Kofax acquires Singularity

Yesterday Kofax, an ECM player, announced they had purchased Singularity, a BPM vendor. The price is stated as being $48m, representing three times revenue. This trend of ECM vendors adding BPM to their portfolio has really been gathering pace recently.

Consolidation in any industry is to be expected, but it now seems the revenue bar for viability in the BPM space is rising fast. Questions must now be asked over the long term viability of the remaining small players. There are still some ECM players who have not built or bought capability and these must soon respond.

Smaller BPM players might survive but will need to identify and exploit profitable niche markets for this to happen.

A bigger question might be whether we are nearing the end game for pure play BPMS. Process is crucial for any business, but is there room for it to stand on its own? or does it simply get consumed into other sectors?

Only time will tell, but I would not be surprised to see a few more key acquisitions in the next few months. This, of course, will naturally be followed in about 2 years time by a host of new kids on the block heralding the start of BPM 3.0.

A more detailed examination of this acquisition will follow in due course.