Posted on Fri, Aug 27, 2010 @ 02:15 PM
Technology Evaluators and Analysts: Love them and hate them…..depending on how your product has recently been rated (speaking as someone in the software application space). I have to believe the job of a technology analyst is extremely hard. In mature technology spaces, it is inevitable that the number of vendors becomes great, and to make matters more difficult, as standards and protocols across the technologies become similar (and hard to distinguish), it becomes a greater feat to delineate the functional differences across the products.
With all this in mind, for mature technology spaces, of which I consider BPM to be, what is the true value in spending the time and energy to distinguish the mature technologies? Does it really matter than one BPM vendor has 612 features compared to another BPM vendor that as 484 features? Not to me. As all mature BPM Suites have 1000s of features and functions, if Vendor A has one specific feature that Vendor B does not, does that make Vendor A the better BPM Suite? Does this confuse customers and prospects rather than make BPM value more clear? It’s a question I think about regularly. Isn’t having too much to think about paralyzing?
In mature technologies, the majority of applications can help companies achieve the same goals….but the route taken to accomplish these goals can vary greatly. For companies who are looking to acquire and invest (heavily in some cases I may add) in new tools, methodologies and processes , I can easily see that reading analyst reports can blur many lines of thought with regards to what is really important to that company. Does anyone really do analysis on a graphical vendor placing report, where 2 inches of separation between dots in a chart means a BPM product is 2x better than the dot that is 4 inches away? Who knows.
Hearing and studying how active customers are currently successful with the technology is the ultimate testimony. Product marketing and analysts reports provide information about company profiles and technologies, but consider the power of company testimonials….even at the simplest level. Have you ever taken your dry cleaning to a new place just because you have a friend who touts how well the new place around the corner is? Have you ever bought a specific brand of running shoes because someone swears by them? We all have.
I welcome companies new to the BPM space to focus on company testimonials and actual examples. Check out vendor websites and the stories of how real life customers solved their real life problems with BPM technologies. When you talk to BPM vendors, ask if you can speak with their customers directly (rather than being chaperoned through a conversation). In many ways, what actual BPM users say about their experiences and success or failures is far more valuable than an eye chart in a lengthy report. Not to mention that you can plot a meaningful customer satisfaction graph if you’re making your decision visually!
Chris Adams
VP Product and Technology
Ultimus
Relevant Links:
ReduxOnline featuring “Ultimus Prime”, BPM Product Expert Chris Adams
When It Comes To BPM Research, Do You Have All Of The Information?
Posted on Fri, Aug 20, 2010 @ 12:21 PM
Customer service is not always crucial to the success of a company. Its importance is determined primarily by supply & demand. If there are few suppliers and many consumers, suppliers can dictate the terms of the service relationship and customers may have no choice but to accept it.
Most companies, however, are not so lucky because competition has destroyed the high horses of all but a few protected markets.
So, where competition does flourish, customer service is essential to the company’s long-term viability. It must be central to its overall success strategy. After all, a company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference that it can preserve. Customer service is just such a difference.
Few companies are able to excel at customer service, because it is very difficult to control. For example, left to itself, the level of service may vary greatly between two waiters in the same restaurant. One support specialist may offer great service to one customer, and then aggravate the very next person that calls in. This difficulty is compounded when you have a multi-person, multi-departmental operation. In addition to variability within these units, you also have variability among units.
This is both the challenge and the opportunity. The consistent delivery of superior service requires the careful design and execution of a whole system of activities that includes people, capital, technology, and processes. The few companies that can manage this system do stand out, and are sought after. But although it does require an almost heroic effort to build and maintain such a system, it's not so hard to get it started. Service today is in such a sorry state that it doesn't take much to surprise most customers, and to make them want to come back for more. Make a commitment to provide stellar customer service and get organized by implementing a quality BPM Suite to ensure this success.
A BPM Suite facilitates the management of clients and service requests providing full visibility into the status and processing of requests. Moreover, it provides an easy-to-use interface designed for collaboration among teams and team members, ensuring your clients are getting the best service possible in a time efficient manner.
By leveraging the tools of a BPM Suite, you'll be doing your whole industry a favor. Unlike selling or price competition, which will eventually sink all players, competing on the basis of service is one of those tides that lifts all boats.
Relevant Links:
BPM Rules and Alerts - Helping Avoid Process Hiccups
Keeping Your Customers Happy- How BPM Can Help
BPM- A Sustainable Strategy for Your Company
Julie Jones
Manager – North American Customer Support
Ultimus
Posted on Thu, Aug 19, 2010 @ 09:33 AM
We talk a lot about inefficiencies, naturally. Nearly every day, we find ourselves frustrated by the time spent on manual processes, overflowing with paperwork and far too much room for error.
