Although Microsoft SharePoint includes some basic workflow functionality out-of-the-box, as well as development tools for developing more advanced workflows, it is often not the best business process management (BPM) solution to manage, monitor and optimise workflows and business processes.
In fact, organisations that selected SharePoint for its collaboration, file sharing and publishing capabilities are now looking for an BPM alternative for automating and monitoring anything beyond the most basic workflow scenarios.
The SharePoint eForm and workflow tools available to non-developers can work for very basic requirements for inward-facing processes or where customisation is not required but once you need to handle the many complications that exist in day-to-day business activities, SharePoint requires development skills.
These skills are beyond most business users and it soon becomes apparent that if an investment in developers, project managers and infrastructure to support SharePoint development is going to be made, SharePoint alone is rarely sufficient to justify this cost. This is why there are many products available that describe themselves as SharePoint add-ons.
