Six Critical BPM Capabilities Close the Loop for Success
Many BPM solutions are beginning to sound very similar, while most are missing key components that are mandatory for a true end-to-end solution. These key components are often glazed over under the rubric of "analytics," but the devil, as they say, is in the details.
For example: an analyst firm compares the connection of business process analytics (BPA) with BPM to how a driver uses a GPS car navigation system. At the most simplistic level, the driver is notified he will be running out of gas and uses the mapping system to identify nearby gas stations and how to reach them. In the same way, BPM analytics give organizations the correlation between metrics—such as the relationship between growing customer returns and manufacturing defect rates—and links them with prior-period history and processes.
But with the addition of goal management and closed-loop analytics, the driver has far greater insight, his priorities are taken into account and the GPS system can automatically take action. The driver could predefine that speed and ease of refueling are critical, as is low price. Based on those criteria, the gas station that best meets his needs would automatically become part of his route. This more sophisticated GPS system is able to take into account real-time traffic patterns, how crowded each gas station is and the current price each gas station charges. It would readjust in real time to automatically ensure the driver has the best possible option.
When BPA meets this level of sophistication, it means organizations seamlessly tie their planning, objectives and goals directly to their rules and processes. By determining business priorities up front, they ensure process execution optimization and the delivery of maximum value.
The Analytic Value-add
At the very core of BPM, organizations need clarity and holistic intelligence about their processes—not only historic and current, but also future. To gain this kind of insight, the simplistic analytics offered in most BPM solutions will fall short. Many organizations are realizing that without advanced analytics (BPA) capabilities, they can implement workflow, but how do they know their processes will be the most advantageous to their organization? How do they know they have come up with the best solution? And when business conditions change, how do they know how their business processes should also change? It is like putting an engine in a car: the car will run, but is it headed in the right direction?
Real world example: Forrester Research1 cites a major airline that implemented a cost-cutting measure in their organization. One of the key components of this measure was the restriction on fuel consumption for each flight. While this solution made perfect sense from the perspective of the organization, it ultimately failed to take into account the corporate goal to increase customer satisfaction. This failure meant that not only was the fuel-cutting measure not in synch with the primary corporate objectives, it in fact worked against them. Customer satisfaction plummeted as flights were slowed (fuel conservation) which in turn led to delays and unforeseen bottlenecks. The airline ultimately lost marketshare as a result.
There are three required elements of analytics to ensure success:
1. Reporting: At the most rudimentary level, organizations are offered reporting as a way to detect current and historic business problems as well as track and measure processes to gain intelligence about their operations.
2. Analysis: At the next level, proactive capabilities are added, including modeling and simulation. This addition means companies are not just evaluating past activities, but are actually analyzing the impact of future events on their business. Gartner2 describes organizations with these enhanced capabilities as "enlightened enterprises" as they are enabled to leverage their BPM system in their strategic planning as well as develop contingency plans with new sets of rules and processes waiting in the wings for opportunistic and threatening scenarios.
3. Closed loop BPA: BPA added to BPM offers a complete round-trip solution that builds on the core analytics, modeling and simulation capabilities with the final piece: goal management.
According to Gartner3, truly "advanced enterprises" will have this missing link, which enables goal-directed actions to have "pre-built paths" for solutions that are prioritized within planned and unplanned scenarios with semi-self-adjusting flows. This means business objectives can be defined and leveraged in operational processes—strategy can automatically be translated into tactics and actions within a workflow process. Goal management links objectives with business rules which means organizations are not constrained by what is in their rules engine or who can access it. Goals can automatically drive operations and automatic adjustments to processes can be triggered when out-of-tolerance conditions arise—adjustments are pre-tested and ready to be implemented by the system itself.
Bringing It All Together
The integration of goal management and BPA takes BPM to a completely different level, from managing business processes to managing business process lifecycles according to business goals and rules. Total process lifecycle management takes advantage of feedback to process designers and rules that define the tradeoffs and actions required to meet and balance all business goals. No longer is there a gap between strategy and business objectives with process implementation. Organizations can ensure that the many touch points and processes support key business objectives. They gain the control of their operations to manage their process lifecycle from end-to-end.
1. Goal management: Enables strategic objectives and customer commitments to dynamically drive business processes and execution.
Executive management and line-of-business managers leverage goal management and process engines to establish business objectives and priorities. Goals include key performance indicators, goals for the indicators and rules on the actions to take should attainment drop below the desired business goal. Goals themselves are ranked and multiple goals are measured together. Consequently, resource reallocation is more than a simple reprioritization scheme; the system considers all goals holistically vis a vis defined ranking to ensure optimal goal achievement. When goals are not being met—or even overachieved—the system can initiate reallocation of resources or process changes. These processes and goals are monitored continuously so users can see how work and resources are being distributed and how goals are being met. Users leverage dashboards to compare key performance indicators against plans as well as set measurable goals, monitor trends and analyze performance.
2. Modeling and simulation: Allows users to determine how processes are going to behave and test drive processes to optimize business and mitigate risk.
