Tech Decisions For Insurance: BPM Case Study with Xbridge’s David Brakoniecki

Last week, Tech Decisions For Insurance published a case study covering the use of Lombardi Teamworks at Xbridge, the UK’s leading online insurance and finance broker.  The article is very thorough, and covers some of the ways that BPM is helping Xbridge manage the tremendous growth that they have experienced since being founded in 2000.

In the article, you will be able to see how Xbridge has improved their processes to add value and efficiency to the business.  Specifically, CIO David Brakoniecki talks about how BPM has aided him in improving processes within Xbridge’s call center, and ultimately enables them to increase efficiency and consistency in customer service because they have much more visibility into their business. The full article can be found here.

You can read even more about what Xbridge is doing with BPM to weather the economic turmoil and maintain their market position here.

Morphis: Accidental Process Consultants

Morphis is a company that provides currency supply chain management software and counts among its customers the U.S. Federal reserve as well as central banks, ATMs and armored car companies around the world.  Process mapping was the furthest thing from their minds when they started in business but they quickly found out that if they didn’t start leading their customers in process mapping sessions they wouldn’t be able to sell their product.

Last week I chatted with Gary Faulkner of Morphis about how they found themselves unexpectedly leading process mapping sessions for customers or, as Gary likes to describe the turn of events, “A funny thing happened on the way to the software business.”

Take a listen:

>> My talk with Gary (6:59):  Listen (mp3) Listen (ogg)

Blueprint enabled a pair-o-dime shift for this currency manager.

Some of the Topics we tackle:

• Conundrum: Morphis is meant to be customized to fit a customer’s process but if a customer can’t describe their process how can Morphis be customized?
• Being new to process mapping they were looking for something that was intuitive and easy to use.
• The power of seeing the process laid out visually and the importance of working on the excercise collaboratively.
• How Morphis’s implementations are all done virtually over Webex around the globe

Who has the biggest welcome mat for BPM?

Like all enterprise software solutions, the person implementing a BPM strategy must contend with a chasm between the business and IT. The two speak different languages, have different priorities and tend to justify results in a different light.

So which side do you approach first?

There’s a tendency for enterprise software to gravitate to IT. And why not?  IT gets it, right? They understand the technology and the inherent benefits it brings to the table. And IT is constantly justifying new software, hardware and services through the annual budget reviews. So it seems natural for anyone wishing to see a BPM solution deployed to look at IT first.

I believe this is a mistake.

Despite conventional thinking, the right place to begin conveying the benefits of a BPM deployment is on the business side of the house. That’s because BPM has to be looked at not for the technology, features and specs, but for its ability to change and improve the business.

Read the rest of this entry »

What the heck’s Cloud Computing? And why should you care?

There has been a lot of buzz about cloud computing lately but what exactly is it?  Everyone seems to have their own slightly different definition.

My belief is that if you draw on compute resources, be they apps or platforms, from a source you don’t own or manage and that you can scale up or down as needed and you are billed accordingly… that’s cloud computing. The biggest advantages of this as a customer are the ability to get started immediately, no software to load and maintain, expand as needed and even turn the service off if its not useful.  Also because there is not a big Capex outlay to get started, you are not bogged down in approval cycles.

What do some of the experts in the field think?  I went to the Rackspace customer event a couple of weeks ago to find out.  (In case your wondering, Lombardi Blueprint, our cloud-based process modeling tool is hosted by Rackspace and will soon be making use of its cloud files in its next release.)

This is what I learned about the past, present and future of Cloud Computing:

• My podcast with John Engates, Rackspace CTO and John’s presentation
• My podcast with Lanham Napier, Rackspace CEO
• My podcast with Jonathan Bryce, Mosso (Rackspace’s cloud division) founder

BTW, if you don’t recognize the building in the clouds above, its the Alamo located in San Antonio where the event was held.

SearchCIO BPM Case Study with NACCO’s Bob Shallow

Yesterday SearchCIO and Accenture published a new webcast with Bob Shallow, who is the Director of Global Product Development Processes, Systems and Operations at NACCO Material Handling Group, a $2.8 billion dollar company that engineers and manufactures Hyster and Yale Material Handling Equipment (lift trucks, aftermarket parts, etc.).

NACCO is also a Lombardi customer, and you can read more about them here.

In the webcast Bob talks about what exactly has been accomplished using BPM at NACCO, demonstrating an architectural step-through of how their processes have changed, with a particular focus on ROI. It’s exciting that so many Lombardi customers like NACCO are passionate about their BPM successes and want to share their best practices.

You’ll need to register on the SearchCIO site to view the webcast.

Lombardi Is Best In Show

Two weeks ago, Lombardi presented at the BPM Tech Show in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. The conference is organized to help organizations with their decision-making process for selecting a BPM vendor by having each of the vendors demonstrate their approach to addressing a specific business process use case(s). By giving attendees a chance to evaluate several vendors in just three days, it helps them speed up the decision process and avoid some of the risks of the whole process.

