Posted by: peter in Savvion, SAP, Peter Borner, PegaSystems, Lombardi, K2.net, iterative approach, governance risk compliance, Global 360, Credit Crunch, change, bpm, Appian on
Oct 29, 2008
As a regular reader of Dennis Byron's excellent BPM in Action Blog, my interest was peaked by his latest entry (http://www.bpminaction.com/blog/2008/10/bpm_viewpoint_what_new_aiim_st.php) where he discusses the new AIIM study on BPM (http://www.ebizq.net/news/10483.html).
As a centre of excellence for BPM our aim is to deliver value as early as possible in any engagement. Typically we look for processes to attack in the initial iteration that can start to deliver an ROI within 90 to 120 days. This is clearly in line with Dennis' advice in his blog post. My view is that, learning to walk before you run is a key success factor in all BPM projects. After all, a lean, agile, reliable approach that has early success will never be a job loss or balance sheet writedown issue!
If have published a number of solution briefs for those of you looking to introduce BPM into your business. You can find them here: http://www.axispoint.co.uk/dl-white-papers
There are some processes that we must follow legally and they are forced into an organisation through the compliance route. How often, though, does this implementation of process, in the name of compliance, cause resentment because the process has not been properly thought through? For example, I have been reviewing the "Know Your Customer (KYC)", "Anti Money Laundering (AML) and EU's "Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID)" regulations. I have noticed that most financial institutions state that their processes are compliant with these regulations. However, their processes appear to be mostly paper based, highly manual and require large multi-page paper forms to be completed. Add to this extraordinary level of bureaucracy the overhead of trawling back through the forms every time a sanctions list update is received to ensure existing clients haven't suddenly become "undesirable" and you can see why it is now so difficult to do business with a financial institution anywhere in the developed world.
The implementation of business process is often perceived as a negative because it is seen as a control mechanism that does nothing but add overhead. However, implementing the right process can create a quicker, more streamlined and compliant business. Using the right tools can provide the additional benefit of visibility in to the status of all in-flight processes thus building a platform for continuous improvement.
Communicating the benefits of the new process can lead to a better tolerance for process efficiencies. However, if the process is not well designed, is onerous or adds a burden of bureaucracy then it won't matter how much benefit the organisation gains from the process, it will not be fully adopted by its users.
In my experience, involving the business in an operational walk-thru so that they understand the shortcomings of the "as-is" process and own the "to-be" process will lead to better process design and hence a stronger uptake by the process users.
There has been much talk over the years about the ability of the various business process management (BPM) offerings to create an orchestration layer that provides the communications layer necessary to bring order and controlled flexibility to horizontal processes.
I think that most proponents of BPM would agree that it is clear that you cannot succeed in BPM without communication. BPM can be thought of as a reaction to the changing communication patterns of modern businesses because problems with processes often reflect more horizontal than vertical integration issues. This change is a result of new ways that businesses and the people inside those businesses communicate with one another to increase agility and lower costs.
Are we starting to reach the time where horizontal collaboration tools like BPM are mashed-up with vertical specific, "run-the-company" processes to create flexible application frameworks that allow companies the capability to embrace all major forms of IT-enabled collaboration, with enterprise security policies and business processes, without major disruption to how the Business gets on with the job?
For example (and I apologise for the shameless self promotion) my company, Axispoint, is currently working on a project to provide a GRC solution for a client. The solution will be a mash-up of the various risk engine and sanctions list provider services, etc. and will be built on a BPM framework to provide control and visibility into the in-flight processes. I haven't found others that are using mash-ups and BPM technology in quite the same way. I would be interested to hear from anyone that is working on these solutions.
