The area of business process management (BPM) is a relatively new field and there is little academic literature on the subject. This paper critically examines the literature to pinpoint BPM definitions, approaches and principles. A study is reported of a business unit of a "world class" organisation to examine its application of BPM. It was found that the principles of BPM espoused by the corporate organisation and its approach to BPM application is along the lines of best practice as outlined in the literature. However, in the business unit examined, there is an inadequate understanding of BPM and the application of BPM principles is haphazard. For example, it was discovered that employees have too little time to spend on process simplification and improvement and there are too many in-process measures for process owners to make effective use of the information. It is also pointed out that if BPM is to be truly effective it requires cross-functional and process orientated management, which is not easy to attain.