Should every company have a chief process officer?

What, you mean like a honcho data entry clerk ??

What's the COO's role then ?

My tuppence: No. There's enough layers in an organization without adding another middle management silo and ego clash when it comes to conducting process initiatives.

What Theo said, "no." Too many CXOs in organizations as it is. More Indians, less chiefs. More cooks, less chefs.

A competent, qualified team on a COE or Competency Center, if done right though, that's another story.

'Nuff said.

Take a look at the CIO role. The reason we're always debating how that office should work is that information technology has to permeate every corner of the organization. We are constantly balancing the centralized service team model with the distributed, business-aligned model. And what we're left with is the all-too-common phenomenon in which IT has become a bottleneck, stifling agility and innovation.

What's true of technology is even more true of process. Business can't afford to introduce yet another detour on the road to process automation and improvement. And, as I've pointed out before in this forum (sorry, too lazy at the moment to dig up the reference), BPM works very well as a business unit driven, decentralized solution—no process czar required.

Every company? No. And I have to agree with Scott that "BPM works very well as a business unit driven, decentralized solution"

Yes, if BPM practiced as "business unit driven, decentralized solution".
No, if BPM practiced as business function (a BPCC).