In my first post I have stated that Process Intelligence puts the banks back in charge. I will now elaborate on how this latest form of business intelligence works. The aim of Process Intelligence is to reveal behavioral patterns in business processes and thus identify how and why a particular outcome occurred. Process Intelligence breaks down indicators into a chain of process steps, right down to the level of individual transactions. Visualizing the process path shows us who performed which steps and when.
To illustrate this, consider the example of a securities transaction carried out by a bank. An investor places an order for securities, the bank records the order and trades the securities, after which the order is charged to the investor's account and posted. Finally, the bank informs the customer about the result of the transaction.
These steps can be monitored one by one so that the bank can identify deviations, bottlenecks, and potential risks in good time. Interim records in the supporting source systems are the measuring points that determine the end-to-end process path of an individual transaction. In our example, these are the moments when the order is placed, registered, handled, charged, and posted. These process steps can be compared to the pieces of a puzzle threaded together on a string. A time stamp defines the sequence in which the process steps are visualized. If the posting had been omitted, or the steps carried out in a different order, this would have been immediately apparent. The person responsible is also constantly aware of the status throughout the process, enabling him or her to take the necessary corrective action in a timely manner.
On paper, a securities transaction may seem a simple process. But in practice many things can go wrong: orders remain unpaid, positions are not covered, clearing and settlement are not completed. This may impact customer satisfaction, the profit margin, and continuity. Through the use of statistical methods, Process Intelligence automatically reveals the factors that will have the greatest impact on the result.
An aggregate representation helps to analyze trends. Individual process paths are laid on top of one another like transparencies on an overhead projector to reveal the path most frequently followed, the branching paths (exceptions), and the dependencies. Since the technology also allows cross-sections, the process path can be viewed from a variety of different angles and benchmarks applied. How does the process path at the Amsterdam branch differ from that of the London branch, for example? How does the processing of different types of bank transaction compare? And to what extent does the actual process path differ from the way the process was designed? Business analysts in turn can use the process models and measurement data from source systems for process simulation.
There are many new forms of business intelligence, Process Intelligence being one of them. They all have in common that they look past the "What" and provide answers to the "How" and "Why" things happen in order to take timely and adequate measures. Decision intelligence, as referred to by James Taylor, is another. He describes this as "live monitoring of how well [a bank] is taking risk-based decisions within (…) processes". Depending on their focus, banks should decide on the most appropriate technology – possibly even a combination.
If you want to learn more about Process Intelligence, please have a look in the ARIS Expert Paper Library. You will find a range of contributions, including the expert paper 'Process Intelligence puts the banks back in charge'.
by Ricardo Passchier
