Here is a video that leaves very little to be said about a rather painful aspect of the vendor-customer relationship.

Thanks to Faun for sharing this.

©2012 Bouncing Thoughts. All Rights Reserved.

So, that BPM product demo excited you? The vendor demonstration of agile features may well have made your mouth water. You now think your investment in BPM licenses will make your firm agile.

Well, sorry to be the one to break it to you, but it may not. Maybe you should think again.

 

..............................It's Not The Ball!

Sure, BPM can give the power of agility to organizations. But let’s face it, it’s really not BPM that’s going to get you there.

No. It is not BPM.

It is the people you are going to entrust that BPM investment with.

So, who are those people, you ask?

Well it wont be your systems integrator. Although the team from your SI is crucial.

It wont be your external consultants either. Although picking the right consultants is critical and they certainly can bring much value in your effort to make BPM applications agile.

The real key to agility will need to come from your people. Your culture.

Here is how I look at it. Technology may contribute to an agile organization, but mostly the root of agility lies in the collective consciousness of an organization.

It is in the mindset, an organizational attitude, if you will.

And so, implementing BPM by itself does not automatically make a firm agile. It calls for concerted effort in allowing technology to become an extension of that mindset. That is why the choice of tool is important and that is why during process design it is crucial to involve the right people.

I liked the way Max Pucher puts it

“Agility is not an intrinsic property of software or methodology and cannot be supplied through these. Only agile-thinking management and employees will make a business more agile.” Max J. Pucher 2007 (Why SOA does not deliver. Article in Output Magazine) [via eBizQ]

Your thoughts? Bounce them!

©2012 Bouncing Thoughts. All Rights Reserved.

I read this rather interesting piece on Knowledge@Wharton, titled Is Business-centric Social Networking a Revolution — or a Ruse? The Article discusses Social Networking adoption in the enterprise.

Overall it is a pretty interesting read, and the article quotes IDC research that predicts that “the global market for social platforms will jump from $630 million in 2011 to $1.86 billion by 2014.”

I don’t know about you, but to me it is a huge surprise. The market is actually at $630 million this year?  But how? Perhaps I am just not clued in. Maybe I will go read up that release by IDC to understand those numbers better. But, on the other hand, to be sure, there are social business tools available as of date.

Today, creating effective social networking applications for the enterprise space is still a work in progress. Salesforce.com in February launched a social business tool called Chatter.com that is an extension of the company’s cloud-based customer relationship management software. In many respects, Chatter.com — which was promoted by Salesforce with ads that aired during the Super Bowl — mimics Facebook and Twitter in allowing employees to share profiles, comment on projects and “follow” colleagues as well as corporate business processes such as invoices and sales proposals. In December, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, the most visible champion of social business, described Chatter as being like “your business is Tweeting you.”

From a BPM perspective, we have ourselves been talking about various approaches to integrating Social Media into our process execution  – not because it is a must-do according to some hype-cycle,  but because of the natural synergies we see in fusing Social Media & Networking paradigms to achieve more effective employee collaboration and therefore employee empowerment and effectiveness.  In fact, many of the shortcomings of viewing all processes as a linear sequence of activities could be overcome.

However if you have been following the social media scene and some of the trends, you may not necessary agree with the whole article. I winced when I read this part –

Because young people increasingly rely on Facebook and Twitter to communicate in their personal lives, employers must bring similar tools to those workers, experts say.

I am not sure which experts have been quoted, but that’s certainly not expert view. This has been one of the most ridiculous myths of Social Media.

Over a year back I wrote a post (Social Media, The Stage is Being Set for BPM) on how with serious quantitative research, some of the myths associated with social media adoption are being shattered. I had quoted a survey by Neilson that suggested that over two-thirds of those on Social Media comprised of folks upwards of 25 years of age.

This whole ‘Millennial’ logic is just unfounded and, to put it kinder words, it’s just a lot of bovine output. I recall reading Scott Francis and Sandy Kemsley reacting to this with as much aggravation.

In fact the first comment at the end of this article blew the fuse and set me off on this post. Sift through the rest of the comments, and you will see reactions from the non-millennial.

And now, tell me. How many of those who you know or engage with on Social Media – be it LInked-in, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever else, fall under that ‘millennial’ band? Or younger than 22? Or even 24?

Right. That’s what I thought.

©2012 Bouncing Thoughts. All Rights Reserved.

To me, if there is only one striking difference between a BPM solution and a conventionally developed application, then it is the opportunity to unlock hidden potential for improvements.

Many organizations at the crossroads of a decision do overlook this aspect and decide against BPM. I have come across a few in the past. Reasons, however, maybe attributed to high license costs or other such considerations. Of course, while this may well be true, the question I often ask myself is if they did see and consider the full potential of benefits from a BPM solution before deciding against it.