As an avid online shopper, I have come across a fair share of poorly managed processes: being notified of an out of stock product weeks after I had already paid for the item, receiving only one piece of a two part item, and even being charged twice. However, there is one company that has never failed me, and that is Zappos, the online shoe turned clothing and accessories retailer that often boasts free overnight shipping. Even when the free shipping is listed as two-to-three day, more than likely Zappos upgrades the order. Many a morning, I have sat in amazement as a small white box is delivered, dumbfounded because I just placed the order yesterday afternoon. Zappos, “Powered by Service”. Without a doubt, their customer service is impeccable, but this service has to be backed by clearly defined, extremely efficient, processes.
Given that Zappos has leveraged process automation to such a high capacity, it enables the retailer to focus less on process execution and more on executing business and directing attention to customer service. According to last week’s press release,
Zappos.com integrates [Working Capital Management] principles into training so employees understand the impact of working capital on overall profitability. The company also seeks to eliminate paper and manual processing by working closely with suppliers to deploy automation across the source-to-payment process.
The Zappos customer service experience is undeniably seamless and integrated. Is this online retailer the low cost provider? No. However, customers are willing to pay for a smooth and seemingly effortless transaction that even provides free returns for up to 365 days. The supply chain cycle has to be short here and, therefore, there is little to no room for error. Can you imagine if Zappos didn’t automate their processes? Those shoes you ordered today for the awards banquet tomorrow may show up by Labor Day, if you are lucky. By using automation throughout the supply chain, paper-based, manual processing is eliminated – and the end result is a satisfied, repeat customer. Today’s customer is a conscious consumer and superior service may be the key to success in the current market. Time and execution have gone from being important to being imperative.
There is always room for improvement and processes are no exception. By making incremental changes – starting small and automating one process at a time – companies are able to fully understand advanced process automation and experience significant progress. Zappos is a poster child for integrating technology into the workplace and BPM can be a valuable asset for simple business processes and department workflows.
Relevant Links:
Process Automation - Think Outside The Box
The Greater Good of BPM: Taking a Step Back
BPM As A Foundation For Business Transformation
Think "Small" When Starting with BPM: Recipe for Immediate ROI
Taylor Leighton
Marketing & PR Specialist
Ultimus
Posted on Thu, Aug 12, 2010 @ 02:26 PM
Involved with Sales I often times find customer and prospects perplexed by the term BPM. While the term is actively used throughout the industry to express process solution software and its numerous functionalities, I wonder if we “industry experts” are not operating in a silo like environment in our discussions around BPM and related technologies?
The reoccurring issue I find when I talk to customers and prospects is that BPM is an acronym that virtually nobody can explain or define in such a way that “clicks”. I’m not saying people have not tried to define it and made some worthy efforts; rather even with the best of efforts 99% of subjects are still baffled. Moreover, out of the hundreds of customers I’ve visited not one of them has called me up and said, “Hey Chris, let’s get some BPM”.
Every day I am faced with the challenge and privilege of helping our customers become more effective in the way they do business. More often than not, I find greater success in doing so by avoiding “techy jargon” and complicated acronyms. Outside of such intricate terms, technology, while very helpful, is only as smart as we allow it to be. Its real value is realized by understanding FROM ORDINARY PEOPLE what the challenges are and where they want to go next. From this, process solutions can be developed and implemented. It is not a scientific, super formula that we lock in a triple encrypted vault that allows us to help our customers, rather it’s our ears and some common sense that allow us to help.
We absolutely love what we do here at Ultimus and I can tell you first hand that we’ve helped tons of customers but it all starts with a conversation or two, and NOT some demo of over complicated software solutions trying to define “BPM”. Our software is just software, until we tell it what to do. It is when the process software is given commands and information that allow it to capture and monitor further information that great value is truly realized. From a business and sales perspective, the focus is on the people and their challenges. By meeting their needs process bottlenecks are eliminated, solutions are developed and processes are improved. The end result is smoother operations, a more efficient company and happier employees.
It’s reaching out to customers and prospects on a level that makes sense and focuses on their needs that keeps us growing at a progressive rate and most importantly keeps our customers satisfied.
