Home / Resources
Resources
Discover a Wealth of BPM Knowledge and Expertise at BPMInstitute.org!
Do Things Really Change?
Is anything really new?
The fashion world, television and the IT landscape all have something in common. It often seems like we are seeing reruns: centralize versus decentralize; market proliferation versus market consolidation, privacy versus security, and standards versus innovations. Now, every time you turn around you hear about SOA. Does SOA really matter, or is it just another hard to explain three letter acronym?
First, I believe it does really matter, and that it is different.
Is anything really new?
Becoming A Process-Focused Organization
Process management is comprised of end-to-end documentation, improvement (from radical to continuous), and management of organizational processes. Decisions are data-driven and based on customer satisfaction metrics, quality, timeliness, and cost. The responsibility of monitoring process performance and facilitating process changes belongs to a process advisor or manager. Administering processes is dramatically enabled by business process management technology.
Corporate Process Due-Diligence should include Business Agility
Business Agility is the ability to run profitably in changing economic conditions by producing high-quality, customer-focused goods and services. Theorists in business management and technology agree the key to achieving agility is in a focus on business processes.
For instance, In the February, 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review, “How Managers’ Everyday Decisions Create or Destroy Your Companies Strategy”, Bower and Gilbert describe intransigence of sales personnel at dealerships for a leading automotive manufacturer.
Seeing the World from a Process Point of View
Simon Hayward is chief of research for software and a Gartner fellow emeritus. With an interest in the relationship of business processes, software applications and software infrastructure, he oversees research in the software sector and develops integrative activities between research areas. He will deliver the featured analyst keynote address at the Business Process Management Conference in June in San Francisco.
Leveraging Data Models to Create a Unified Business Vocabulary for Service Oriented Architectures
Early SOA initiatives generally focused on defining business services first, and worrying about the data later. Today, we acknowledge that services and data must work in concert to produce coherent and well-aligned service architectures. The unifying elements in the architecture include a shared definition of business information structure, validity and vocabulary – in other words, the metadata.
Business Unit Focused Business Analyst or Technical Systems (IT) Focused Business Analyst: What are the differences?
Companies have long understood the need for project management; but project based business analysis has always been an open item for discussion and displacement. Businesses are beginning to see the value in having the expertise that a business analyst can bring to a project. However, these same organizations continue to struggle with determining the appropriate area of the company that will serve as the best fit for the business analyst (BA) role, in part due to a misunderstanding of the differences between a business unit focused business analyst (BFBA) and a technical sy
Leaping into the Next Generation of BPM
Molson Coors is the fifth largest global brewer with a combined annual volume of 60 million hectoliters and net sales of more than $6 billion. It leads market share in Canada and in the UK with growth profile in the US and emerging market opportunities in Brazil. Molson Coors employs 15,000 employees worldwide in 18 breweries serving 40 brands.
Coors turned to BPM in 2001 before the merger with Molson to develop a business architecture that would organize its business processes in a structured way.
Nimble Banking: Leveraging BPM, BR and SOA in Banking
Keeping customers, attracting new customers, rapidly delivering new products, providing consistent service through multiple channels (branch office, internet, ATM, telephone) and meeting regulatory requirements is a daunting pursuit of retail bankers. This demanding proposition requires the continual development of a portfolio differentiated financial services, which requires a significant investment in transforming IT.
Personalized Insurance: Leveraging BPM, BR and SOA in Insurance
Competitive pressures, poor investment returns, substantial claims payouts, demanding customers and independent agents, new regulatory challenges and complicated processes have led to increased complexity in insurance operations. Insurance professionals must be flexible and move quickly to respond to the conditions in their industry and achieve the three strategic objectives necessary to thrive: delivering new services, increasing customer loyalty and achieving a lower cost structure.
A Balanced Perspective
Many firms are just doing isolated one-time process improvements with little consideration to deploying the sustainable improvement and management of their large, cross-functional business processes. They don’t realize that the fundamental concepts underlying BPM are all about customer focus and value creation and that requires a different leadership mindset.
Process Discovery – The First Step of BPM
How do you pick the process that best addresses corporate objectives, current problems and feasibility concerns?
