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Ultimus Drives Human-Centric Strategy to Reinforce Leadership in Meeting the Changing Needs of BPM Customers
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Research shows that people drive BPM, not technology; Ultimus Enters the Next Phase of BPM with Clear Strategy for Success |
Cary, N.C. — October 31, 2006 — Ultimus, the #1 provider of Business Process Management (BPM) and workflow software and solutions, with more than 1,600 customers worldwide, today announced that it is pioneering a new standard for Business Process Management (BPM), in conjunction with the introduction of new corporate branding. By providing technology that aides people in reaching their business goals through technology, the Ultimus BPM Suite, powered by Adaptive Discovery®, helps enterprises to deliver the best possible experience, while driving valuable business results. Ultimus’ market-leading position is underscored by its 12 years of experience; a strong global footprint, with offices in 16 countries; a history of innovation and industry firsts; the deployment of tens of thousands of human-centric processes as well as the adoption of its leading edge technology by billion dollar organizations including Microsoft Consumer Division and Black and Decker.
To date, enterprises world-wide have struggled to find the right balance between automating business processes and providing the flexibility required to adapt when business conditions change. Software can be very effective at automating repetitive tasks, but is often too rigid to handle exceptions or readily adapt to new business requirements. People are good at handling exceptions and change, but can lose effectiveness when performing repetitive, manual tasks. Today’s businesses require technology that adapts to people and to the inevitable exceptions and change that occur in a dynamic business environment.
In a recent survey of its more than 1,600 customers world-wide, Ultimus found that:
- 89 percent of respondents feel that people, as opposed to technology, drive BPM success within their organization.
- 76 percent of respondents feel that a BPM system’s ability to adapt to changes will generate the greatest long-term value.
- 40 percent of respondents view years of BPM experience and worldwide customer deployments as a priority in evaluating a BPM vendor, while only 2 percent viewed adoption of industry standards as a priority.
- The top two BPM areas where respondents feel there should be a focus are: usability/collaboration and having visibility into processes through business activity monitoring.
In a Gartner report titled, “Business Process Management as a Discipline," it was stated that “BPM is a management discipline that provides governance in a business process environment with the goal of improving agility and operational performance. BPM is a structured approach employing methods, policies, metrics, management practices and software tools to manage and continuously optimize an organization's activities and processes.”
There are a number of myths about BPM. Some believe BPM is just another area of business process re-engineering; others believe it is about standardizing business processes. Although there is some truth to these assessments, Ultimus is effectively clarifying what BPM is and dispelling BPM myths.
- Myth Number 1: BPM is just a process improvement project — BPM is not a project. Process improvement is a continuous outcome from the ongoing management of business processes.
- Myth Number 2: BPM is a technology — BPM is a management practice, and certain technologies help to enable the practice.
- Myth Number 3: The IT Department should own business process improvement and automation. — Business processes are driven by people in the business team. IT should support the underlying technology that enables business process improvement, but the business team must take ownership of business processes.
- Myth Number 4: Standardization is the key to process improvement — While predictable, repeatable processes benefit from standardization to an industry “best practice,” great flexibility is needed to handle processes that require frequent exceptions, discretionary judgment, or changes due to new competitive or compliance pressures.
- Myth Number 5: Implementing BPM requires a radical change to the business — Unlike ERP implementations, the best way to implement BPM is to think big, but start small. An initial process can be successfully implemented in 4 to 8 weeks. Gain success and then expand to more and bigger processes.
Ultimus’ vision for more adaptive, flexible and people-centric BPM technologies enables organizations to deploy BPM technology faster and to adapt it more readily to changing business rules and conditions as well as organizational roles and responsibilities. . Guided by insight into the customer’s need for an agile business process management system, The Ultimus BPM Suite, the Ultimus iBAM™ Suite and the Adaptive Discovery Rules Engine increase operational productivity, customer loyalty and lifetime value for greater effectiveness and profitability.
“We have been working with Ultimus for 5 years,” said Bob MacIntosh, CIO, Bernstein AG. “Ultimus and its technology have always been on the cutting edge as the BPM industry has evolved which is why we’ve stayed with the company for so long. Additionally, it is one of the few, if not the only vendor today that really understands the value of people and how people create, manage and own process. It is this philosophy and expertise that has made the company a world leader in BPM.”
The Ultimus BPM Suite is the most feature-rich BPM product on the market, with enhancements driven from real customer experience and thousands of processes automated. The solution is ideal for use with processes that involve a mix of people and systems as it is designed to support cross-functional BPM teams. Process Owners and Business Users can graphically model their processes without having to be experts in any specific modeling methodology. Analysts can take those models, refine them, and create automated solutions without any programming. When complex integration is required, developers can implement functions, or services, using .NET or Web Services that can be easily linked into processes without being embedded in them, abstracting the process analyst from the need to know how to write complex code. Process Experts create rules in a graphical environment and manage the change associated with running processes. Finally, users, managers, and administrators can adjust day to day task assignments and activities without ever impacting the process itself.
The Ultimus iBAM Suite is a new interactive Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) Suite providing an easy-to-use, yet powerful, way for business owners and managers to visually monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) from the convenience of their desktops and interactively control the process for roundtrip optimization. The solution enables state-of-the-art BAM by utilizing a number of modules that work together to enable business owners to create a BAM dashboard in under 10 minutes while providing an optimal user experience.
“Ultimus has seen the many stages of BPM in its more than 12 year history,” said Rashid Khan, CEO and co-founder of Ultimus, Inc. “We as a company know that technology is always evolving, which is why we have continued to truly adapt to our customer’s needs rather than simply adding a capability, just to have another feature. We look forward to our continued leadership in the BPM evolution and we know, based on our experience, that the future of both Ultimus and our customers looks strong.”
For more information on Ultimus, visit its new Web site at www.ultimus.com.
About Ultimus
Ultimus is the worldwide leader in human-centric Business Process Management (BPM) software, providing the industry's most complete and scalable platform for modeling, automating, managing and optimizing business processes. Powered by Adaptive Discovery™, the Ultimus BPM Suite is the only BPM suite that enables automated business processes to be deployed without completely defined process maps. Its Microsoft-based platform is quick to deploy and easy to administer, and its integration capabilities provide seamless information transfer between applications and outside organizations. Long recognized as a BPM pioneer, Ultimus has automated more processes than any BPM vendor, resulting in reduced cycle times, lower costs, improved productivity and higher customer satisfaction for its clients. Ultimus’ award-winning BPM Suite is available in 20 languages and is deployed by more than 1,600 customers across every industry, including 100 of the world’s largest enterprises. Headquartered in Cary, NC, Ultimus has offices in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Australia and supports a network of 80 worldwide partners. For more information, visit www.ultimus.com.
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