Latest News from Business Process Improvement

Quality Assurance: The Most Undervalued Piece of Devops

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 07:15:00 EDT

Software works the way it was designed because of a group of downtrodden, undervalued and unsung heroes. Often dismissively described as testers, these champions of precision can be more accurately termed Quality Assurance. They set the bar high and work hard to ensure that the software you buy is easy to use and efficient. Without their expertise you would encounter a lot of inaccessible, bug-ridden releases. QA is frequently undervalued by software developers. It is often seen as an unnecessary expense – a drain on time and resources. The truth is that finding and fixing bugs is an unrewarding task that demands a great deal of effort for very little palpable return. It’s tough to calculate the cost of bugs in your finished product and even tougher to take your eye off spiraling costs and a slipping deadline.

How Cloud Computing Is Changing Business Commerce

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 12:00:00 EDT

Cloud computing is changing the rules of the game for many industries. Every day we hear compelling stories about how banks use cloud-based solutions to help customers pay bills online, health care institutions tap cloud networks to collaborate on medical care, and colleges leverage technology to create virtual classrooms. Cloud computing hasn’t had a huge effect on business commerce. Despite billions spent on technologies to streamline the process, business commerce has been remarkably resilient to technological progress. Commerce collaboration between companies is still weighed down by paper-based processes and outmoded operating infrastructures. In fact, more than 80 percent of business-to-business commerce transactions are completed manually, and companies still send 85 percent of invoices and payments on paper.

Mobile eSigning with SmartSign Web

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 11:19:00 EDT

Need to get that contract executed today, but you are sitting in the airport heading to a conference? The popularity of Apple's iPad and iPhone mobile devices are liberating employees and users from their desks, and with SmartSign Web allows them to sign anywhere, anytime. The iPad holds the particular promise to accelerate the mass adoption of electronic signatures. Imagine walking into your local bank to open an account and the bank employee hands you an iPad to affix your signature to the account application or the check signature card. Or when you are returning a vehicle off lease at the dealership, quickly go through the vehicle inspection and sign off right there with the iPad.

A Glimpse into the Future of BI - Through the Israeli Market

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 08:45:00 EDT

The Israeli BI market, or 'the Pond', as it is referred to by the locals is a good example of how the BI market looks like in most parts of the world. A few months ago, I wrote an article about the relationships between business intelligence platform vendors and their distribution networks, and where these relationships are headed. The key message in that article was that Value-Added Resellers (VARs) must understand that self-service business intelligence is where the market is headed – and adjust their business models accordingly. A company selling BI solutions based on another company’s BI platform will need to provide real added value to the customer in order to stay in business. In the not-too-distant future, this value will almost certainly come from industry-specific professional knowledge and experience (as opposed to purely technical expertise). More and more potential customers will no longer accept lengthy projects and, with the new software and technologies now emerging, it is no longer justifiable.

Cloud Expo Exhibitor Hubspan Setting Record Growth in 2010

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 19:30:00 EDT

Hubspan on Thursday announced record growth across multiple areas of its business in the first half of 2010, including channel and direct sales, new customer acquisition, network connections and transactional volume. Hubspan attributes this growth to multiple factors, including its expanding channel strategy, strong customer retention rate and increasing adoption of cloud-based solutions. A leading provider of cloud-based business integration solutions, Hubspan enables companies to integrate business processes throughout the extended enterprise.

Business Intelligence? Yes Minister!

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:32:00 EDT

I recently watched an episode of the classic BBC series ‘Yes, Minister’. In this episode, the minister asked his assistant, Bernard, to inquire about a new hospital where there are supposedly no patients and a ridiculous amount of administrative staff. Bernard conducts some research and returns to the minister with his results. This episode (‘The Compassionate Society’, 1981) is hilarious. But how is it relevant to business intelligence? Well, think that instead of a conversation between a minister and his assistant about a new hospital, this conversation is actually between a CEO and his CIO regarding an ongoing business intelligence project. You've got yourself a conversation which is still happening more often than not in BI projects, 30 years later.