And if indeed they did, why did they still decide not to invest in BPM? Did they calculate ROI? If so, how did they calculate it? What were their considerations? Why would they rather invest in either building the application grounds-up or, in a packaged application when in all likelihood neither can provide several of the additional benefits possible from a BPM solution?

For sure, there must be ample wisdom supporting their decisions. Apparently their final authorities did agree it was a good decision before they signed on the dotted line.

So, why would they let Good come in the way of Better?

Today we have survey findings from organizations that have decided in favor of BPM – many analyst firms have done some research in that area. But I am not sure if anyone has researched organizations that have decided against investing in BPM. Their reasons could be very interesting in many levels.

Did they make the right decision? Or have they only held-off jumping into the BPM wagon for the moment? Have they considered a logic that others have not? Do they think they are too small for BPM? Or is it more of a contextual thing – of BPM just not fitting into their particular context?

What is your take? What has been your experience in this aspect?

From my experience with organizations that have decided against BPM I could hazard one generalization – you tell me if I am way off mark here – that organizations where IT has a strong influence in the decision making may look less favorably at BPM.

I also think it has less to do with IT participation itself or with their influence (negative or not) in the decision but more to do with the lack of intense business participation, active involvement and drive.

What do you think? What could be other reasons?

©2012 Bouncing Thoughts. All Rights Reserved.

I had taken an example of two firms in a quest for competitive advantage implementing packaged software; and discussed whether  they would find a definitive edge over each other even if they both choose the same software products. If they both got on the BPM bus, there could in fact be a more direct influence on their Balance of Power in the market place.

Last week, Gartner made an announcement on BPM, something really worth more attention than you might have given it (that’s possible!)– they released this press note and a 2011 Predicts on BPM, and subsequently there’s been a lot of chatter(verb) around competitive advantage and BPM. It’s nice to know I made that post a few weeks before Gartner did. And it’s nicer to imagine that my post might have inspired the nice folks there

But I kid you not (actually, just myself for a while there ), Gartner’s releases have come in a very apt time. A time when we are looking up after a particularly damaging economic crisis, when fists are easing around tightly clenched budgets, when sustained period of hard times have challenged and changed our view of the market, competitiveness and success. This is a time that calls for differentiation not merely by cost, but by value.

But, as I had mentioned in my post, this thing about competitive advantage from BPM is really not some blinding insight no one ever thought of. All of us have discussed this substantially. We have unanimously acknowledged that BPM is about business, and about aligning IT to business and about process improvements and so on.

And yet, and this is where these Gartner announcements are particularly relevant, the majority of us seem to be letting that fundamental proposition of BPM slip through our fingers as we go about ‘doing BPM’.

There certainly are some serious issues that are compromising benefits promised by BPM, if a recent Forrester survey is anything to make a generalized statement by. These results are from an Online Self-assessment and Survey to determine the sustainability of BPM change effort. Alexander Peters, apparently discovered some bad news –

• In 52% of the surveyed organizations, business process change initiatives pursue different objectives and are executed without coordination.
• 59% of participants admit that most business process change projects are measured through project timeliness and budget, but only some provide operational measures.
• Only 34% of the organizations apply architecture frameworks for business processes, insight, and decision-making to help structure and prioritize business process change targets.

These are serious issues that can limit or even shut-out potential competitive benefits from BPM investments.

If you are already on the BPMS bus, It is important to quickly identify and effectively correct such areas of drag, lest your budgets end up funding a YAS (‘Yet another software’) implementation.

On the other hand, if you are about to get on that bus, such issues need not overwhelm you into ‘boarding delays’. It is important to ensure you do get on the bus, even as you fix all these drag issues.  I loved Scott Francis’ reaction to the survey and completely agree with him on this one. He says

You’re not ready for Sustainable BPM Change until you are.  In other words, get to work. Figure it out.  Start aligning your organization around BPM and the change it incurs.  But if you put off BPM until you’re ready, you never will be.  Show some leadership…..

This is absolutely true. There needs to be hunger and urgency to get it done, and have the preparedness and willingness to do whatever it takes to get it done right. One of the single most important highlight, the way I see it at least, in Gartner’s release is that sense of urgency that they exhort.

Waiting for ideal conditions and a perfect time is all very fine. But we are talking about finding competitive advantage here. Not buying art for the office lobby. Either you are in, or you are out.  So what it calls for is the round-spherical-objects to pull up socks and take charge and make the move, confront the odds and challenges and make it all work. That’s really leadership and its no surprise that top management participation is sort of a pre-condition for BPM success.