Process modeling and simulation enables enterprises to test drive business processes and alternate models to determine how they will behave in different scenarios. Workflow models are benchmarked against each other to find the one that is the most beneficial as well as determine best practices. Organizations can evaluate and analyze processes, then either move them in their entirety, or only aspects of them, into a production setting. Forecasting tools leverage historical information to help predict outcomes and provide real-world out-of-the-norm scenarios. Redundant steps, bottlenecks or opportunities for automation can be identified, as well as unforeseen outcomes—both positive and negative. Organizations are able to keep their processes fine-tuned and optimize decision-making and investment strategies. They can avoid time delays and predict costs prior to deployment. Events that fall outside of the range of tolerance can be simulated with alternative reactive solutions. Simulation can also be used to create alternative scenarios to processes that have already been deployed. These new scenarios can be slight modifications to the existing process or completely different approaches to solving the problem. Because BPM and BPA are integrated, the historic information gathered by the existing process can be used as a benchmark for the new processes. This enables a set of "what-if" questions to be posed against real operational data.
3. Process and workflow management: Empowers business users to drive workflow that supports key organizational objectives.
Business users are able to configure, reuse, maintain and fine-tune business processes with no involvement on the part of IT. Intuitive design tools give business users the ability to map out and determine business process workflow—including manual and fully automated tasks—with drag-and-drop/point-and-click functionality. The rules on how processes will execute and who will perform steps within the process are easily created, and process simulators provide an environment to model process design and anticipate results. Because users leverage goal management functions within the process engines, workflow is driven by rich intelligence—not just information on process and procedure, but the information on the goals and values that govern a business.
4. Content management: Offers a unified view of information including unstructured data and content that resides in e-mails, faxs, paper and electronic forms.
Users and the BPM system itself are able to find and manage the content and data they need. Metadata can be defined by document type or use, ensuring that data can be retrieved in ways reflective of how the business uses it. Typical content includes: scanned images, electronic documents (such as Word, Excel or PDF files), reports, data imported from external systems such as a mainframe application, and e-mail, (searchable by subject, addressing, message text and attachments). The architecture enables highly flexible and scalable storage configurations. Records management allows systematic lifecycle management of an organization's vital business information and ensures compliance with document management requirements. Long-term archive storage includes distributed magnetic, database, optical and content-addressable storage alternatives.
5. Application integration: Leverages open standards for interoperability and ease of integration with back office applications.
Given the number of applications and data requirements necessary for many line-of-business processes, organizations are able to leverage an open, standards-based framework to ensure their solution leverages existing applications. This is done within an integration framework that is extensible and components are reusable. Process-based application integration and the development of the underlying logic that facilitates the interactions between disparate systems enable connectivity both within the organization as well as outside of the organizations with partners, suppliers, customers, etc. Connectivity takes place at the data level to leverage data sources such as an SQL database; the service level to utilize higher-level connectivity infrastructure loosely coupled with the target application (Web services and messaging such as JMS, IBM MQ and MS MQ, IMAP/SMTP, etc.); and the application level which interacts directly with target applications such as SAP, PeopleSoft and Oracle. Solutions must be committed to process standards: specifically BPMN and BPEL, which allow the sharing of process logic across multiple process automation, modeling and monitoring tools.
6. Analytics dashboard: Enables situational awareness to filter and focus user's attention to ensure business objectives are met.
Dashboard gives easy access to analysis that is actionable and contextual—which means it is specific and targeted—to the process owners. Process analytics give line-of-business managers the ability to track and measure performance based on real-time feedback, giving them real insight into an organization and its operations. Up-to-the-moment statistics about productivity, workloads, goal attainment and process anomalies enable complete visibility and organizational control. Users can make informed decisions because they are presented with issues that need to be addressed, as well as with the context so they can take the right action. They have the ability to "drill down" into an anomaly and to look at the information from different dimensions giving them greater understanding of the "information behind the information." Forecasting is made possible through ongoing statistical data capture, and reporting functions ensure real-time and predictive information is available and can be leveraged directly within the goal-management function.
Global 360, Inc. formerly eiStream, Inc., is a leading provider of business process management and analytic solutions for Global 2000 organizations. With more than two decades of experience, Global 360 provides organizations with a competitive edge by automating, measuring and improving resource-intensive business processes across different communities including customers, employees and partners. Global 360 provides organizations with the insight to make informed business decisions and the flexibility to quickly adapt to changing market needs through real-time metrics that ensure business objectives and customer commitments are managed effectively. Building on our strength in financial services, government and insurance, Global 360 empowers more than 5,000 customers' sites in 134 countries. Global 360 is headquartered in Texas with operations in North America, Europe and the Pacific Rim. For more information about Global 360's BPM solutions, please call 1-214-520-1660 or visit the company web site at Global 360
1 Laurie Orlov, "Making Dashboards Actionable," Forrester Research, December, 2003
2 J Sinur, "Business Modeling Is the Quality Connection to BPM," Gartner, Dec 10, 2002
3 Ibid