Business
Process Management Articles
Learning from Context to Improve Business
Processes
K. Ploesser, M. Peleg, P. Soffer, M.
Rosemann, and J. Recker, BPTrends Newsletter and Website, January 6,
2009.
Members of a team of researchers from Queensland University,
Australia, Stanford University, USA and Haifa University, Israel,
are currently investigating how context-awareness can become an
integral part of business process modeling. They argue that to get
to the next level of process management we must broaden our analysis
beyond internal processes to the contextual environment in which the
processes are embedded.
The Wheels Haven’t Come off But They May Be a Bit
Smaller
Ian Gotts, BPTrends Newsletter and Website, January 6,
2009.
The discussion is on doom and gloom, and those who are
drawing parallels with The Great Depression were not even alive in
1929. But some companies are focusing on what needs to be done to
not just weather the storm, but come out far stronger and dominant.
As John D. Rockefeller said, "These are days when many are
discouraged. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have come and
gone. Prosperity has always returned and will
again."
Closing the Business-IT Gap Once And For
All
Wolf Rivkin, B-Wave Software, BPMInstitute
Website and Newsletter, December
12, 2008.
The gap between IT
and Business in applications and how well they work for Business,
widens everyday. This is because of outdated and ineffective
software development methodologies. Wolf Rivkin proposes a new
methodology called Business Process Developing Life Cycle (BPDLC). It proclaims
Business Process (BP) as the basic element of an enterprise’s
functioning, and defines a development methodology built around
business processes rather than functional
management.
Go for the Green – Realize Both Cash and Environmental
Savings across the Enterprise
Laura Mooney,
BPTrends Newsletter and Website, January
6, 2009.
By adopting and standardizing on a common Business Process
Management (BPM) and Enterprise Architecture and Modeling (EA)
technology platform throughout your organization, you can have an
immediate impact on both cost saving and environmental improvements
and deliver a platform for ongoing improvements and long-term
sustainability. At the same time, you can also drive strategic
business process improvement that will ultimately help you gain
significant operational advantages.
The Process-Managed Org Chart: The End of Management
and the Rise of Bioteams
Peter Fingar,
Greystone Group, BPTrends Newsletter and Website, January 6,
2009.
An overlay of end-to-end process management onto existing
functional organizations has its rough edges, to say the least. In
fact, the transformation to a process-managed enterprise could
really mean the End of Management, as we know it.
A Practical Guide to Delivering a Superior Customer
Experience
Ron Hildebrandt, Enkata, Information
Management (DMReview) Newsletter and Website, January 9,
2009.
Today’s competitive pressures challenge you to rethink the
relationship between you and your customers. The contact center is
no longer a cost center. It’s a key driver of competitive advantage.
In order to compete, you must stop managing your contact center for
speed of service and start managing for a truly superior customer
experience - not by your own standards, but from your customers’
point of view.
Adoption of Data Governance by
Business
David Waddington, Information Management (DM
Review) Newsletter and Website, December 1,
2008
Information
Systems are worthless without Data Quality Governance. The
Information Difference data governance survey reveals considerable
business interest in data governance, with two-thirds of
respondents' companies focused on instituting data
governance.
BPM is NOT Software
Engineering
Keith Swenson,
BPM.com Newsletter and Website,
January 16, 2008.
A lot of the confusion and
difficulty in the BPM community is because some people think that BPM is a kind of
Software Engineering. Indeed, superficially it looks
like Software Engineering: you start with requirements, you
determine the pieces of information that need to be stored and
retrieved from variables, you might have a drawing of the
relationships, and in the end you have something that can be
installed and executed on networked computers. But there is a
difference, and that difference is the entire reason that BPM
exists.
Business
Process Outsourcing Articles
The BPO industry: Trends
2009
The ValueNotes
Team, ValueNotes Outsourcing Weekly Newsletter and
Website, January 14, 2009.