A Case for Business Intelligence

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 18:00:00 EDT

As organizations grow in scope and complexity, aggregating real-time data from numerous systems and converting that data to decision-ready information becomes increasingly challenging. When striving for Business Performance Improvement (BPI), Business Intelligence technology provides the necessary framework to gain the insight needed to lead to better decisions.

Build Your Business Case for the Cloud Today

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:41:00 EDT

My partner and I consult with a variety of firms on the topic of cloud adoption. It is surprising how few really understand the strategic and ROI benefits of its application. Total Cost of Ownership is an important number to use when evaluating IT and in particular when comparing extant systems to cloud solutions. Often the thinking is that what an organization is using now is a better place than making a change - and the primary driver in most people's minds is cost. Utilizing TCO is the only way managers can evaluate apples to apples. Often there are apples to oranges comparisons and this is why more organizations aren't jumping into the cloud faster. They simply aren't doing the proper math to realize the savings.

Cloud: What a Business Leader Must Know

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 18:02:00 EDT

In speaking with Service Providers, the conversation around cloud often moves away from the technical challenges of delivering a large-scale multi-tenant on-demand offering, and into business considerations such as the readiness of customers to consume cloud services and the prioritization of cloud services to be offered. Cisco is working with SPs and SP customers to assist in delivering successful offerings and advancing the cloud market. For SPs, it’s important to understand who the offering is being built for, what revenue opportunity is enabled, and what ultimately needs to be delivered in order to meet the demands of the customer.

Moving Data Storage to the Cloud? What’s Your Business Continuity Plan?

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:59:00 EDT

Many trumpet increased availability as a reason to move to the cloud but what happens when your cloud provider is no longer available? Some companies are faced with this very question this week as storage provider, EMC announced its plan to shut down its Atmos Online cloud storage service immediately, according to a posting on its [...]

Global Migration - The Move to the Global Citizen

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 14:13:00 EDT

The third driver to the current revolution in business and institutions is shifting demography and not just age, but of culture. Global migration is the least understood and least governed area of globalization. The labor pool and customer base is being shifted in ways that have far reaching implications and you should take note of it. The video from the Economist above reflects migration patterns and economic implications. Theorists sometimes call the movement of people around the world the "third wave" of globalization, after the movement of goods and the movement of money that began in the previous century. Trade and finance follow global norms and are governed by institutions: the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund. There is no equivalent group with “migration” in its name. The most personal and perilous form of movement is the most unregulated. States make and often ignore their own rules, deciding who can come, how long they stay, and what rights they enjoy.

Lower Operating Costs by 90%

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 06:56:00 EDT

Globalism is here but its impact has not truly been realized yet. Many companies just are not aware of the opportunity that is available to them in resourcing large portions of their costs to outsourced inexpensive freelancers. I do it and you should consider doing it to. Jeff Bulla's recent post on lowering operating costs by 90% reminded me of just how important this strategy is and I've included some of his observations from a few recent participants in outsourcing solutions here. I originally became familiar with the notion from Tim Ferriss' (shown above) Four Hour Work Week. Every business today needs to understand how accessing outside resources can help them to grow faster and create more professional results. You might want to check out Yvonne Adele the CEO of Ideas Culture and Matt Barrie the CEO of Freelancer.com.

CloudSwitch Enterprise - Ready for Business

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:25:00 EDT

Today we launched the commercial version of our CloudSwitch Enterprise software at Structure 2010 in San Francisco. We’re ready for business and making our innovative software generally available. It’s an exciting moment for us, but it also reflects the evolution of the cloud industry. Two years ago when we were just designing and envisioning our products, we realized that enterprises would want to use the cloud – it seemed inevitable to us that the cloud would dramatically change the way companies build and scale their applications. However, many early discussions tended to go as follows: “Are you thinking of using cloud computing?” “Um, what’s cloud computing?”

