, than that makes it a permissioned blockchain e.g. Hyperledger from IBM can be implemented as a permissioned blockchain.

Permissionless Blockchain

If these nodes are run by multiple users across the world and are not affiliated to a group of organizations and any user can join the network than it is called decentralized or permissionless blockchain e.g. bitcoin is a distributed and permissionless blockchain.

Advantage of using a blockchain:

• Data/transaction is not owned by a single organization/participant.
• All the data/transactions that results in current blockchain state can be traced back to its inception and is immutable.
• Data cannot be manipulated by a single entity at any point (censorship-resistance) and all participants have to be in agreement to write the state of data to the shared ledger.

What is a Smart Contract?

As I mentioned previously, a blockchain can store immutable transactions. Now let’s say instead of storing transactions we can store computer code in a blockchain. And we can execute this computer code on demand and get results based on inputs. Yes, we just described a Smart Contract.

“A Smart Contract is a self-enforcing agreement embedded in computer code managed by a blockchain. The code contains a set of rules under which the parties of that smart contract agree to interact with each other.”

Smart Contract platforms like Ethereum are distributed smart contracts that can be implemented as both permissioned and permissionless. That means multiple participants can read/write/execute code and can trust that the code and resulting output data is not manipulated by a single entity at any point for their own benefit.

Problem

Extending workflows across organizations and consuming data from organizations that don’t trust each other i.e. lack of trust and transparency between participants from different organizations.

For a long time BPM has been used as a framework for streamlining processes within an organization.

What happens when our processes need to work with data that is created and modified in systems that are outside our organization? Currently this is done by moving data between organizations or consuming the available data by some sort of integration e.g. a web service.

But what if we do not trust the external organization that is creating that data? What if the data is manipulated by the given organization for their own benefit?

The same can be said about processes and work flows. What if we do not trust an approval process within another organization? What if proper due diligence is not done and a process error has approved a faulty design for the supplier but later fixed and error was covered up?

Solution

Blockchain to the rescue!

Blockchain has the capability to fix these drawbacks of traditional BPM’s when it comes to cross organizational data and processes. Organizations no longer have to blindly trust what is being provided to them in a black box.

By using auditability feature of blockchain and smart contract execution, blockchain can help simplify processes involving multiple parties.  

Let’s take an example of different organizations that are involved in multiple stages of an automobile rollout:

Process participants – supplier, manufacturer, dealer leasing company and end user.

Now each of these participants, maintain their own subset of data and these systems are usually disconnected. If the related vehicle data is updated in the system of manufacturer than it also need to be updated with the dealer.

What if Blockchain is the source of this shared data.

Blockchain can be the answer to these drawbacks of disconnected systems. Interoperability, trust and transparency can be maintained by leveraging blockchain and smart contracts. Not only data but shared business rules within BPM can also be moved to smart contracts on a blockchain. This keeps the code transparent and can be validated by all participants.

Blockchain can work as another Middleware Layer / ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) on top of internet with the help of smart contracts, while providing the enterprise grade security and robustness.

This results in truly distributed and secure BPM applications.

I would like to add here that BPM software provider Pega do provide connectors for Ethereum using Blockchain Innovation Kit.

Pega Blockchain Innovation Kit

It allows organizations to connect blockchain applications built on Ethereum to applications built on Pega’s digital process automation platform as well as specifically, for Pega’s Know Your Customer (KYC) and Client Lifecycle Management (CLM) applications to conduct proof-of-concept testing.

https://community.pega.com/marketplace/components/pega-blockchain-innovation-kit