The great news is we were just informed that the attendees rated Lombardi as one of two “Best-In-Show” vendors at the event!

Our very own Brandon Baxter delivered the presentation that won. He participated in the “BPM Product Shoot-Out” where each vendor was allotted 10 minutes to demonstrate how they would address one of two possible scenarios with their products. Brandon picked the loan approval process scenario to demonstrate Lombardi’s end-to-end BPM capabilities. In it, he highlighted how to use the Lombardi Solution discover and document processes, deploy and manage them, and to analyze and measure their performance and continuously improve their performance.

Judging by the votes, Brandon clearly demonstrated how our product separates itself from the rest.  We’re really pleased to be named “Best-In-Show” by the attendees.

Podcast: Process Mapping at 99 year old Tillamook Dairy

Founded in 1899, the Tillamook County Creamery Association has had a history of passing down processes from artisan to artisan.  When a new CEO came on board about 18 months ago he realized that he needed to quickly get a handle on the company’s processes in order to move forward and compete in today’s market.

It was Steve Burge who was tapped to put together a Process Management Model to lead the collection and documentation of the company’s processes.

Take a listen to the podcast I did with Steve where he talks about his challenge and how he and a core team mapped all of Tillamook’s processes within six months.

The Process of Process Modeling

Do not be alarmed. This post is not an instruction manual on the finer points of BPMN. For those of you who wish to indulge, this should provide you with many hours of entertainment.

Rather, I want to reflect upon a few thoughts about process modeling, and share some practical hints.

And whilst Blueprint is my favorite modeling tool in existence, the following comments are equally applicable whether you’re using sticky notes, a white board, or the back of an envelope. (I’ve also seen bits of string used quite creatively!)

Process modeling is a process in itself. Therefore, like any other process, we can aim to improve its efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility. So instead of approaching modeling in an ad-hoc manner, how can we make it more repeatable, reduce the cycle time, raise quality and customer satisfaction?

To me, process modeling is fundamentally an exercise in communication. A model may be generated in order to share information between members of a project team about the way the process currently works. Or to share information between the project team and the stakeholders. Or with vendors. Or between a business expert and a business analyst. Or a business analyst and a developer. In all of these instances, the process modeling is not meant to be an end in itself, but a means to identify, verify, and inform interested parties about the way the process is, could or should be.

If we accept the model as an abstraction of reality, a visual representation of various process attributes, then the question arises not so much as to whether a process model is right or wrong, but, like a conversation between two people - is it effective or ineffective? Does it convey useful meaning to the intended audience, or not? A meaningful communication forms a sound basis for action - but a confusing, misleading or ambiguous one cannot be expected to yield a high quality outcome. Garbage in, garbage out.

How then, to create effective, clear, useful communication about a process?

Read the rest of this entry »

The Blueprint October ‘08 Update

The latest monthly refresh of Blueprint went live this morning, and I’m excited to give you the scoop on the changes. Over the past 6 weeks, we’ve focused on addressing the top pieces of feedback that we’ve heard from customers. With this release, you’ll find it much easier to keep track of who’s currently using Blueprint, to collaborate with new users, and to print out your process diagrams in exactly the right format. We use your feedback to drive our release schedule, so make sure you give us your thoughts!

Let’s take a look at the improvements in detail:

• User Management: In today’s business environment, it’s more important than ever to ensure that you’re getting maximum utilization of your software. One of the great benefits of Blueprint’s SaaS model is that you can add users to your account just in time when they need access to the tool. When they’re done, you can remove or reuse their license so you’re not paying for software that isn’t being used. This can save you a ton of money compared to traditional desktop tools like Visio that require a big upfront investment and then only get used a few times a year by many people.

  In this release, we’ve greatly enhanced our user management capabilities. You can now see at a glance who has access to your account, when they last used Blueprint, and how many seats you have available. If someone doesn’t need access anymore, it’s just one click to archive them and make their license available to someone new.

  

  Read the rest of this entry »

The ABC’s of BPM

There’s a great piece up on Forbes right now, titled “The ABC’s of BPM.”

The article is part of the very well-informed “JargonSpy” series, whose goal is to educate the publication’s audience about the business value behind some of the technology world’s more opaque acronyms (let’s be honest, BPM isn’t exactly swimming in sex appeal is it?)

The author is Dan Woods, who is also the CTO at Evolved Media and the author of the book Process First: The Evolution of the Business Process Expert.

In the article, Dan talks in depth about the coming of age of the process expert, especially vis-à-vis the translation task that is “needed constantly between the business as it defines the process and the IT staff as it communicates what functionality is needed.”

Read the rest of this entry »