Marketing Automation Must Support a Business Process

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:52:00 EDT

Manticore Technology and Bulldog Solutions have released a new white paper that addresses some misconceptions that B2B marketers may have about marketing automation. As they point out, it's terrific when an application is intuitive and easy to use, but marketing automation must be used in support of a business process if it's going to produce the desired results. Considering that Sirius Decisions predicts that 50% of B2B marketers will have marketing automation within the next 5 years, it's imperative to go about deploying it the right way, the first time. As we're hearing more and more - companies who implement marketing automation successfully can achieve stellar results.

HP's Robin Purohit Unpacks Business Service Management 9

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 06:51:00 EDT

For me, this release is an extremely proud moment. This has been the vision that we've had for some time, particularly around BSM 9, being able to bring all these points of monitoring information together into a simple, powerful way to solve these big business problems. Our customers are dealing with some of the most significant combination of changes in IT technologies and paradigms that I had ever seen. There's a whole new way of developing applications like Agile development, the real acceleration of virtualization from your desktop and test environments to production workloads, and all the evaluations of where the cloud and software as a service (SaaS) fits and how that supports the enterprise applications.

Why is a 90% failure rate ok?

Mon, 31 May 2010 11:22:00 EDT

The sales model builds in a 90% failure rate and we expect that! We build it right into the entire system: We hire 10X more sales people to get the results we seek, we expect and get 50% longer sales cycles than we could be having, we face objections because people are responding to the sales model itself, we lose clients we shouldn’t lose. And we consider all of this de rigour.

Issues Facing Businesses in An Accountant’s Perspective

Wed, 26 May 2010 13:55:00 EDT

After the Enron debacle, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) assumed a leadership role in the rush toward an international set of accounting standards (IFRS). The long and proud independent standard setting process in the United States of America is being phased out in favor of an international standard setting process with an international governing body, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). So what’s the big deal?

Animal, Human, Person, Cog, Number & Now We’re A Business

Sat, 22 May 2010 19:13:00 EDT

No, I didn’t drop dead and I didn’t win the lottery and just abandon writing a blog. I got lazy for a week, had the flu the next week, had too much work for a couple of weeks and then had a revelation. It’s hard to take time out and write a blog post amidst [...]

Today’s Business Challenges Will Not be Solved With Yesterday’s Technology

Fri, 21 May 2010 16:40:00 EDT

Innovation is occurring at 1997 levels again. Fueled by a new type of consumer, global manufacturers are busy retooling their websites and infrastructure to meet what they believe will be a huge post recessionary demand. Enterprises around the globe, many that have been on a ten-year technology hiatus, are suddenly discovering that their consumers are [...]

Femtocells: Implementing a Business Model to Increase SP Profitability

Thu, 20 May 2010 11:05:00 EDT

Contributed by Richard Medcalf, Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) Global Innovations Practice

Buying flowers for your loved one is a great thing to do: it creates goodwill and strengthens the relationship and makes the house look and smell nice. Why would you not want to do that? The question is relevant because it seems to me that when it comes to femtocells, Service Providers are doing the equivalent of not buying their loved one any flowers!

A Femtocell is a small device that attaches to a consumer’s home broadband networks to provide superior cellular coverage in the home. Think of them as having your own personal cellular network dedicated to you and your family.

Whilst there have been several commercial femtocell launches and field trials, demand has been somewhat lackluster. The problem is that SPs are reluctant to actively market an offer that admits their coverage is less than perfect, and customers are reluctant to pay extra for what they see as the SP’s responsibility of providing good coverage.

However, adoption of femtocells can really improve an SP’s financial metrics. Femtocells can provide additional service revenues, help reduce churn, create upsell opportunities in mobile data, accelerate fixed broadband offerings, lead to market share gains and, by offloading traffic from the 3G network onto the consumer’s broadband connection, significantly reduce the cost of delivering mobile Internet traffic. Customers benefit from better coverage, improved performance and new service and tariff options. In other words, a femtocell is an investment that benefits both parties - just like the flowers I mentioned earlier.

Data Quality Objectives for Data Quality Providers in the Cloud

Tue, 04 May 2010 09:15:00 EDT

There are data quality objectives for everyone. Google indicates that the term "data quality" is used in 135,000 global searches every month. It's not Taylor Swift with 55 million or Microsoft with 101 million. But it represents a fairly decent amount of interest for a rather mundane topic. The term "data quality tools", on the other hand, accounts for only 2,900 searches or 2% of all literal "data quality" searches.

