If you know Camunda, then you know that process orchestration is the heart of what we do. My colleague Bernd Ruecker and I founded Camunda as a consulting firm in 2008, and began building and selling process automation software a few years later. At the time, it was evident to us that the world of traditional business process management (BPM) was on the verge of evolving. Organizations that previously needed automation for stable, repeatable, back-office processes were looking for something to support the digital transformation of their business. This is where process orchestration began. We started to work with companies whose businesses ran on paper (with barely any formal processes), helping them visualize and automate time-consuming manual work to stand apart from their competitors.
Early on, we saw that Camunda could be a Universal Process Orchestrator that acts as an orchestration layer for business-critical processes, distributing work across the many different types of endpoints that are required to automate processes from end to end. Over the years, we’ve seen over and over that process orchestration is the key to taming the complexity of our customers’ most business-critical processes. Despite having many other automation tools in their tech stack—tools for customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), IT systems management (ITSM), robotic process automation (RPA), low-code application development (LCAP), and more—they needed an orchestrator to make sure the right things happen when they need to in order to reach a business outcome. And after introducing process orchestration as the foundation of their hyperautomation stack, they’ve been able to achieve amazing results.
How the need for orchestration is changing the market
Knowing the successes our customers have had with process orchestration, it’s not surprising to see automation and automation-adjacent vendors begin their journey into the topic. The overlap in functionality between different automation tools has only grown over the past few years, and is continuing to grow with new acquisitions and product launches (not to mention the explosion of AI and machine learning capabilities). We’ve recently expanded our own platform by introducing low-code accelerators that help both business and technical users be more productive with Camunda.
This growing overlap of functionality in the automation market is discussed in a Gartner® report that introduces a concept called Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (BOAT). A new report, Quick Answer: Beyond RPA, BPA and Low Code — The Future Is BOAT (11 July 2024), says:
“Gartner is observing the formation of a class of software technologies that enables enterprises to automate and orchestrate end-to-end business processes while connecting multiple enterprise systems of records via any applicable integration method. We are calling such a class of technologies – as the business orchestration and automation platform, aka BOAT.”1
As leaders and innovators in process orchestration, I believe it’s promising to read a definition of BOAT that, in my opinion, tightly aligns with what our customers have experienced with Camunda—that process orchestration is central to achieving transformational automation.
Camunda’s perspective on BOAT
Reflecting on the definition of BOAT provided in the Gartner report, a few things stand out to me.
First, there’s the enterprise need to automate and orchestrate processes. The distinction can be a bit confusing at first, but this is how we see it:
- Task automation is the use of technology to automatically perform certain tasks without human intervention.
- Process orchestration is the coordination of the different tasks of a process, both automated and manual.
- Process automation is the combination of process orchestration and task automation to execute a process, where the degree of automation can vary.
Second, BOAT is important for end-to-end business processes. “End-to-end” is a key concept that’s best understood by asking where a process starts and ends from the business’s point of view. For example, “send a customer notification” isn’t an end-to-end process. A loan origination process—one step of which is to notify the customer when their mortgage is approved—is a better example of an end-to-end process.
Third, Gartner writes about connecting multiple enterprise systems of record via any applicable integration method. In my experience working with Camunda customers, this isn’t just a technical detail; integration flexibility can make or break an automation project. We first added flexibility with what we call the external task pattern, which lets you choose whether Camunda’s workflow engine pushes tasks to other systems or other systems pull tasks from Camunda (and you can do both in the same process). We’ve now made Camunda even more flexible by introducing inbound and outbound Connectors with a layered architecture that supports everything from out-of-the-box integration functionality to fully custom connectivity.
In my view, this aspect of BOAT reflects on composable architecture where, instead of relying on monolithic software products or a rigid infrastructure with many brittle dependencies, you blend interchangeable, interoperable components that can be assembled, reconfigured, and scaled according to business needs. I see composability as ideal for BOAT because BOAT encompasses many different individual capabilities: process orchestration, intelligent document processing (IDP), process and task mining, generative AI, and more.
Camunda is a composable process orchestration platform that’s integrated, yet flexible. We have open architecture made up of an integrated set of components that work together seamlessly, but that can also operate independently if needed. This open architecture facilitates composability because it makes it easy to integrate process orchestration capabilities into a BOAT tech stack instead of operating outside of the stack.
Build, buy, or blend BOAT?
