PROMIS and the BPTG agree on cooperation


The following press release was sent out yesterday:
PROMIS Solutions AG (PROMIS) announces today an agreement on cooperation with Business Process Transformations Group (BPTG).

PROMIS and the BPTG have signed today a memorandum of understanding about future joint operations to create a higher demand for their services and products around the world. Through this alliance PROMIS will become with their Enterprise Value Architect (EVA) Netmodeler an official Custodian of the 8 Omega Framework.

The intention of the cooperation is to establish a strategic alliance leveraging PROMIS strong expertise in this area with the right suite of products and BPTG skills in the area of methodology and implementation. BPTG’s existing Network of experienced Consultants coupled with a large Customer portfolio and PROMIS EVA product suite will generate a successful mix for both parties.


To read the full release click here

What does this mean?

Well PROMIS are currently developing a tool that is set to become the market leader in Enterprise Architecture - EVA Netmodeler (which I am currently evaluating). With the incorporation of the BPTG 8 Omega framework into that tool it will increase the footprint of organisations into which the tool can go. The BPTG will benefit from having their framework supported in an industry leading tool. One item of note is that all BPTG members will get instant access to this through the EVA Netmodeler server which will be hosted by BPTG. This will increase collaboration and, presumably, decrease timelines

From a process point of view this now gives a 'Software as a Service' implementation of a change model applicable across all industries using an acknowledged industry-wide standard.

That has to be good, right?

Building the Business Case for Process Management

It's a sad fact that in today's business environment, 'The ROI' is generally king.

Unless you can provide a compelling business case for business process management you are unlikely to be able to gain any credence or acceptance for that. And when I say a compelling business case this refers to a quantifiable positive impact on the company's bottom line.

Unfortunately, like 'quality' as a concept, business process management (not Business Process Management) is something that everyone can agree to in principle, but which tends to fall down when actual figures are produced.

The problem is the nebulous nature of the topic. It is much easier in a business to look at something concrete - such as a manufacturing site building being created, or a new CRM application being added - than it is to look at 'a process capability', and justify it on a dollar (or Pound Sterling/Euro/Yen) basis.

Don't get me wrong, it's very easy to quantify the cost of doing something. This is created from adding up training costs, software installation and maintenance costs, consultancy costs etc. and arriving at a bottom line figure. What's more difficult is arriving at a figure for savings.

Although that's not always the case.

Take, for example a manufacturing line that is experiencing issues with rework. Each piece of rework is costing the company an amount of money. By recognising the process issue behind this and resolving it with process improvement it is easy to arrive at a cost saving. But not all businesses are like that.

I'm working with an organisation at the moment who have just received venture capital to allow them to expand. Their VC's have mandated a tripling of turnover within 3 years as a result of the cash injection. Obviously that can't be achieved purely by increasing business, costs have to be decreased too. This is a case where managing and understanding the processes has to play a part.

But I can't build the business case.

The reason I can't build the business case is that I can't know what I need to know about the company until I've been in and seen it ,and I can't go in and see it until the business case has been created to allow me in there. It's Catch-22.

So how can we solve the problem? How can we build a business case for process management that focuses on tangible items a CEO can understand?

Let me propose a couple of suggestions:

1) Identify a recognised need for understanding and managing your processes. Let's say, for example, that you were looking to outsource a section of your organisation. Understanding the processes that are supported by that part of the business would enable you to be better prepared to handle outsourcing discussions. Understanding exactly where the responsibility is passed to the outsourcing company and exactly where it comes back to your organisation has to give you a financial advantage.

Assign a notional value to each 'transaction' (i.e. if the outsourcing company is managing your Accounts Receivables, divide the cost of outsourcing your AR department by the number of transactions dealt with in a year and this will give you a notional value per transaction. If you don't know how much the outsourcing is going to cost you, use the cost of your AR function from last year). Divide that figure by the number of 'steps' or 'handoffs' each transaction goes through. This will give you a notional cost per process step. Now realise that each time a transaction has to go through one of these steps it is costing your company $x. Now look at the amount of rework that is being performed at the moment. Multiply that by the notional dollar cost and this will give you the amount that bad process is costing. It is generally all bad process that causes things like that to happen.