Microsoft Says Business Spending Is Beginning

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 19:00:00 EDT

Microsoft Thursday beat the Street with record fiscal third-quarter revenue of $14.5 billion, up 6% compared to nasty last year when revenues dropped for the very first time on weak PC sales and the company had its first real layoff. This year it returned $4.01 billion, or 45 cents a share, up 35%, against expectations of 42 cents on $14.38 billion. Operating income was $5.17 billion. Microsoft said it deferred $305 million in revenue relating to its Office 2010 Technology Guarantee program, meaning the revenue number would have been up 8% at $14.81 billion, if the $305 million was recognized.

Cloud Computing Leading "Disruptive Transformation"

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 09:00:00 EDT

"At the Cloud Computing Expo one can definitely sense that the IT industry is undergoing a disruptive evolutionary transformation, and that innovative and transformative energy is building up beneath the cap of standardization, governance, regulatory compliance, risk, and security." Ray's report focused on the business-leading aspect of certain presentations at Cloud Expo, and called for more of these. "The industry should seek to simplify its message further to facilitate an even faster rate of adoption," he writes. "(At Cloud Expo), a good example of a business focused track would be the billing technical breakout session led by Tien Tzuo, previously with Salesforce.com, and now founder and CEO of Zuora, a leader in subscription billing and payment solutions. Acknowledging that Cloud Computing can be "a complex business," he also mentioned that, "as far as technical sessions go, Steve Riley, Sr. Technical Program Manager with Amazon Web Services, held a great presentation on "How to Think Cloud" based on an Amazon Cloud Best Practices white paper.

Is "Performance Intelligence" Where It's At with Cloud Computing?

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 09:15:00 EDT

Business Intelligence has focused on providing the actionable information needed to support decision makers in improving business operations. Until now, performance testing tools have delivered plenty of data, but very little decision support. Performance Intelligence enables test engineers to analyze results on a single timeline, make informed decisions and take action, often while a test is still running. In this session, Cloud Expo delegates will learn how companies have used cloud testing and "Performance Intelligence" to gain complete confidence in the performance, scalability and reliability of their websites and applications.

BPM Discipline, Not Dogma

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:45:00 EDT

In his new Forrester blog, Derek Miers talks about his entrance into Forrester and some of his focus for upcoming research. His interesting observation upfront is how companies need to build a 'Discipline' around BPM, especially once they transition from the first project and attempt to use BPM more broadly across the organization. What we are seeing here, is that technology is not key to everything. Forrester may be moving away from the "functionality check the boxes" model to assessing BPM products, to more of a capability model. Will this mean that companies that can not only deliver a single project, but assist customers build a BPM practice, will be the next vendors at the top right hand corner of their analysis? The problem I always see with BPM is that it becomes a universal tool, a Swiss Army Knife of business software. People using it often get caught in the trap of believing it is the only tool for the job, attempting to cut down trees with the fold-away saw, or insisting that the knife is the best thing for doing everything, from slicing bread to performing open-heart surgery.

Lawson Rings Up Business Process Improvements Using Networking and Management Solutions from Aruba and Uniadex

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:10:34 EST

Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARUN), a global leader in 802.11n wireless LANs and secure mobility solutions, today announced that Lawson – Japan’s innovative leader in convenience store chains – is using Aruba’s solutions to provide ubiquitous, highly secure access to corporate applications by its increasingly mobile corporate workforce. Established in 1975, Lawson has over 9,800 retail convenience stores throughout Japan and China, and more than 5,200 employees. Under its “Lawson 3.0” business process improvement initiative, Lawson is using Aruba’s 802.11n wireless LANs to access its new unified communication system, and Aruba’s Virtual Branch Networking (VBN) solution for its teleworker program. Both the wireless LAN and VBN systems are centrally monitored by the AirWave Management Platform (AMP).