At first glance, you might think that BOAT is simply about buying a monolithic, all-in-one platform that can automate every task and process in your organization. But the report says:
“Customers typically looking to buy or blend instead of custom-building a solution would prefer a BOAT platform. Organizations also might end up with more than a single BOAT platform, depending on their needs.”1
In the context of BOAT, I can see “buy” meaning that you buy one tool and extend or customize it to fit every use case. In the short term, this approach can seem to simplify your tech stack and streamline your vendor contracts. However, the risk of lock-in is very real. It’s not about being locked in with one vendor or tool; it’s about being locked into an inflexible process orchestration strategy that isn’t sustainable or future-proof.
For me, the idea of “blending” BOAT is very similar to designing a composable architecture. To establish a sustainable long-term automation strategy, you need the flexibility to use best-of-breed tools for BOAT capabilities; the ability to mix-and-match point automation tools across teams and departments; and the freedom to swap out tools when it makes sense.
What else matters for process orchestration?
I see process orchestration as addressing two key challenges. One is endpoint diversity, meaning that business processes span across a number of different types of technologies, tools, systems, devices, and even people. Gartner reflects this by writing that BOAT tools connect “multiple enterprise systems of records via any applicable integration method.”
The other challenge I see is process complexity, which is often the deciding factor when a team or an organization chooses a process automation tool. The processes that build and sell a company’s products and services—those that we call “core” business processes—almost always require more than a simple sequence of steps. They involve branching flow logic (sometimes with a dynamic number of branches), message correlation, timers and timeouts, escalations, and more.
This is where we see the benefits of BPMN. Camunda has been using and contributing to the Business Process Modeling and Notation (BPMN) ISO standard since we founded the company. We believe in BPMN because it’s a powerful way to visually represent and execute processes at all levels of size and complexity. We also believe in BPMN because—again—we’ve seen over and over how it benefits our users.
BPMN is incredibly business-friendly because it combines the ease of a drag-and-drop design environment with the power of a structured automation language. Instead of hiding the complexity of a process in code, BPMN makes complexity visible and therefore tameable. Business stakeholders don’t have to bend their process to fit within the limitations of a less powerful design tool, and software developers don’t have to make up the difference by hacking or reverse-engineering a black box of auto-generated code.
For example, at molecular technology company Zymergen, scientists use Camunda to define workflows that run automated protocols in manufacturing operations. We have another very large customer where tax lawyers build processes in Camunda Modeler, add reusable code modules built by software developers, and deploy the processes to a test environment, all without IT assistance.
The “what you see is what you run” nature of BPMN is ideal for software developers because it reduces—or even eliminates—back-and-forth discussions about what the business wants built and how they want it to be built. Even developers who don’t want to use visual process modeling can still contribute to process automation projects by writing code in their preferred development environment (IDE) and simply calling that code from the BPMN process.
And what about AI?
The Gartner report, Quick Answer: Beyond RPA, BPA and Low Code — The Future Is BOAT discusses the impact of specialized and generative AI technologies on the future of automation tools. It provides examples of ways that AI can help with task automation, process optimization, and the design of processes and business rules.
There’s no doubt that AI and machine learning will continue to have a huge effect on the automation market. Process orchestration is pivotal to leveraging AI/ML in ways that will have the most positive impact on your business. We see AI as a force multiplier for process orchestration in three ways:
- Assistive AI gives you a fast track to orchestrated processes by boosting productivity for both business and technical users during the design phase.
- Orchestrating AI tools and services as part of business processes helps you turn local AI usage into a holistic strategy with proper governance.
- Intelligent execution and optimization can help you uncover hidden value in the processes you already have and continuously improve process performance.
Measuring process orchestration success
After working with many enterprise customers, we’ve built a picture of what process orchestration success looks like, which is captured in our Process Orchestration Maturity Model. As you consider BOAT and the many automation options that are on the market, I recommend using the model to assess where you are and identify areas where introducing process orchestration will benefit your business.
I believe you’re on the right BOAT with Camunda
The “O” in BOAT is no accident. It’s clear that you need orchestration to transform your business, and process orchestration is the heart of what Camunda does. Our composable process orchestration platform makes it easy to combine automation technologies in the best possible way to achieve your business goals. You can also expect to hear more from us in the coming months as we expand our platform to include new capabilities.
If you want to learn more, join us at CamundaCon New York City! It’s happening online and in person, October 16-17. Join us for two days of collaborative learning (and plenty of fun).
And in the meantime, you can check out on-demand recordings from CamundaCon Berlin, where many of our customers, community members, partners, and Camundi shared their process orchestration expertise and lessons learned.
1 GARTNER®, Quick Answer: Beyond RPA, BPA and Low Code — The Future Is BOAT, 11 July 2024. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved
