BI « Business Process Management (BPM)

Making the Complex Simple – How best to streamline and automate business processes September 1, 2008

Posted by Ian Louw in BPM Articles, BPM Best Practice, Business Process Management, Business Strategy, IT Strategy.
Tags: BI, BPM Best Practice, Collaboration, Dynamic Process Management, IT Governance, Process Automation, Process Collaboration
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I work with various organisations and in my experience, they are typically in various states of maturity in terms of their understanding and adoption of BPM. The one thing I do tend to find is that they all seem to share common problems.

In this post I have listed some of the ones that I come across and also explain an approach that can be adopted to help move them from a reactive business to one that is more proactive and dynamic in making better decisions.

Organisations are inherently composite and complex ecosystems in which business processes are pervasive. This complexity generally manifests itself in various ways and can include the following:

Management and employees have difficulty in making correct decisions due to not having accurate and timely information.
Information is of devoid of business context (not seen in as part of a business process) and therefore may lead inconsistent decisions.
Planning is often difficult due to ‘broken’ processes, poor working practices and inconsistent information.
IT systems that support the various business processes act as inhibiters rather than enablers as they are typically designed deployed and managed as information islands or stove pipes.
Enforcing business rules, policies and procedures is an arduous task due to poor process visibility, accurate real time information and no integrated or consistent auditing.

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How BPM can help drive down IT Operational costs August 30, 2008

Posted by Ian Louw in BPM Articles, Business Strategy, IT Strategy.
Tags: BI, BPM, BPMS, Business Process Management, Collaboration, IT Governance, Microsoft workflow, Operational Cost Reduction, Process Automation, Workflow
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Foreword: Recently I was doing some research into IT operational cost management and specifically how discretionary spend can be increased for use in new and innovative projects across an organisation. I came across some interesting data and have summarised some of my thoughts from a white paper I was writing on how a BPMS can support this type of initiative.

Organisations are continually under pressure to do ‘more with less’ and this is especially true in organisations where IT departments are seen by the business as being unresponsive and a cost centre, rather than ensuring innovation. This may be further exacerbated by external pressures such as competitors encroaching on existing markets and global economic challenges.

Research has shown that CIOs continually have to ensure that business demands are aligned with available IT resources and budget constraints. It is generally accepted that at least 80% of IT resources and budgets are spent on ongoing maintenance. This creates a dilemma for CIOs and IT departments who have to find ways of reducing operational costs, and designing and delivering solutions more effectively.

“78% of large enterprise budgets are swallowed in existing maintenance–keeping the lights on”
“40% of enterprise scale companies are seeing IT budgets reducing in real terms”
Source: The Bathwick Group, Driving business value from IT, Dec 2007

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