Every company considering an investment in Business Process Management (BPM) practices and technology asks this question. This is called process discovery. It is a crucial capability for your organization. Learn about the challenges of process discovery, what capabilities you need to develop and how Lombardi’s Blueprint can help you get started with BPM.
How Much Will Your SOA Cost?
I’m consulting now…at the project and strategy levels…and thus finding that a lot of real work needs to be done to get SOAs up-and-running. For most organizations, the first step of their SOA project is to figure out how much this SOA will cost. Thus, you can budget appropriately and obtain the funding.
It’s a good first step, but most organizations that want to build an SOA don’t have a clue how to approach the cost estimation process. In many cases, they grossly underestimate the cost of their SOA, hoping their bosses and accountants won’t notice later.
The Business Transformation Imperative
Introduction
In today’s ever-changing business environment, it is imperative for enterprises to adapt quickly to not only deal with the change, but in many cases, exploit it for competitive advantage. Change can manifest itself in the form of new technology, new entrants into enterprises’ market space, competitors adapting new processes, changes in customer preferences and demographics, new government regulations, and so on. The rate of change in recent years has been much higher than in the past.
BPM vs ISO
Often I am asked, “What is the difference between BPM and the popular quality method known as ISO?” My experiences both in Operations Management and in Business Process Management have provided some major contrasts in the two approaches.
Collaborative Manufacturing: Leveraging BPM, BR and SOA in Manufacturing
This pre-conference session will provide an in-depth view of newer manufacturing management initiatives including CPFR®, lean manufacturing, demand driven manufacturing, collaborative manufacturing, the digital enterprise and optimized regulatory compliance. The instructor will then show how BPM can be used to most effectively meet the objectives of these initiatives by connecting information resources across the plant, the enterprise and the value chain. This program will give you the ability to identify opportunities and implement tools that address real business issues and ente
Reflections on BrainStorm’s Business Architecture Conference
It’s always exciting to attend a large conference bustling with like-minded people, especially when the subject matter teeters on the cutting edge of a new market space, and BrainStorm’s Business Architecture Conference in New York City last November was no exception. It was my first Business Architecture conference and BrainStorm’s second, but no college curriculum could possibly rival the depth and scope of the information imparted to me during those two days. From the opening remarks through the final wrap-up, I was intrigued and completely captivated as speaker after speaker p
This and That 2.0: In Search of the Holy Grail of Innovation Through Collaboration
With all the hype around Web 2.0, it’s time to take a second look at how such technologies can be harnessed to help people work better together instead of hammering them with information overload. In this article we’ll explore the need for Human Interaction Management and Human Interaction Management Systems to capitalize on new technologies labeled “2.0” for innovation through collaboration. ______________________________________________________________________
Business Process Management – The Design Phase
Recently somebody asked me what some of the key reasons of failure are for new teams adopting Business Process Management or SCOR. The number one risk is obvious: lack of sponsorship. A close second however is the inability to prove the value (of the team). One of the biggest start-up problems is the focus on getting a project started – get busy. That’s really when the clock starts ticking for proving your value (Now the company is actually spending money on your great idea). Many (start-up) teams have problems getting beyond the analysis phase of a project.
Why Runtime Governance is Critical for SOA
With SOA services now in production within many organizations, system architects are realizing that the most critical control/governance issue is in runtime. Data point after data point has demonstrated that many SOA implementations are just not working in production as designed or expected. Problems range from service interruptions to entire business processes failing, to compliance risks that generate costly delays and lengthy triage cycles. As these problems continue to pile up, runtime governance is now taking center stage for companies launching and utilizing SOAs.
Improving Product Lifecycle Processes To Drive Business Agility
Are you a product-centric enterprise striving for agility in bringing quality goods to market faster? Do you deal with a complex value chain with multiple handoffs and contingency points? Business Process Management (BPM) solutions help companies like yours turn product lifecycle management into a competitive weapon. Download this informative solution brief now to see how leaders have transformed their order management, product planning, and channel forecasting processes to capture more customers and nimbly respond to market changes.
