I see BPM as being something orthogonal to a traditional IT unit that "keeps the computers running" as BPM is where we try to improve how things are done by adding this technology or changing a process accordingly. I find it rather fascinating in a few ways.
Another interesting part of it for me is that this tends to involve looking at different parts of the business, e.g. how does the sales team work, marketing, human resources, etc. and trying to see just how efficient are they and where can things be improved?
I don't think it'll die but the meaning of the name will change and evolve I suspect where one branch may be Automating Business Experts or some other name. I do also see this blending with the idea of a portfolio of applications in an IT department of a company. The applications are improved or replaced on a regular basis to improve how things work with a continuous improvement value to it.
Don't forget that there are those of us in IT that frequent this site. I may be a Web Developer in title but this can have a couple of different angles depending on the company: 1) Product Development - Here I help make the product or facilitate the service the company sells, 2) Information Technology - Here I help the company run by knowing the backbone of the company which is a group of machines and various pieces of software stitched together by various processes for how the company runs.
The evolution of requirements and the technologies that can help meet those requirements are usually a couple of big things that can impact any large software integration like an ERP or CRM system. In taking years to get the software installed and the company using it correctly, there will likely be many changes as to how we thought it would work to this is how we actually use it, where not all changes are bad. It may be that by removing some part a company could save thousands of dollars on the man hours that would be spent on something that isn't really needed or useful but this wasn't known at the start and thus one of the requested features is removed from the list of things wanted at the end.