The BPO
industry has not remained unaffected by the economic slowdown.
Already the crisis in the financial markets is acting as a dampener
for deals in the BPO sector. The number of BPO deals fell by 30%
over the last year (from 430 in the year 2007 to 302 in 2008).
Despite this, there is a lot of optimism amongst the service
providers as well as the investor community, and we too foresee a
positive picture for the BPO industry in the long term. We have
identified some of the key trends that will impact the industry
going forward.
7 Sins of Offshore Outsourcing
Geraldine Fox,
Nigel Hughes, Baseline Newsletter, and Website, January 6,
2008.
The mistakes organizations make when
implementing and managing offshore and outsourcing initiatives can
be understood in the context of the seven deadly sins. Offshore
outsourcing, offshore development and moving jobs offshore can have
significant cost reductions when adopting a fix and mix approach.
This involves an analysis and improvement of operations prior to
offshoring (fix), followed by a movement of specific functions
offshore where appropriate
(mix).
How to Make Offshore Outsourcing
Deals Withstand Crisis
Situations
Dean Davison, CIO Magazine and Website, January
16, 2009.
The
Satyam fiasco. Economic recession and budget cuts. These 5 tips will
help IT departments create effective contingency plans to transfer
services back in house or to another service provider when the
unexpected happens.
Making Sense of Offshore Outsourcing
2.0
Arpit Kaushik,
CIO Newsletter and Website,
January 13, 2008
As
outsourcing continues to evolve, new yardsticks are needed to assess
successful engagements and measure ROI. These tips will help you
capitalize on the benefits offered by offshore, nearshore and
onshore outsourcing.
Offshoring Set to be an Integral Part of Market
Research Value Chain: Market Research Outsourcing Buyer
Survey
The ValueNotes Team, ValueNotes Outsourcing
Weekly Newsletter and Website, January 21,
2009.
The recent buyer survey of market research
agencies from various international markets released by ValueNotes
found that close to two-thirds of the research agencies are already
offshoring to service providers in India, Eastern Europe and Latin
America. While the large multi-national research agencies have
always been outsourcing certain services, the smaller agencies with
revenues typically less than $10 m are adopting offshoring. The
survey reveals that with greater competition, research agencies,
especially the smaller ones, are increasingly using offshoring to
gain competitive advantage
Tips from iSixSigma's Best Places to
Work
iSixSigma Newsletter
and Website,
January 12,
2009.
Recently, iSixSigma set out
to define the work environment that is most desirable to Six Sigma
professionals and to honor the companies that best provide it.
Employees from nominated companies were invited to complete surveys
that examined factors such as job satisfaction, culture, rewards and
recognition, and training and career development. Here are some tips
from iSixSigma's best places to work.
Aligning Call Center Agent Goals with Customer
Desires
J.Delayne
Stroud, DeLeeuw Associates, iSixSigma Finance
Newsletter and Website,
January 12,
2009.
Even though customers are
becoming more self-reliant through the use of technology, they still
need assistance from time to time, which has led to an increased
volume in call centers. Within these call centers, there may be no
bigger improvement opportunity than the agent call handling process.
In most cases, this is the only interaction the customer has with a
company and they expect superior delivery in answering their
questions and resolving their issues.
Creativity and Six Sigma: Try Doing Some
River-Jumping
Detlev Ponnwitz, iSixSigma Europe Newsletter and
Website, January 7,
2009.
Innovation is
vital to a company's growth. Therefore it is sensible to establish a
work environment that encourages people to be creative – a
prerequisite to innovation. Introducing Six Sigma as a change
initiative can help build that creative environment. But creating
such a culture from scratch takes time. During the first years of a
deployment, Six Sigma project leaders may not be able to wait for a
creative environment to be established. To gain the full benefit
from a Six Sigma project, they may have to introduce creativity
themselves. To do that, they can harness tools, techniques and a way
of thinking that lead to innovation.