Relevant Links:
The Prevalent Need for Process Improvement
Monitoring and Managing Your Business Processes
Realizing Great Value in Your BPM Software Before Going “Live”
Chris Haase
Director North American Sales
Ultimus
Posted on Fri, Aug 06, 2010 @ 11:22 AM
When I woke up this morning and caught up on all of my e-news in the tech sector, I could not believe my eyes. Google is stopping development of Wave immediately, although they claim it will continue to be part of other Google projects. My company is not the size of Google, and most likely, yours is not either. So while there may be other big picture company and political reasons for this move that I will never know of, I selfishly think about how much I have been employing social collaboration in everything I promote as a VP of Product and Technology. When asked to speak to companies about the future of process and BPM, I evangelize that if you are not thinking social collaboration, then your eyes are not looking at the right horizon.
It is a valid argument that social collaboration tools are still in a place of purgatory (caught been being a vital technology for younger people and an “IT outcast” in the technology portfolios of older CIOs). But despite the lack of immediate traction of social technologies in the workspace, it is inevitable that social will be part of everyone’s IT stack. Alexander Wolfe compares this to how the iPhone is now part and parcel with how all of us conduct business daily.
I understand that with every new technological wave, it is often commonplace that the early tide breakers serve the purposes of clearing the proverbial path, so that the rest of the market can forge ahead. But in my opinion, Google Wave had more of a chance to be part of a corporate social strategy than FaceBook and Twitter does today. To me, it had more relevance for conducting productive project work and bringing together dynamic work teams (compared to simply finding out through other social techs that someone is going on a trip to Spain).
I will not stop preaching social to my customers and partners….nor will I stop employing it as part of my BPM solutions. But I will definitely spend the weekend rethinking my social “sermon” to ensure I am focusing on the core concepts of social and less on any one specific social technology (in the case that another social technology falls to the wayside).
Relevant Links:
Social Media & Mobile Technology: Changing Process Improvement
Architecture of an Adaptive BPM Platform
Social BPM is a Methodology FIRST, Just like BPM
BPM Rules and Alerts - Helping Avoid Process Hiccups
Chris Adams
VP Product and Technology
Ultimus
Posted on Thu, Aug 05, 2010 @ 04:04 PM
“Start small, think big” is a popular and successful approach to most projects and major initiatives in the business world. The idea of starting small - as it relates to the processes - commonly means focusing your efforts on a single business process, or even on a particular step of a process. Your process does not have to be 100% complete and live to provide value.
Recently, for example, a client wanted to automate a very large, complex process; however, time and budgeting constraints prevented the client from being able to devote ALL of the necessary resources to the project at the present time. Taking, literally, a step by step approach, and focusing on automating and optimizing the individual steps completed by a process participant, the client was able to begin improving their process as well as seeing value in terms of ROI. Specifically, this client found great value in having increased visibility into the process at various steps.
Moreover, having a step by step approach allowed the client to fully understand and automate each individual step, one at a time, to ensure each was working properly before the process as a whole was launched. One of the greatest benefits that can be realized from such an approach is the ability to pinpoint problematic areas. As each step is developed one at a time, any potential issues that arise are isolated to that specific step and thus to a specific few lines of code. When the location of issues and mishaps are easily identifiable, solutions can quickly be sorted out and applied. This allows for the prevention of process downtimeand protects your business from potential threatening, mission critical setbacks.
There is great value to be gained from process solution software that is properly developed and implemented. Starting small and thinking big sets the stage for a successful implementation by:
- Allowing process owners and participants to focus their time and effort on the development and testing of a single process step to ensure efficiency at the step level
- Enabling optimization of process steps as they are developed, so that when the full, completed process is ready to be launched it is efficient upon deployment
- Isolating areas that necessitate improvement or change to a single process step that facilitates updates, support solutions and continued development
- Promoting agility in execution
- Yielding enhanced visibility early in your process initiatives, providing greater insight into business, process, and individual process step needs
When considering solutions for your business processes, consider a strategy that will best prepare your company for future growth and optimization. Whether you are starting small with a single process or even smaller at the individual steps of a single process, value and merit can be realized early in your process improvement efforts. No matter where you begin, starting small is a best practice for any company looking to engage in process improvement.
Relevant Links:
Getting Started With Your BPM Project
Using Adaptive Discovery- A BPM Best Practice
Think "Small" When Starting with BPM: Recipe for Immediate ROI
Process Automation- Think Outside the Box
Mary Katherine Strupe
Ultimus
Posted on Fri, Jul 30, 2010 @ 02:00 PM
As software providers, we would all love for our applications to be truly “plug and play” and be easy enough to never require training. But the reality is that software applications, no matter how simple, require supplemental learning and education platforms (even Microsoft NotePad has a Help menu). Software vendors who create applications more complex than Notepad often offer the following education and training deliverables:
- Onsite / Offsite / Elearning Training
- KnowledgeBases and FAQs
- Training Videos and Workshops
- Online Help and Print Documentation
All of these learning offerings have one thing in common: they are reactive in their approach. No matter how available, convenient, and robust these learning platforms may be, each requires the user needing knowledge to seek them out. There is a lot of recent talk about “Process Intelligence” in the BPM space. Using that as a beginning point, as a BPM Server is responsible for process execution and metrics, the BPM Server inherently has the understanding of how the processes are being executed. The BPM Server understands which users are most efficient, least efficient, and which areas of the human-based process are the slowest to complete.
