The Road to BPM for SMEs

When it comes to business process management (BPM), people tend to associate it with large companies with more complex business processes. Indeed, many large companies use BPM solutions to successfully shorten process cycles and improve process coherence.

In fact, small and medium-sized companies can also benefit from business process automation. As BPM products become easier to use, small and medium-sized companies with limited information technology resources can also find great opportunities to increase efficiency. A pricing model that takes into account the number of users, developers, processes, and central processing units (CPUs) makes BPM products affordable to enterprises. While these companies typically deal with smaller, simpler projects, they can still reap significant benefits. Like large companies, small and medium-sized companies can start with one process and quickly expand to others.

iUniverse, Tetra Holdings, Cardinal Logistics Management, and Washington Faculty Credit Union are four typical examples. Every company uses business process management in a unique way to enable process change and enhance enterprise agility.

Manage processes that grow with the company

With only 100 employees, iUniverse may be one of the smallest companies implementing business process automation. Serving individuals who wish to publish and sell their work, the company has developed internal systems to support its business activities, including production tracking, marketing and distribution of its publications. Each component of the process has embedded logic that emits information to activate the next component. However, since the flow control is written in each application, it cannot be easily changed. iUniverse needed a way to manage business processes so that it could grow and change with the company, while maintaining the value of previous IT investments.

iUniverse selected Intalio's business process management system, Intalio|n3, and started the process of migrating the company to send catalog information to various distribution channels. They extract book and distribution channel related information from an Oracle database, and then compile catalog information according to channel requirements and send it to channel partners. This process was chosen to start with because it is relatively simple and occurs periodically. After successfully completing this task, iUniverse ported other processes into the system, including print confirmation and bibliographic tracking.

"We are in the process of migrating a major back-office production process to Intalio|n3," said Vernon Stinebaker, vice president of iUniverse, "and we hope that eventually all business processes will be in this system. Management."

As iUniverse staff adapted to the technology, there were minimal cultural issues with its use. However, development teams must move from viewing the application as a large, isolated entity to a more service-focused, reusable system of components. Steinbeck said the new business process management system reduces the development time of new processes by 50 percent or more and enables functions that were not possible in the previous system.

Intalio|n3 is not aimed at small businesses, but some of the elements are attractive to small businesses as well. For example, "page design" software allows developers to use a series of drag-and-drop tools to build interactive user interfaces or forms. This software provides a development environment that facilitates collaboration between IT and business personnel. Once the system is successfully developed, business users can directly make process changes.

"The need for programming knowledge to create applications thwarts the intent of putting business people users in control," said Ismael Ghalimi, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Intalio , "It's especially difficult for small companies to find programming experts."

Nathaniel Palmer, vice president and principal analyst at Delphi Group, believes that over time, business process management technology may become more closely related to database technology. parallel. "This will help small and medium-sized companies reduce the need for programming." The establishment of some standards will help to use off-the-shelf products to manage business data. If business processes evolve in the same way, companies can focus more on authoring processes rather than just on the technology that makes them work.

Creating a real-time enterprise

Tetra Holdings, which manufactures aquatic products, wanted to improve the process for design change notifications (ECNs) within the company. ECNs are required to make changes to a product in anything from size to labeling. The change notification process goes through up to 40 people in 6 different departments. To optimize the process and shorten the design cycle, Tetra chose Metastorm's e-Work management system.

To soften the blow of the new system, all 200 of the company's employees were initially trained on a simpler process introduced before the ECN system, a leave change application process. This process potentially affects all employees in which all e-Work functions that will be used in the ECN process are used.

"Even non-professional users can use it very easily," said Charlie Lisanti, an information systems consultant, "and then we applied the ECN module extensively, and so far there has been no resistance to using e -The case of the Work management system."

After implementing e-Work, the ECN application process has been shortened from an average of 5 days or more to 1 day. Through e-Work, users can browse all relevant folders and documents and know the stage of the application.

"Staff like to feel in control of the situation," Lisanti added, "they can see what stage the application is at and who has approved their request."

Tetra plans to continue The use of the app was promoted and a lab test application and approval process was introduced in the e-Work. This process was selected as high priority because applications are submitted through a variety of different formats and channels, including email and hard copy, with irregular information. Applications are standardized to include all necessary information, and tracking is automated. To standardize the forms and procedures for customer information and pricing changes, the automation of the invoicing instruction process is another high-priority project. Over time, Tetra plans to integrate the automation of its U.S. business operations with the automation of its factory operations in Germany that make Tetra-branded fish food.

Regardless of the size of the business, business process consistency and efficiency are common goals for all companies. Bob Farrell, CEO of Metastorm, believes that small and medium-sized companies can also use business process management products in a completely different way than larger companies.

