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?

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

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.

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

Haldiram looks to Infogain Corporation for BPM

According to Moneycontrol, Haldiram, a manufacturer of famous Indian snacks, has turned to Infogain to help align their retail manufacturing needs. Infogain will help develop and implement a dispatch management solution to streamline its business processes across it’s global network of manufacturing units. Infogain is known for its expertise in retail business process management.

Pramod Kapoor, Infogain’s retail delivery services head, had this to say about the deal:

“Infogain has extensive experience in planning and executing implementations that optimize our client’s business processes. We aim to provide a reliable and futuristic automation solution to Haldiram that will redefine its dispatch management practices to bring in more productivity and business efficiency. Infogain’s technology framework, tools and best practices will ensure minimum risk and high operational competence for Haldiram’s business. Infogain will follow a planned approach and methodology to execute and deliver the solution in the most timely and cost-effective manner.”

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

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.

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

E-mails Role in Business Process Management

This article discusses how e-mail, instead of being simply a supplement to BPM, has morphed into a tool that is increasingly taking up more and more of an employees time. The author, Ramon Padilla, quotes Ross Mayfield, President of Socialtext,

“(Employees) spend most of their time handling exceptions to business processes. That’s what they are doing in their inbox for four hours a day. E-mail has become the great exception handler.”

Padilla further expands by discussing reasons as to why e-mail has become time consuming in organizations:

1. [We are] Making it up as we go along
2. Not enforcing business process
3. Business processes that are not automated or automated with software that is outdated or doesn’t fulfill the user’s needs
4. Lack of communications within an application or integration with other communication mechanisms
5. Lack of communication alternatives besides e-mail

These points raise questions regarding organizations use of BPM. If e-mail is taking up much of an employees time as a way to deal with exception in BPM, does this mean that the company does not have effective business processes in place? Do you agree with the author’s points? Is there anything you would add or detract from the list above?

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

Top 10 Open Source Rules Engines

This recent post on the Business Review Online blog discusses how even though business process management systems have managed to become mainstream, business rules companies have remained a very niche area. Business Rules Companies are extremely important because they enable companies to reduce their reliance on hard-coded application logic. But with so many choices in open source rules engines, how do you know which one is best for your company? Here’s a list of top 10 best open source rules engines provided by Business Review Online. Enjoy!

1. Drools

2. Hammurapi Rules

3. JEOPS

4. JRuleEngine

5a. Mandarax

5b. Take

6. Open Lexicon

7. Prova

8. SweetRules

9. TermWare

10. Zilonis

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

The challenge of implementing BPM

In a recent article at BP Trends, Frits Bussemaker takes a moment to look at some of the thought processes that maybe holding back the full and successful implementation of BPM. He begins the article by pointing out that BPM is very much a change management discipline.

He continues by making observations that could potentially be road blocks in your implementation to BPM. First, he observes that for the most part, the word process has a negative connotation, and those outside the BPM world see it that way. They associate BPM with a long process and unnecessary actions.

A second issue he observed was that many business managers have no desire to streamline an organization, even if they understand what BPM can do. They often see it as a threat to what they’re doing and how many people they’re managing.

Bussemaker concludes the article by stating that organizations currently transitioning into centralized process organization, they need to “Think Ahead, Stay Small!”. He goes ahead to state that staying small is not about size, the but mentality to which organizing business processes is handled. A company must staying flexible or agile, recognizing the need to connect and collaborate, staying focused on the core business, staying lean and mean, and being personal and intimate.

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

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.

Also, we're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

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?

KPN Chooses the Cordys BPM Suite

According to this news release on Realwire, a leader in telecommunications, KPN, has chosen to link Cordys Business Process Management Suite to help process online customer requests. The Cordys suite will be the link between activating and invoicing new services like internet, telecom, and multimedia which was released in the beginning of 2008.

The business process platform will enable KPN to cater to customer’s need faster and more effectively, now that customers can order services online. Reduction of costs is an added bonus to this automated system that KPN will put into place.

Jan Muchez, CIO of KPN mentions:

“Because of the intense time pressure we faced we were looking for a supplier who could not only provide a flexible application, but also has extensive knowledge of the subject matter so as to contribute to this strategic project.”

Deloitte and Cisco join forces to Build Better BPM Network

In a news release this morning, Deloitte and Cisco announced plans to work together in order to create a better business process. They are working towards the collaborate goal to add Cisco’s network platform with Deloitte’s system which combines processes and consulting capabilities.

The agreement wishes to:

Collaboration on service development, education, training, sales and delivery. Deloitte and Cisco will initially focus their efforts on the development and delivery of services aimed at risk, compliance and performance management challenges.

The future of Business Process Management: BPM 2.0

Processes and applications working together in concert across the organization and leveraging compliant best practices with the help of SOA and workflow is a big step forward, but there is more to the story of running a competitive business today.

In a new post at Jim Sinur’s blog, he discusses the important processes. Sinur believes that the five points below will transform the way we see BPM today for the better:

• Processes Need to be Indeterminate

The processes must find a way to be more flexible and dynamic.

• Processes Need to Support Best Practice Discovery

BPM processes must not be stuck in one rut, and the must be able to figure out how the process is working. It should observe the patterns and figure out how the process can be adapted to the program.

• Processes Need to be Widely Inclusive

The processes can’t be limited to inside the organization. The program must know how to be cross functional.

• Processes Need to be Intelligent

The program would be able to identify anything going on in the programs, and then notify the users of the changes

• Processes Need to be Goal Driven

The process management could have several different outcomes that need to happen. The programs would then identify these, and determine the best plan of action to take in order to get the different processes to the one spot.

Value Innovation meets BPM

Value innovation is important to recognize in any company. Value innovation happens when you recognize your current business processes and improve them. In this article at BPM Enterprise, they show this via McDonald’s recent business emphasis in coffee. They saw that by improving what they had, they could become a real competitor with Starbucks, and have after improving the value of their own product.

It’s important to recognize what can be improved in your current business processes. Processes that can be changed are business rules engines, workflow solutions, online credit reports, and online databases that can allow for value innovations to be added to the business processes. The business world is constantly changing and evolving, and it’s important that business recognize this. What processes in your company can be innovated to better suit your needs?