The Insider's Guide to Next-Generation BPM
By Deb Miller, Director of Market Development, Global 360 , 12/16/2009
Print this article
Email this article
Talk Back!
Write to Editor
Editor's note: Missed our SOA in Action Virtual Conference? Replay sessions on demand here.
Revenue Down, Demand Uncertain? BPM Can Help you Cut Costs.
Competing on the basis of your supply chain performance has become more important than ever in this tough economy. With revenues down and demand uncertain, where do you cut costs? If your company isn't the biggest in your market or the lowest cost provider or the first to introduce new products, what kind of results can you expect to achieve with supply chain improvements?
Four strategies can work for the rest of us:
1. Stop obsessing over Six Sigma
2. Forget about achieving the "perfect order"
3. Pay your suppliers better
4. Don't talk to customers
Stop obsessing over Six Sigma.
Leading companies have come to realize that business process innovation and improvement -- not just new products or services -- can be major sources of competitive advantage. Companies that have adopted this mindset employ a more disciplined approach to process management. But it's important not to obsess over the myriad methodology choices out there and instead focus more on where you apply the methodology. Whatever your company has chosen to achieve and sustain operational excellence, the most important thing to do in today's economy is to leverage that chosen process lifecycle methodology to focus on customer-visible process improvements.
It's time to move beyond optimizing individual processes to the nth degree and emphasize improvements that drive through your extended supply chain to your customer's customer.
Identify those business processes that matter most -- and for manufacturers, distributors and retailers, surely the customer-facing supply chain processes would count among them, even if you do outsource some of them -- and then digitize those processes. Business Process Management (BPM) is the leading means for accomplishing this, as it ties together all aspects of a process both from a descriptive and execution perspective, and from a line of business and IT perspective.
Don't just digitize those customer-facing processes to improve how work moves
through them, but consider capabilities that also improve how that work gets
done. Improving process with speed alone can only help you make the same mistakes
faster, and forcing an unfamiliar, non-intuitive user interface on staff can
hurt productivity more than it helps. Whether your goals are to comply with
complex business rules for customer disputes or to gain faster access to customer
correspondence for a "single version of the truth," people are your
organization's most important asset to meet those goals. Use tools that can
make your extended supply chain process work for the people, not the other way
around. Think of how much faster your new and improved process will be adopted,
whatever methodology you've chosen, and how often it will be adhered to, if
it actually helps your people get their work done.
-1-
Best Practices in Moving Processes to the Clouds
How Can the Cloud Fit Into Your Applications Strategy?
Cloud Data Integration Best Practices
The Economics of Cloud Computing
Data Services Insight: Successful implementation of Canonical Information Models
Measuring the ROI from web experience management 
Prescription for Pain Alleviation: Transaction Path Detection and Management
Business Process Assurance: Ensuring Critical Business Processes Are Executed Without Disruption
Paving the Way for Windows 7 Adoption
How to Empower Your Business Innovators to Make the Most of Business Process Management
ebizQ editorial highlights and updates, compiled by Site Editor Anne Stuart
March 10, 2011
The sixth annual BPM in Action 2011 Virtual Conference will explore cutting-edge market developments in BPM and describe how to leverage them for improved business operation and performance. More
Date:Apr 07, 2010
Time:13:00 PM
ET- (17:00 GMT)
Date:Apr 07, 2010
Time:12:00 PM
ET- (16:00 GMT)
In part two of Joe McKendrick's recent podcast with Miko Matsumura, chief strategist for Software AG, they talk about how SOA and IT systems need to change and grow and adapt with the organization around it.
Listen Now
Phil Wainewright interviews David Vap, VP of products at RightNow Technologies, and finds out how sharing best practices can help businesses understand how best to engage with online communities.
Listen Now
Scott Hebner, Vice President of Marketing and Strategy for IBM Rational, discusses a topic on the top of every company's mind today: getting the most from IT investments.
Listen Now
In BI, this tough economy and the increasing role of Web 2.0 and MDM are certainly topics on people's minds today. WiseAnalytics' Lyndsay Wise addresses each of them in this informative podcast.
Listen Now
Deepak Singh, President and CTO of Adeptia, joins ebizQ's Dennis Byron in a podcast that gets its hand around the trend of industry-specific BPM.
Listen NowSmart event processing can help your company run smarter and faster. This comprehensive guide helps you research the basics of complex event processing (CEP) and learn how to get started on the right foot with your CEP project using EDA, RFID, SOA, SCADA and other relevant technologies. Learn More
A lot of people are talking about Enterprise 2.0 as being the business application of Web 2.0 technology. However, there's still some debate on exactly what this technology entails, how it applies to today's business models, and which components bring true value. Some use the term Enterprise 2.0 exclusively to describe the use of social networking technologies in the enterprise, while others use it to describe a web economy platform, or the technological framework behind such a platform. Still others say that Enterprise 2.0 is all of these things. Learn More
|
|
This new publication from our sister site SearchSOA.com explores workflow, business activity monitoring (BAM) and complex event processing (CEP) issues. |
|
|