"The flexibility of a small business is an important source of its competitive advantage," Farrell noted, "and business process management is designed for real-time businesses." Instead of focusing on complex processes like larger companies With clear definitions for ease of implementation, small and mid-sized companies might as well use business process management tools to acquire new processes and reuse them.

Automate processes at minimal cost

Cardinal Logistics Management is an integrated transportation and logistics company that provides contract trucking and local delivery services. All 90 offices scattered across the United States must respond quickly to user needs. To meet the demand, the company recruited, screened and assessed a large number of truck drivers. Cardinal's strategic plan is to take advantage of its unique overhead structure as much as possible while enabling the company to grow significantly. Cardinal has about 500 employees and 1,200 drivers, some of whom are employees and others are contract drivers.

To better manage the affairs of its offices and corporate headquarters in North Carolina, Cardinal implemented Buoy5's iApprove, a software solution that automates the request and approval process. Cardinal is currently automating the verification process for new drivers. When a driver submits an application at the office, the application form is scanned immediately and key information is entered online into iApprove. The application was sent to six officers who scrutinized the driver's history, including driving and criminal records. This workflow throughout the headquarters is managed online. At the end of the process, the approved drivers' data goes directly into the payroll system.

"We found that using iApprove was no more difficult than using any other software product," said Jonathan Turner, Director of Management Information Systems at Cardinal. Turner believes that business process management software is easy to use and low cost, making it more attractive to small and medium-sized companies. "We want to hire non-technical program administrators with business experience to schedule and modify our processes," he said.

While the iApprove system is still in the process of being implemented, Turner already sees great potential: "The software provides access to headquarters information so we can keep track of the stage of the application." Additional plans are included in Processes in iApprove include other employee application and approval processes. With the flexibility of the system, almost any process can be automated with minimal additional development or implementation costs.

"The vast majority of our customers are from companies of 500 to 2,000 people," said Buoy5 CEO David Willsey. "We designed iApprove as an off-the-shelf solution that There's no need to do a lot of customization work." Wilshey said Buoy5 is targeting small and medium-sized businesses because the needs of this market are far from being met. However, iApprove also serves a large customer base and can be used across departments; for example, it has 40,000 users at GlaxoSmithKline.

Ken Vollmer, director of Giga Research, a division of Forrester Research, argues that even large companies struggle with implementing business process management solutions. "You have to have good IT people and the determination to change the company," Volmer points out.

In addition, while process definition is usually done without programming, the integration step can be quite difficult for companies with limited information technology resources. However, for small and mid-sized companies with growth momentum and relatively straightforward processes, business process management can offer the same appeal—efficiency, speed, and cost savings.

Complete BPM

Integration with other applications

The Faculty and Staff Credit Union of Washington (SECUWA) is a small organization with many members. SECUWA has 2 branches and 100 employees serving more than 75,000 members throughout the United States. SECUWA's 45 financial management representatives provide members with a "one-time" service - the application for a Visa credit card.

Visa credit card applications come from a variety of sources, including the SECUWA website, fax and telephone, and more. Applications are processed manually, data is repeatedly entered, communication is required via email, and there is a lack of information tracking capabilities. To improve customer service and increase employee efficiency, SECUWA wanted to automate the process. Currently, the credit union is implementing HandySoft's BizFlow to schedule and track these applications. When the system is fully operational, SECUWA expects to reduce processing time from 48 hours to 30 minutes. They are also evaluating BizFlow for use in other business activities, such as loan processing and employee expense reporting.

Occasionally, although companies find a business process management product that closely matches their functional needs, they find that integration is harder than expected. Small and medium-sized companies can be stretched thin in their IT resources to enable business process management systems. AptSoft recently introduced AptSoft Director software, which enables users to combine processes using a browser and drop-down menus. Data mapping is done dynamically at runtime. This built-in integration makes it easy to integrate business process management solutions with other applications.

"Our product relies on an object model," said David Cameron, vice president of marketing and product integration at AptSoft. "Business rules, touchpoints and processes are all reusable components. ."

Cameron pointed out that even large companies are using business process management skillfully to solve certain problems; so to speak, enterprise market (large enterprise customers) and mid-market (mid-market) , i.e. SME customers), the lines have blurred. The scope of a project will determine what technology a business needs more than the size of the company.

The problem of process management is inherent to a business. With the increasing complexity of the process, the search for a process management solution has been put on the agenda of the enterprise. The four cases mentioned above tell us that it is necessary for SMEs to use BPM products to integrate and optimize more efficient and flexible operations.

Originally reprinted with permission from Judith Lamont's BPM: not just for the big kids on the block, KMWorld, January 2004. KMWorld is a publication of Information Today Corporation. Translated by Zhang Ke.

Judith Lamont is a research analyst at Zentek and a senior contributor to KMWorld.