Savvion to Showcase Business Process Improvement at Gartner Business Process Management Summit 2009

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:04:01 EDT

Savvion, the trailblazing business process management company, will be demonstrating its industry-leading BPM at the Gartner Business Process Management Summit, October 5-7, 2009, at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress, Orlando, FL.

Workforce Optimization Tools from Iontas Gaining Traction in Insurance Industry

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:18:14 EST

Iontas announced today that 4 more insurance companies have purchased and deployed the state-of-the-art Focus software suite for the sole purpose of optimizing their workforce productivity and improving their business processes. These companies join hundreds of thousands of users around the world who've benefited by using Focus for workforce optimization (WFO) and business process improvement.

Jive Software Powers Premiere Global Services' New Software Developer Community

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:00:56 EST

Jive Software, the pure-play collaboration software leader, today announced that Premiere Global Services (NYSE: PGI) selected Clearspace Community to power its recently launched software developer community, PGiConnect. Premiere Global is a provider of on-demand, communication technologies-based business process improvement solutions with a customer base of more than 50,000 companies, including nearly 95% of the Fortune 500.

BearingPoint Wins Navy Recruiting Command Business Process Improvement Contract Valued Up to $12.3 Million

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:00:36 EDT

BearingPoint, Inc. (NYSE:BE), one of the world’s largest management and technology consulting firms, today announced it has been awarded a Blanket Purchase Agreement to support the U.S. Navy’s Recruiting Command with business improvement methodology and operations support. BearingPoint's contract is for one year with two annual options, and has a three-year ceiling of $12.3 million.

Powerful Process Improvement Tools to Be Taught for First Time in Canada

Mon, 05 May 2008 19:40:00 EDT

This summer Canadian professionals involved in business process improvement will have the opportunity to add a valuable tool to their professional arsenal. For the first time in Canada, Business Enterprise Mapping, Inc., a U.S. provider of process improvement consulting and training, will offer their 4-day Mastery of Process Mapping course in Toronto on July 15 - 18. Although this course has been presented in locations throughout the United States and overseas, this will be the first time it has been offered in Canada. Participants can register for the course by calling 480-515-9001, or online at www.businessmapping.com/training.

ProcessModel, Inc. Announces Business Process Improvement Software Now Available for Vista Users

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 12:25:00 EDT

Business Process Improvement just got better for Vista users! ProcessModel, a leading provider of business process improvement software, process improvement training and process improvement consulting is pleased to announce the commercial release of Version 5.2 offering complete compatibility with Microsoft Windows Vista.

The Missing 'Discovery' Link to Successful Business Process Management

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 13:30:00 EDT

Every organization is under pressure to deliver tangible business benefit through its IT projects. This point is illustrated by the fact that almost all IT projects are justified based on the ROI they will deliver. However, very few organizations follow up and review all projects based on the ROI they actually provided. While the reasons for this aren't clear, one compelling, well-documented statistic is that on average only one out of three IT projects will be successfully completed and deliver the ROI they promised.

Lombardi Delivers Real-Time Business Process Management (BPM) Collaboration for Microsoft Office Users

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 20:08:00 EDT

with virtually no training required. This new release dramatically expands end user capabilities to include skills-based and context-sensitive collaboration, making it easier than ever for process participants to engage the right people at the right time anywhere in the organization to drive business process improvement.

Business Intelligence Vendor Websites – How to Read Between the Lines

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 11:43:53 EST

This article is going to help you discover some key differences between vendors based on what they share on their Websites – and what they don’t. Read between the lines while looking at BI vendor Websites to quickly figure out which business intelligence vendors are probably right for you, and which ones aren’t. If you've begun looking for a business intelligence solution, you probably noticed very quickly that there are quite a few business intelligence vendors out there. Narrowing the overcrowded field of vendors in order to come up with your own business intelligence short list will usually start with a review of the vendors' Websites. Armed with your short list, you can begin contacting vendors to receive proposals. This article is going to help you discover some key differences between vendors based on what they share on their Websites - and what they don't. Read between the lines while looking at BI vendor Websites to quickly figure out which business intelligence vendors are probably right for you, and which ones aren't.