NHL’s Vancouver Canucks implement BPM

The Vancouver Canucks are implementing a unified communication system to boost business process management within it’s Vancouver Arena, GM Place. This three year project will implement Nortel Networks Corp’s VC product suite. This software will allow voice, data and wireless communications to function together to improve the business process throughout the arena. IT World Canada covers the story here. The management is expecting this software to improve internal communications and even beyond that. Concession stands are hoping that the new software will help them to, by monitoring the amount of food in stock at individual stands. Security is also expected to be affected, as they can direct security guards in real time to where they’re needed most.

Anacomp's CaseLogistix is Named Trend-Setting Product of 2008

MarketWatch reports that Anacomp’s business process solution CaseLogistix has been named Trend-Setting Product of 2008 by KMWorld.

CaseLogistix allows legal teams to organize, review, and analyze digital evidence. CaseLogistix was noted for its value, functionality, and ability to streamline different business processes. Wayne Ford, Anacomp's Senior Vice President of Marketing mentions:

"We are honored to have CaseLogistix recognized as an innovative and trend-setting product. Our inclusion on this list exemplifies our position in the litigation support and content management realms as both a pioneer and a leader."

What are some applications that your company is using to ease business processes? Is the application your company using buzz worthy, or is it time to look for another vendor?

How to start your process management

In a recent article at TV Technology, they talk about approaching business process one step at a time. Business process management is all about aligning your business goals with technology. When the technology changes, its important to see that your processes shift, too. With this software integration of your business to technology, it’s important to see that you’re continually improving and developing your business processes. It’s also important to realize that your technology falls in line with the way your business and people work.

Some of the greatest results that come out of aligning technology with current processes are the agility that comes into your organization and how communication is increased as a result of the formalized processes.

The article also gives a great starting point to adapt process management, document your current processes (colons are used for lists, so you just need a comma instead. Once you’ve done this, you can see which process would benefit the most from turning it into a business process.

Managing Your Business

This afternoon I came across this post ‘Manage Your Business in 4 Easy Steps’ from Jeremiah Whitehead on GK Business. He details four steps business should take in order to ensure that their business will not fail. Here’s a brief recap of what he proposes.

1. People – Your company’s first concern should be to keep employees happy. By creating an environment where people know exactly what to do, you will ensure that the quality of the product/service does not suffer.
2. Applications - Using good business process management software can provide structure, control, and an easier way for people to manage conflicts. Applications that employers use on a daily basis can be controlled and monitored through BPM software.
3. Databases – Databases can wreak havoc within the organization. Make sure that your BPM software allows for the programmability in multiple languages to avoid this problem.
4. Quality Control – With solid tools and BPM software in your company you can rest assured that the quality of work will be high.

What steps has your business taken to create a more efficient and effective workplace?

Kaiser Permanente adopts new BPM software

According to The Call Center Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, a healthcare company, has adopted Pegasystem Customer Process Manager for Health Care. They’ve adopted this system in order to: optimize customer experience, drive higher first call resolution rates, and lower call handling times. The CPM HC is built specifically for health care organizations and will help Kaiser Permanente by giving them software that includes: multi-channel, intent-driven customer service to increase productivity, loyalty and growth.

Alan Trefler, the CEO of Pegasystems had this to say:

"We are delighted that Kaiser Permanente has selected Pegasystems to support their contact centers. Kaiser Permanente is well respected for its high customer service rankings and the deployment of BPM technology will allow them to reach even higher standards of excellence for customer care and quality of service."

Microsoft: Does it own the BPM space?

BPM means different thing to everyone in the corporate world. This post on The Register discusses that whether you view BPM as Business Performance Monitoring, Business Process Modeling or Business Process Management Microsoft seems to be leading vendors in supplying users with workflow solutions, middleware, analytics, and much more.

It will be interesting to see how some of Microsoft’s competitors like IBM, Oracle, and Lombardi will position its BPM Suites to combat Microsoft’s majority share of this area. What are your thoughts on Microsoft and BPM?

HCL Automates BPM for the State of Nebraska

MarketWatch reports that The State of Nebraska’s Worker’s Compensation Court has awarded HCL America Inc. a contract to create a Business Process Management application and framework.

The court has invested much time in trying to become a ‘paperless’ court, but in its efforts has had a tough time tracking and reporting data on events as workers compensation filings pass for approvals. BPM tools can automate this process and make a paperless environment work. The objectives of NWCC is to streamline workers compensation processes while separating process management rules and controls from structured data interaction.

