Rethinking Business
Processes
John Mancini, Chief Evangelist, AIIM
1– Why should you care?
2 -- Where are we today?
3 – A short process management case study –
financial processes
4 – Why do YOU matter?
5 – Awesome 2 slide (!) concluding keynote:
Building a “Process Maturity” roadmap
1 – Why should you care?
2 – Where are we today?
Content management is
changing – quickly.
People. Process.
Technology.
In the past 20 years, we’ve
been through 3 distinct eras.
These eras are coming faster
and faster.
Successive eras don’t replace
what came before – they are
stacked on top of what came
previously.
Document Management and Workflow
People. Process. Technology.
Solutions are
difficult to use
and require lots
of training, but
who cares
because the
people who use
it are specialists
anyway?
How can we
automate content
intensive,
complicated,
mission-critical
processes?
“Industry” =
Departments at
Fortune 500 scale
organizations.
Complex, custom
and expensive
implementations.
No standard body
of knowledge.
Business buyer.
Enterprise Content Management
People. Process. Technology.
Focus shifts from
ECM “specialists” to
knowledge workers.
Usability still not a
top priority
ECM believes it’s an
enterprise layer, but
often still driven by
departments; silo
explosion.
Technology buyer.
“Industry” begins to
spread to mid-sized
companies.
SharePoint and
then EFSS drive
upset price points.
Rise – and then
decline – of the
“suites.”
Mobile and Cloud
People. Process. Technology.
Usability is
everything.
Even individual
users can
implement their
own solutions.
Blurring of lines
between home
and the office.
Process owners
can implement
their own
solutions.
Business processes
must be appified.
Enterprise SaaS
solutions.
Configure,
connect and
mobile skills key.
End of perimeterbased security.
Massive legacy
drag.
4 – Case study – automating
financial processes
We need to view process automation through
two sets of glasses:
1 – Tactical: Because it’s necessary to survive.
2 – Strategic: Because it’s a bridge to Digital
Transformation.
Tactical
According to the Yahoo! Finance
database for 212 different
industries, the median profit margin
for U.S. public companies was 6.5%
for the most recent quarter.
Per the Harvard Business Review,
Often, internal administrative processes become frozen—
despite the fact that, over time, they may cease to be efficient
or effective. Asking questions in four areas can help you
understand whether this has occurred in your department and
whether you can cut expenses accordingly:
1 – Reduced business requirements.
2 – Manual processes.
3 – Exceptions to the norm.
4 – Timing.
Financial process
Document challenges
Accounts payable
Automation cannot occur without strategy to
capture documents that arrive from multiple
locations and in widely varying formats
Accounts receivable
Disconnected and manual contracts, billing,
sales order, and dispute resolution processes
Financial close
process
Endless, frantic and manual end-of-month
spreadsheet reconciliation
Procurement and
purchasing
Manual purchase order processes
disconnected with finance and ERP systems
Vendor management
Manual vendor onboarding
No central view of relationships with key
business partners
INVOICE PROCESSING
Strategic
According to the
American Productivity and Quality Center,
50% of finance process initiatives are being driven
by “the realization of the need for better business
analytics.” This business driver is even higher -and far more strategic -- than the traditional
driver for financial process automation, cost
reduction.
Per Mary Driscoll in the APQC blog,
“Business managers are changing their tune when it comes to what they
want from finance. They now insist that finance re-imagine itself and
deliver a step-change in the quality and relevance of insights it
generates. What used to be called decision support is now branded—
with large doses of aspiration—as predictive business analytics.
Finance is expected to keep pace with the enterprise’s data-driven race
toward competitive advantage. That means mastering the analytical
methods, tools and terminology of the day.”
4 – Why do YOU matter?
All of this translates into
three very different
perspectives.
PROCESS
How can I
do this as
quickly
and
cheaply as
possible?
How can I
do this
without
involving
IT?
Can I buy a
solution by
the drink?
PROCESS
How can I
do this as
quickly
and
cheaply as
possible?
How can I
do this
without
involving
IT?
Can I buy a
solution by
the drink?
Is this
solution
scalable?
secure?
TECHNOLOGY
Am I going
to be
stuck
supporting
this
solution?
Is this
vendor
reliable?
Where
should I
put my
stuff?
PEOPLE
Can work
where and
how I
want?
Do I have
what I
need to
do my
job?
PROCESS
How can I
do this as
quickly
and
cheaply as
possible?
How can I
do this
without
involving
IT?
Can I buy a
solution by
the drink?
Is this
solution
scalable?
secure?
TECHNOLOGY
Am I going
to be
stuck
supporting
this
solution?
Is this
vendor
reliable?
A new tension.
Silos on Steroids
vs.
Line of Business Agility
Who now owns the big
picture?
Who provides the adult
supervision to all of this?
Who is going to reconcile
these three very different
perspectives?
Information Management
People. Process. Technology.
5 – Awesome 2 slide (!) concluding keynote:
Building a “Process Maturity” roadmap
People
Process
PROCESS MATURITY LEVEL
Opportunistic Organized
Optimized
Rudimentary
Automation within Large degree of
automation;
a process, but staff automation within a set
process gaps
must often
of related processes
filled in by
manually
allows organization to
Heroes
“integrate”
begin optimizing the
between systems
process itself
Rudimentary
Clear workflows
Clear connections
process
within an individual between processes and
documentation process or set of
across departments allow
related processes
for customer-centric
allow for
automation.
automation
Information No clear
strategy for
how and
where process
information
stored
Process information
often organized and
stored within
specific applications
Process information
organized and stored in
repositories external to
specific applications
Compliance Compliance ad Compliance
Clear and auditable
hoc, manual
automated within a compliance processes
and costly
particular process
Transformative
Flattening of organization
allows for increased
employee engagement
Clear back-end process
connections and
integrations allow focus
on creating new customer
experiences
Common repository (or at
least a common strategy)
for managing and storing
process information
mined for customer
insights and value
Accessible multi-process
compliance information
mined for business and
process insights
Legacy ECM
Modern ECM
All about technology
All about solutions
Mostly a large company thing
A business process improvement thing,
at any size company
Usability & mobility an afterthought
Usability and mobility core
Cloud “someday”
Cloud now
IT buying technology
Business buying solutions
Costly and complex integrations
Configurations not customizations
Big bang, boil the ocean
implementations that never get going
Modest solution-specific
implementations that are leveraged and
extended
Operationalize data and information
Collect data and information
Compliance drives decisions
Increased compliance and regulatory
complexity
Driven by IT and specialists
Driven by end users and the business