With this understanding, as processes continue to execute, a BPM Server can couple new task activations with proactive learning information to the user. In addition to getting an email notification that there is a new task to review and complete, the BPM Server can also alert the user that their average execution time is longer than their peers, and then provide hyperlinks to custom learning links on how to better execute the task at hand. This proactive learning model serves well where process participants are compensated for task efficiencies (considering cases like call centers, support help desks, etc.).
We are in an information age where almost any question we want to know can be answered through the internet. Conversely, we all have more daily tasks and work first to resolve the most pressing, in-your-face items. Coupling help links with work task notifications can result in your process participants taking the initiative to read more on how they can ultimately help themselves in their daily work. BPM and Process Intelligence are much more than automating and managing business processes; they are providing a process framework to drive efficiency and improve on your current process execution.
Relevant Links:
Rethink The Ways You Update Your Process Participants
Social Media & Mobile Technology: Changing Process Improvement
BPM Rules and Alerts - Helping Avoid Process Hiccups
Chris Adams
VP Product and Technology
Ultimus
Posted on Thu, Jul 29, 2010 @ 04:13 PM
Process Solution Software’s are full of various tools and applications that can be tailored to your process needs. It is important when beginning your process automation efforts that you take the time to familiarize yourself with the features and functionalities that your new software suite is capable of. A common pitfall I often see is process owners rushing into their new project and falling short of the full potential value because they fail to incorporate and use the features they have at hand.
Process modeling and automation are two very key steps when beginning your process improvement efforts; however, modeling and automating your workflow are not enough, especially when it comes to proving the return on investment to shareholders. When it comes down to it, the simple fact is that you want to be able to monitor and manage your business processes. By “monitor” and “manage” I am referring to the ability of your software suite to give you valuable insight into the activity of the business process and the status of tasks.
In quality process solution software, monitoring and managing your processes should include a number of tools that enable you to understand and control your process including:
- INSTANCE MANAGEMENT: Users can pause, resume, restart or delete instances; Users can manually override instance data
- WORKFLOW INITIATION: Workflows can be initiated programmatically or excluded from manual initiation; Workflows can be initiated only by select users; Workflows can be initiated through a link on an external web page;
- WORKFLOW MONITORING: Users can monitor the status of all workflow instances in a single view or they can monitor status of individual workflow instances; There is a graphical monitoring console from which users can drill down to see workflow instances in a particular status; Workflow projection capabilities;
- WORKFLOW STATISTICS: User workload report; Instance cycle time statistics; Instance aging statistics; Workflow routes statistics; Workflow steps statistics; Workflow user statistics;
- AUDIT TRAILS: Audit trails are captured for workflow events, user inputs on forms, user assignments/releases, escalation actions, notifications and for each successful rule execution;
- RESOURCE ORGANIZATION: Software suite includes both centralized and distributed resource ownership and administration; Includes graphical organization hierarchies;
It is through the use of such tools that companies can realize the true value and the best results from their process solution software. An automated process, in the end, doesn’t mean much unless you have the ability to manage it, track metrics and identify areas that need further improvement and optimization.
What is most important is that as you are researching process solutions, narrow down your options by identifying providers that meet these process monitoring and management functionalities. As I end this post, I would like to note that Ultimus Process Solution Software was recently reviewed in a technology evaluation and was ranked above the competition in every category.
Relevant Links:
BPM Rules and Alerts - Helping Avoid Process Hiccups
Reduce Process Rework with Role Definition in Organizational Charts
Controlling Process "Rework" with Lean Six Sigma Practices
Mary Katherine Strupe
Ultimus
Posted on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 @ 03:19 PM
As a result of doing your due diligence of process discovery, mapping, and simulation, you find yourself ready to automate what you consider to be the “perfect process”. You have designed the process to take into all of the discovered “What If” situations and have built the proper system integrations, notifications and reporting and BI. But have you fully considered your resources, i.e. the people participating in your process? Have you taken into account that people get sick, people go on vacation, and that at periodic times people become overloaded with work? If you have not considered these process resource situations, then you are putting the efficiency and effectiveness of your automated business process at risk.