Pitny’s Delicious Foods looks to BPM for efficiency

Business process management can increase the speed and efficiency of data running through a company. IT Business of Canada has the report here. Pitney’s Delicious Foods, of Burlington, Ontario, is looking to increase exactly those things while reducing the number of errors in their data keeping by adapting BPM. This fresh and frozen chicken product company is looking for their “Golden Egg” by investing in new BPM software but installing using products within SAP and Business Objects. Their aim is to help the migration of reporting processes from excel sheets to a fully automated process. With their current software, it takes five days to produce sales and financial reports. Within these reports, there tends to be errors due to the manual work required with an Excel sheet.

With this new software, they hope to automate this process which will lead to better control of their inventory, and in turn leave them with better warehouse stock numbers and provide them with more accurate restocking schedules.

The next step in their process to implementing BPM is to install the software, a seven week process. This new software will show the benefits of an automated process from the front lines of the factory to upper level management, as they will now have better control over their inventory numbers.

Iontas Helps Solve BPM Issues

According to this article on Market Watch, Iontas has added a function in their Focus software suite which will capture every step that people take to conduct business tasks, without interrupting their work or requiring integration. The application will graphically map out how processes are being followed, which will be a huge help for managers in order to determine where and how to focus resources for process improvement.

This software will end guessing games about how people use information technology. With focus, managers can look forward to improving efficiency and reducing operational costs. Iontas CEO Joe Stockton mentions:

"Every manager at every company needs to understand their processes before they can optimize them.”

BPM and SOA

This latest post on SOA Evolution details the evolution of business process management from the 1980’s all the way to today’s day and age. In the 1980s BPM consisted of jotting down processes on pen and paper, getting a team of programmers to build it, and then implementing it usually on one huge computer. In the 1990s BPM changed to a more organizational approach. Systems included process diagrams, IT and business change. It is easier to make sense of business process management than SOA, and this is why businesses are hesitant to embrace SOA. IT departments are aware that SOA is needed in order to make SOA work, and this is how BPM will eventually “save” SOA.

IBM Launches New Financial Management Business Process Tool

CNNMoney.com reports that IBM has released an analytical financial tool that will allows companies to better analyze and manage the performance of a company’s financial function.

This tool will help to solve the problem area of accurately identifying where redundancies occur within the finance organization. A 2008 IBM Global CFO Study shows that 1/3 of CFOs stated that they are ineffective at effectively measuring business performance.

William Fuessler, Global Financial Management Leader, IBM Global Business Services mentions:

"CFOs need quick access to the truth, they need process and data commonality through enterprise standards to achieve higher levels of efficacy. The delay in understanding the true state of the business can mean the difference between profitability and lost growth potential. The Finance Transformation Workbench tool is yet another example of IBM's high-value services proposition which automates labor-based process and uses our Intellectual Property (IP) to create repeatable software-like assets."

IBM’s tool is fully customizable to an organization’s needs, since it provides an integrated view of various business models which include: Finance Function component business models, business process Taxonomies, (such as the American Productivity and Quality Council Process Classification Framework) and organization structure maps.

PML Methodology in SAP

Vanessa Huschke recently talked to Marcus Dorfmeyer, the Project manager of Knowledge Management Competency Center (KMCC) organization about Process Management Lifecycle and detailed the interview here at the SAP Community Network. Here’s a quick recap of definitions for PML that the SAP Community Network provides if you need a quick refresher.

In this interview, Marcus discusses the benefits of PML methodology, how it helps accomplish his project, and some of its uses in SAP. Be sure to read the interview over, as I’m sure it’ll provide some valuable insight for your organization’s business process management system.

Software AG Report

Software Ag, published a report on Best Practices for SOA Governance User Survey. The reason for creating a report was to determine which ways organizations are approaching the process of implementing SOA governance. The study is especially relevant with SOA beginning to have an increased role in BPM. Some of the findings that were revealed in the report include:

- Interest in SOA was widespread as only one industry out of 14 reported that more than 15% of its respondents had “no plans to adopt SOA”.

- Top drivers for SOA adoption were a desire to improve business agility, simplify integration, and support business process management (BPM) initiatives.

- SOA has yet to expand far beyond the firewall as only a small minority (19.5%) report having exposed more than a quarter of their existing services externally.

- There was a strong correlation between SOA maturity and governance adoption with more than 80% of enterprises having a fully-implemented SOA in place calling their governance practices “mature” or “adequate” versus 33% overall.

While these findings are formulated across several large enterprises, what is your opinion on SOA governance in you respective organization?