Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BecauseProcessMatters/~3/Tprby_nMlqI/
We live in “In the Age of the Customer” a time when he world’s leading companies look outward to emphasize a deep understanding of their customers, and what it takes to make their customers successful. They have come to realize that only when their customers are successful, will they be successful.
As Sam Walton once said “The Customer is King – for they can fire everyone in the organisation from the CEO down – simply by spending their money somewhere else!”
Switching our mind-set from one of internal focus to one of external focus is not easy; we know intuitively that an outside-in approach leads us to better decisions on how to serve our customers. But for the most part the monolithic IT systems upon which we mostly still rely are not best suited to supporting us during such a transition and can actually prevent us from serving our customers.
The need to better serve customers is something that BPM and in particular BPMS have long been touted as the ideal technology. Well suited to assist such business transformations, however, in reality the majority of use cases for BPMS tools have been directed at the automation of more transactional work. We have concentrated on removing paper or reducing task times e.g. BPM has been used as a tool for efficiency and still very much internally focused.
Truly successful businesses and leaders understand that the growth they seek and the market differentiation that sets them apart only comes when they switch their focus from efficiency and instead direct their people and efforts in the direction of effectiveness. The results are even better when that effectiveness is directed at better serving their customers.
Consider the example of First United Bank and Trust, a company that found that the old ways of working were actually limited their ability to grow as a business. By first addressing efficiency issues and then moving on to effectiveness they were able to harness their people and resources better, deliver better service to their customers and as a result accelerate their corporate growth once more. In this short video, Bryan Wandel, Director of IT, First United Bank and Trust, shares how they made the change.
This need for effectiveness requires that we once again rethink our IT systems and our approaches to developing them. Any business today, however large or small is going to be more dependent on technology today than ever before. Greater effectiveness requires us to find better ways to create flexible applications that are more able to deliver what we need, not just today, but tomorrow and the day after – for agility and responsiveness are just two of the hallmarks of an effective business.
Much of the effectiveness we seek will come as result of a better harnessing of the skills and abilities and enabling greater collaboration between our own people, between us and our customers and even between us and our competitors. In this respect the jury is still out on whether pure BPMS is really the right technology to help us.
It seems that perhaps there is a better way; Smart Process Apps an approach that provides us with the benefits of traditional package solutions, but with the greater flexibility afforded by BPMS based systems. At the same time Smart Process Apps reduce system implementation times, while supporting a more collaborative environment and providing ubiquitous access to systems.
At first glance you might think that Smart Process Apps is just another marketing buzzword. If so consider that recent report by Forrester Research suggests that the market for Smart Process Apps will reach $27.6bn by 2015, while the BPM platform market will only grow to around $6.5bn. (To learn more about what Forrester have to say on Smart Process Apps click here for a free report)
Based on these numbers it would seem that transitioning to Smart Process Apps offers a win-win for both vendors and their clients.
One final note, be sure to download a free copy of Forrester Research, Inc.’s report, “Smart Process Applications Fill a Big Business Gap” at: www.opentextbpm.com/SmartProcessAppsReport, and register for OpenText’s Smart Process Applications webinar with Forrester Vice President and Principal Analyst, Craig LeClair, on March 20th.
Related posts:
- OpenText Smart Process Applications: At the Intersection of Social Street and Core Systems Ave Last week, I helped kick off OpenText’s EIM Days in…
- Metastorm Positioned in Leaders Quadrant in 2009 BPMS Magic Quadrant Earlier this week, Metastorm announced that it has been positioned…
- Forrester Ranks Top Business Process Management Suites Yesterday Metastorm announced that it has been recognized as a…
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