Each of these resource situations challenge the concept that business processes can properly be mapped and modeled. Because no one has the foresight to see into the future and exactly predict how resource levels will be, it is important that your business processes adapt to changing resource situations. Adaptive processes are more than just being flexible in process execution. Adaptive processes understand real-time resource constraints and make run-time decisions to overcome process bottlenecks and roadblocks.
Adaptive processes cater to the following situations:
- It is inefficient to activate a new task to a user or team that already has a task backlog. Adaptive processes understand the backlog situation and activate the task to the user’s peer, relative job function, or another designated work team.
- Activating new process tasks to users who are not available to review the tasks creates “silo” effects of process information. Adaptive processes understand when users are out of the office and not available for new work and assign new process tasks to available, in office workers.
- Many business processes are high volume and need to execute quickly. In order to do this, steps in the process have defined periods of time where the tasks must execute. Adaptive Processes understand when tasks go late and overdue and automatically reassign these tasks to other coworkers.
- As part of a process definition, steps in a process are assigned a recipient or recipients. Depending on specific data situations, bottlenecks, or process inefficiencies, different people may need to be involved in the step in the process. An Adaptive Business Process Management Suite must include a rules engine that allows for dynamic recipient assignments for process steps.
All in all, no matter how much time and effort is spent in discovering, mapping, and automating a business process, if you have people involved in the process execution, unforeseen situations will occur. While Adaptive BPM Suites provide adaptive functionality in areas other than human resource needs, human-based processes can execute only as quickly as the human themselves. And as we all wear multiple hats in today’s company, it is important that an Adaptive BPM Suite respects dynamic working structures.
Relevant Links:
"When It Rains, It Pours"
"Process Automation - Think Outside the Box"
"Knowledge Workers Need BPM"
"Dynamic and Flexible Routing in Business Processes: Unstructured Processes"
Chris Adams
VP of Product and Technology
Ultimus
Posted on Thu, Jul 22, 2010 @ 03:00 PM
The world of work and business is changing quicker than anyone would have thought. I often wonder who hasn’t jumped into the social technology pool? Even my parents post to Facebook letting me know of their plans to come into town for a visit rather than use the “old school” phone. In 2004, when Facebook first emerged, it was nothing more than a college networking site. To even become a member, a college email address and university of attendance were required. Yesterday a video from BBC News announced that Facebook has grown to 500 million users worldwide. What’s more impressive is that as of February 2010, 100 million users were accessing Facebook from mobile devices, according to a post on the Facebook Blog.
With social media and mobile technologies quickly taking over, businesses are being forced to adapt to the new way of life by integrating their software and technologies to comply; a practice that I believe holds great value for companies, specifically as it relates to productivity. Many people, and now businesses, use social technologies as output channels for other types of communications such as:
- Knowledge transfer
- Staying abreast of the latest happenings in your field of business
- Voicing dissatisfactions
Coming from a workflow automation approach, in which tasks and requests often require management or supervisor approval before further processing can be completed, the ability to be able to access such information is critical to the process time. Mobile technologies have opened another door for companies invested in process automation suites. Approving, forwarding and handling requests while changing planes or out on the golf course are now possible, allowing the process to continue on its route without any hiccups.
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Not only can critical tasks be approved on the fly, but alerts and status updates can be sent to all of the process participants notifying them of progress and providing them visibility into the process. In this on-the-go mode of operation, mobile technologies (in addition to catering to the immediate needs of a process task) also serve as “glue” holding colleagues and business partners together. Integration of mobile technologies into the execution of business processes is essential as it:
- Eliminates re-creation of work and notifications
- Provides quick and simple web based interfaces allowing critical processes to be expedited forward, reducing process wait times
- Serves as an audit trail of communication that can be traced back to the initial request
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Ultimus has taken several initiatives to ensure process participants are knowledgeable of tasks and can access process updates through various social media tools. The Ultimus Adaptive Process Automation Suite provides numerous choices for interaction including:
- Alerts through Social Technology sites, such as Facebook and Twitter
- Emails
- Text Messages
- Web based forms
- Alerts to pagers and beepers
- Voice based messages
Time and execution are more important now than ever before. As mobile technologies and social media sites continue to evolve, it is crucial for companies to equip their employees with the right tools to be able to effectively complete work on the fly as well as make mission critical decisions.
Is your company up to date with the latest mobile technologies? Does your company facilitate the sharing information and status updates with social media sites?
Relevant links:
The Age of Social: Thoughts from Forrester’s CRM Tweet Jam
Social BPM is a Methodology FIRST, Just like BPM
Rethink The Ways You Update Your Process Participants
Mary Katherine Strupe
Ultimus