The first two stops of the Process Intelligence Roadshow were held in Chicago and New York.
I saw some very interesting presentations and had some intense discussions about the combination of BPM and BI. Click on read more if you are interested in my personal highlights:
My favorite presentation at the stop in Chicago was the presentation from SAP. With charm, humor and subject matter expertise, Sarah White delivered an internal case study on how SAP is leveraging Process Intelligence with ARIS Process Performance Manager to analyze its internal purchasing processes. By looking at process performance indicators such as cycle time and process automation, SAP could look at not only the commodities but also how the processes were running globally, regionally and locally. As a result, the purchasing organization has more transparency on the processes and is able to use the information to analyze which processes need to be improved to meet the mid-term strategies.
Btw: The project took less than 40 days. Here are the benefits highlighted by Sarah:
- Provide customer a higher level of service (time to process a Purchase Order)
- Implement best-in-class purchasing processes for benchmarking/best practices
- Support Project Leaders in running SAP Sigma projects more effectively
- Provide transparency on purchasing types and increase level of process automation
- Simplify processes and increase level of process automation in order to support:
- Buyer in managing the workload
- Project Lead in running optimization projects
- Support SOX Compliance:
- Increase control on processes
- Provide transparency on compliance
My favorite lecture in New York was the presentation held by John Hagerty from AMR Research. John spoke about the different levels of Business Intelligence and Performance Management in companies. His maturity model covered: Step 1: Reacting / Step 2: Anticipating / Step 3: Collaborating and Step 4: Orchestrating. Step one is mostly project driven and stays in one department. The second level is already focusing on a single process which might be cross departmental. In step 3, BI becomes cross functional. Here the BPM flavor of Process Intelligence comes into the game. We talk about common processes and their definitions. We call this an active Business Process Management. On level 4 the company has established a performance culture. They have a comprehensive management of the enterprise wide processes in real time. The organization is driven by the business value. BI and BPM merge here to what we call Process Intelligence. Many companies are still on level one or two but with the time they will move up John’s maturity model.
Here some good tips from John to do so:
- You should understand your as-is situation and your “where do I want to be scenario” to find your course.
- Consider baby steps to reach your aspired future state.
- It is not important to measure everything. It is important to get the maximum value out of the information which are available to you. The business value should always be the focus or as John said:
“Pragmatism and practicality are paramount”
On October 2nd the roadshow will take place in San Francisco. Catch us at the Sofitel and hear presentations from Bayer Healthcare, SAP and me ;o)
On October 9 we will have the first stop in Europe. Come to Vienna and see Process Intelligence live and in action. You can find the agendas on the roadshow website: www.process-intelligence.com
I am looking forward to seeing you there!
Joerg