Notable
News
Top Ten Trends in Services
Globalization
Tholons Globalization Newsletter and
Website, January
2009.
The tsunami of the global economic downturn
continues to impact the foundation of the outsourcing industry both
near and long-term. Service providers are already feeling the
effects of decreased margins and employee downsizing, while service
buyers are reducing IT budget allocations for outsourcing
engagements. This in turn has caused a cascading effect across the
industry evidenced by drying pipelines, cancelled bookings and
increased pressure to deliver value beyond cost. But these ten
trends point to a more optimistic 2009.
Down To Business: Is Satyam Really India's
Enron?
Rob Preston,
InformationWeek Newsletter and Website, November 19,
2008.
"India's Enron" is how the country's
commentators are (predictably) characterizing Satyam Computers
following the resignation of its founder and chairman, B. Ramalinga
Raju, amid revelations of widespread accounting fraud at the global
IT service provider. Rob, having had the opportunity to interview
Raju in July 2008, as well as former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling
months before his company's fall from grace in 2001, feels more
qualified than most to comment on that comparison, which is right on
and dead wrong for several reasons.
How to Make Offshore Outsourcing Deals Withstand
Crisis Situations
Dean Davison, CIO Newsletter and Website, January 16,
2009.
The
Satyam fiasco. Economic recession and budget cuts. These 5 tips will
help IT departments create effective contingency plans to transfer
services back in house or to another service provider when the
unexpected happens.
Contracts in BPO/KPO - Highlights of
2008
ValueNotes Outsourcing Weekly Newsletter and Website, January 28,
2009.
While first half of 2008 was about
growth and opportunities, economic crisis and recession dominated
the later half of 2008. Similar to most other industries, the impact
of economic downturn has started showing up even in the BPO sector.
As compared to 403 deals in 2007, ValueNotes Outsourcing DealTracker
registered only 302 deals in 2008. The average deal value and
duration also remain largely unchanged between previous and the
current year.
File Transfer Solution Improves Business
Process
Linda Tucci,
searchCIO.com Newsletter and Website, December 16,
2008.
Automating
and improving business processes has catapulted to the top of many
CIO agendas for 2009 as companies look to save money. For auction
house Christie's International PLC, managed file transfer (MFT)
software has fundamentally changed one of its most critical business
processes: producing the more than 600 high-end catalogs that
advertise its sales and educate customers.
Satyam Scandal Fallout: Truth and
Consequences
Anthony O'Donnell,
Insurance and Technology, January 22,
2009.
The Satyam scandal may be a unique case, but
insurers nonetheless are likely to require greater transparency from
their offshore partners, especially for business process
outsourcing.
Banks to Face Greater Scrutiny in
2009
Maria Bruno-Britz,
Bank Systems & Technology, January 6,
2008.
As the new administration assumes power, it
will move to stabilize the financial sector and prevent a repeat of
the current financial crisis. But regulators must balance the need
for more oversight with the need to promote healthy
commerce.
Will a Smarter Banking Industry
Emerge from the Crisis?
Katherine Burger, Bank
Systems & Technology, January 8,
2008.
The credit crisis and related fallout
have created a kind of "crisis of faith" across banking. But after
the anger, sorrow and confusion, a smarter, stronger and more
customer-focused banking industry could emerge.
Notable Events
6th Procure-To-Pay Summit
February 23 -
February 29, 2009, Miami, FL. IQPC
13th
Annual American Shared Services Week
March 22
- March 27, 2009, Orlando, FL, IQPC
Gartner Business Process Management
Summit
March 23 - March 25, 2009,
San Diego, CA, Gartner
10th Annual Process Excellence Summit London
April 21 - April 22, 2009, London, UK.
IQPC
10th Business Process Management Summit
April 27 - April 29, 2009, Miami, FL.
IQPC
9th Annual Shared Services & Outsourcing
Week
May 11 - May 14, 2009,
Budapest, Hungary, IQPC
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