Predictions and trends, though tend to keep varying and changing and evolving as we go along. But going forward though, one thing will be common –  IT investing buyers are going to look at IT more and more to drive revenues, profit and cost – the three things that define your business.

©2012 Bouncing Thoughts. All Rights Reserved.

Sure, you’ve heard it before that BPM is about the business. But indulge me for a bit.

Let‘s say the CIO of a manufacturing company A buys product X because it can help optimize inventory and reduce costs.

He gets the software implemented and X nicely fixes not just that bloated inventory but also that big headache he’s had for months.

What‘s more, Marketing is happy because they could reduce product price a little bit, and therefore so is the customer, and, despite the price drop, a slight improvement in the margin makes Finance happy too. Meanwhile, Purchase and Production are happy, and well, there are smiles all around and all that. You get the picture.

Now, what if B, a competitor of A, decides to also buy X for much the same reasons?  We now have two competing firms, both depending on product X to address inventory issues. Will happy smiles appear on faces in firm B? Will folks at A continue smiling and nodding at each other?

How will it affect their relative advantages? Their differentiators?

Here are two different ways of looking at it –

(i) Product X minimizes the relative competitive advantage between A and B, bringing them both on the same level playing field. They will each have to think of other ways to get one up on the other.
(ii) Product X has the potential to sharpen their competitive advantages by highlighting each of their more unique differentiating areas.

Which one would be your pick?

If you pick (i), you are saying there can be no competitive advantage from IT as IT eliminates differences between how organizations function. This is along the lines of Nicholas Carr’s argument that as IT becomes more commoditized, the value from IT would also diminish.

On the other hand, If you pick (ii), you are saying IT can be used as a weapon to find competitive advantages that complement your core competencies.

Product X in our story, as you might have already guessed, would typically be a packaged application promising ‘industry best practices – acquired from consolidating experience from thousands of implementations’. So, consider this – if both A and B apply the same best practices, would they truly get competitive? Or would those common best practices merely help them stay on equal footing?

I had written a sort of a parody to discuss this sometime back, titled “The Corrosion Of Competitive Advantage”, inspired by an HBR article by Andrew McCafe and Erik Brynjolfsson titled Investing In the IT That Makes A Competitive Difference. The HBR article essentially argues how IT can in fact be a tool to achieve competitive advantage.

And so to our firms A and B, the situation they find themselves in is not very unusual. As I had written in my earlier post,

…these are situations that our technology consuming customers continuously battle – most top market players have access to similar technologies, products and service providers; similar investments and budgets.…. Therefore, where is the competitive advantage from IT investments?…

The point I am trying to highlight, or rather reiterate, is that, this is precisely where the power of BPM lies. BPM can give you the wherewithal to deal with such situations –  In unlocking competitive advantage from areas in your business where packaged applications are, by and large, ill-equipped to address.  In making a substantial difference to your bottom-line, and/or your top-line.

There have been several discussions, on how BPM is different from conventional packaged application implementation/application development. The idea of IT-Business collaboration, business benefits of BPM, building a business case, etc. have been discussed in ample measure. Some of the best minds in the industry have tried to impress upon these critical success factors in BPM.

Yet, there still are many who under-utilize BPM. In my experience, these are really areas where many firms miss the bus when it comes to delivering BPMS that truly delivers. Treating BPMS implementations like conventional IT projects is a common first big mistake.

Yesterday, I read a very insightful post by Neil Wart-Dutton. It’s titled 5 things you need to know about BPM ROI which articulates some thoughts I am trying to get across, much better. Neil’s 5 points are –

• –  There’s no such thing as ROI for BPM
  –  Look beyond operational efficiency
  –  Measure first
  –  Think beyond automation
  –  Try to resist carving out a separate line for user acceptance work

And on the point of looking beyond operational efficiency, this is what Neil has to say –

Most of what people think about regarding BPM benefits comes down to efficiency savings, and this can be a big part of the story. But even in the operational realm, there may be benefits that go beyond efficiency. One is increased scalability through smarter (re)allocation of resources. Another is improved customer satisfaction (which although it can be difficult to directly ascribe a monetary value to, should drive sales over time if sales and marketing teams are doing their jobs – and will often help protect revenue by reducing customer churn). Apart from the operational realm, benefits can come from increased business flexibility, quicker introduction of new products or product bundles, and stronger competitive differentiation.

Think ‘Enable, Empower, Improve, Unlock’. These are words that should be top-of-mind when we are designing BPM to deliver its promise. As we move into 2011 and as real benefits from BPM come under the spotlight – as it is bound to, it assumes more importance.

©2012 Bouncing Thoughts. All Rights Reserved.