2) Identify a target saving. Assume that at present you are in an organisation that has an overhead of $xM. Target a particular saving against that which you would like to come as a result of process improvement (say $0.25M) This will give you the top line of the business case. You can then start to understand the bottom line of the business case by identifying the factors mentioned earlier (training costs, software installation and maintenance costs, consultancy costs etc). Subtract the two and that's your business case. The downside of this is that it is not always feasible to assume that the target saving can be achieved through process improvement. Sometimes the figures are just outlandish!

The benefit of this type of proposal is that once the initial costs have been saved, the capability that has been implemented to identify and improve processes can be applied to other parts of the business at a very small incremental costs. This is a key differentiator between process improvement projects and other types of projects: Once the capability has been created, it can be applied to other parts of the organisation with minimal incremental cost.

Summary

I answered a similar question recently on Linked-in which was asking how to convince a CEO to subscribe to Enterprise Architecture. My reply to that was quite simple: "Take your nearest competitor and analyse what advantage they would have over you if they could make strategic decisions and implement them in half the time you do. Then ask your board why you wouldn't put in something that would enable you to do that. EA can enable you to do that" Maybe the business case for process management is along the similar lines "Take your nearest competitor and analyse what advantage they would have over you if their processes were slick, streamlined and manged efficiently Then ask your board why you wouldn't put in something that would enable you to do the same with your processes"

Sometimes it just needs someone to show the leap of faith in starting the ball rolling.


Reminder: 'Doing Business Process Work in your organisation - A white paper' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this free download.



For more about me check out my "About Me' page

All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

The Process Cafe goes mobile

In an attempt to get as many people access to the Process Cafe as possible, I have now enabled mobile access to this blog.

That means you can now read the Process Cafe on your iPhone, Treo or other mobile device in a special 'mobile friendly' manner.

In order to do this just point your mobile at the Process Cafe Mobile site. That link is http://processcafe.mofuse.mobi/

You will still get everything you would on the full Process Cafe website but in a format more suited to mobile devices.

This service is provided by mofuse who are one of the leaders in mobile blogging

Enjoy your mobile reading!


Reminder: 'Doing Business Process Work in your organisation - A white paper' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this free download.



For more about me check out my "About Me' page

All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

Testing the Testimonials

I'll be posting some information about 'EVA Netmodeler' - a new EA tool that I saw today - in a couple of days, when I've had a chance to play with it for a bit longer, but in the meantime let's talk customer testimonials

Metastorm have just released a set of customer testimonials in a big push to get people bought into their software. This isn't a new feature (after all if you look at this page you'll see someone mentioned there who hasn't worked for that company for getting on for two years (me!), so it's not revolutionary), but what is different is the use of custom created video testimonials.

These cover a whole range of customers and topics.

The thing I particularly like about this is the way the questions are edited together to give a complete story about why Metastorm was chosen, what the problems were that lead them there etc., but at no point is there a blatant plug for the Metastorm software itself. It's been very cleverly done.

It got me thinking about the whole area of customer testimonials and their value. For example we've all been to web sites that have faceless individuals telling you how they were 'so glad they bought product xyz' and how it 'changed my life' - as if this is in itself enough to persuade you to buy the product. What very few testimonials actually do is to engage the satisfied purchaser in a dialogue about what they were hoping to achieve with the product, what their problems were and what led them to chose that product.

Consider the following web-site: PXMethod Speed Reading (Incidentally this is a completely bogus web site designed as a means of testing uptake on a similar product. As it says on the payment page if you click through "Note: This page is a mock-up. It is NOT secure. Please do not use real credit card information. Use a few numbers in that field and hit "Order Now" to see the final screen."). Note the heavy use of testimonials down the side and in the body of the text itself. These are all meant to increase your level of confidence with the product and persuade you to purchase. But consider the content of the testimonials. There is no context in which to view them, there is no identification of people other than a partial name and location "Amy K., Princeton Day School", and there is no way of knowing how genuine these testimonials are.

Compare those to the Metastorm video testimonials. You will see that all the participants are named (as are the companies they work for). The testimonial is placed in context with a set of questions that allows you to gain confidence that the speakers are genuine. It also answers some of the questions you will be asking yourself when deciding to purchase an EA/BPM tool of your own. "How did you build your business case for this tool?"

It is undoubtedly a very expensive way of gathering testimonials, but I believe it is extremely persuasive.

What do you think?



Reminder: 'Doing Business Process Work in your organisation - A white paper' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this free download.



For more about me check out my "About Me' page

All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford