Managing Success

Managing Success

Business Intelligence CRM
Part of what makes business process management (BPM) a challenge today is the fluidity of modern corporates. Not only are corporate priorities and market requirements always evolving, but a company’s physical and logical infrastructure is in constant flux as technologies change and employees continuously enter and exit roles. So as important as modeling business process management changes and deploying the code that automates the execution of these improvements are, these steps in and of themselves aren’t enough to ensure business process management optimization. What companies need are mechanisms thatallow them to track business process management performance and make adjustments with respect to their business goals.These mechanisms enable corporate to create the kind of flexible yet stable infrastructure necessary to introduce better products to market faster while lowering business risk.

What corporate need is a view into crucial business process management that will give stakeholders accurate information about how well services are performing in business terms and if and where they need to make adjustments. Are initiatives really driving growth and cost savings or is there still room for improvement? This kind of a vantage point is the best way to effectively manage innovation of Business process management.

Unfortunately, many organizations have no real formal mechanized business process management in place to measure key corporate performance management to fine tune services and the SOA components that support them to realize business goals.This is a big oversight, given the impressive results companies that put a structure in place to track Business performance management and help corporate on their Business process management. According to the Hurwitz Group, more than 50 percent of medium-sized and large corporate that use Business intelligence dashboard report a $500,000 to $1 million return on their investment within 12 months.

IBM delivers exactly this kind of a business management system view into technology-driven services through its WebSphere Business management system Monitor. WebSphere Business Intelligence dashboard provides corporate with a business process management dashboard or business intelligence dashboard, which can be tailored to meet the needs of a particular organization. WebSphere Business Intelligence dashboard, which comes packaged with a copy of IBM’s simulation Business intelligence software WebSphere Business Modeler Advanced, functions as a crucial element in the business processmanagement improvement exercise.
The Business intelligence software allows corporate to track business process management flows and givescorporate insight in near-real time into the corporate performance management of business services and alerts stakeholders of critical issues. Business and IT managers can use WebSphere Business Intelligence dashboard scorecard view to measure Corporate performance management to see if services are delivering on their promise.

Corporate can also use the Business intelligence software to automatically institute an action or series of changes in accordance with rules or corporate policies. This helps corporate continue to elevate the Corporate performance management without requiring significant manual intervention.

WebSphere Business Process management plays a vital role in helping businesses achieve Business Process Management success and, just as important, sustain it. By delivering a bird’s eye view of business process management, the Business intelligence software provide corporate with the information they need to gauge on a broader level how well initiatives are performing for the corporate and determine where improvements would help a corporate boost business process management to better meet customer and partner needs. Ultimately, it enables corporate to achieve the business efficiency and effectiveness needed tothrive in the market.

Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence CRM


Business Performance management(BPM)consists of a set of processes that helporganizations optimize their business performance. It provides a framework for organizing, automating and analyzing business methodologies, metrics, processes and systems that drive business performance through Business process management.

BPM as the next generation of business intelligence(BI). BPM helps businesses make efficient use of their financial, human, material and other resources in Business process management.

In the past, business owners have sought to drive strategy down and across their organizations, they have struggled to transform strategies into actionable metrics and they have grappled with meaningful analysis to expose the cause-and-effect relationships that, if understood, could give profitable insight to their operational decision-makers by Business process management system.

BPM software and methods allow a systematic, integrated approach that links businessstrategy to core processes and activities. “Running by the numbers” now means something: planning, budgeting, analysis and reporting can give the measurements that empower management decisions with process management system.

HistoryReference to non-business performance management occurs in Chinese Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Sun Tzu claims that to succeed in war, one should have full knowledge of one’s own strengths and weaknesses and full knowledge of one’s enemy’s strengths and weaknesses. Lack of either one might result in defeat. A certain school of thought draws parallels between the challenges in business and those of war, specifically:

1.collecting data - both internal and external2.discerning patterns and meaning in the data(analyzing)3.responding to the resultant information4.Prior to the start of the Information Age in the late 20th century, businesses sometimes took the trouble to laboriously collect data from non-automated sources. As they lacked computing resources to properly analyze the data, they often made commercial decisions primarily on the basis of intuition through Process management system.

As businesses started automating more and more Business Process management systems, more and more data became available.However, collection remained a challenge due to a lack of infrastructure for data exchange or due to incompatibilities between Business Process management systems. Reports on the data gathered sometimes took months to generate. Such reports allowed informed long-term strategic decision-making. However, short-term tactical decision-making often continued to rely on intuition for Business process management.
Increasing standards, automation, and technologies have led to vast amounts of data becoming available. Data warehouse technologies have set up repositories to store this data. Improved ETL and Enterprise Application Integration tools have increased the speedy collecting of data. OLAP reporting technologies have allowed faster generation of new reports which analyze the data. Business intelligence has now become the art of sieving through large amounts of data, extracting useful information and turning that information into actionable knowledge for Business process management.

In 1989 Howard Dresner, a research analyst at Gartner, popularized”Business Intelligence”as an umbrella term to describe a set of concepts and methods to improve business decision-making by using fact-based support systems. Performance Management builds on a foundation of BI, but marries it to the planning and control cycle of the enterprise - with enterprise planning, consolidation and modeling capabilities for Business process management.

Definition and scopeBPM consists of a set of Business process management system and analytic processes, supported bytechnology, that enable businesses to define strategic goals and then measure and for BPM against those goals. Core Business Process Management processes include financial and operational planning, consolidation and reporting, business modeling, analysis, and monitoring of key performance indicators linked to strategy with Business process management.
BPM involves integration of data from various sources, querying, and analysis of the data, and putting the results into practice on Process management system.

Business Process Management enhances processes by creating better feedback loops. Continuous and real-time reviews can help to identify and eliminate problems before they grow. Business Process Management forecasting abilities help companies take corrective action in time to meet earnings projections. Forecasting is characterized by a high degree of predictability which is put into good use to answer what-if scenarios.
Business Process Management can help in risk analysis and in predicting outcomes of merger and acquisition scenarios and in planning to overcome potential problems in their daily Business process management system.

BPM provides key performance indicators(KPIs)that help companies monitor efficiency of projects and employees against Business process management targets.Methodologies
Various methodologies for implementing Business Process Management exist. The discipline gives companies a top-down framework by which to align planning and execution, strategy and tactics, and business unit and business objectives.Reactions may include the 6 Sigma strategy, balanced scorecard, activity-based costing (ABC), Lean 6 sigma, Total Quality Management, economic value-add, Lean sigma and integrated strategic measurement as an Business process management system.

The balanced scorecard is the most widely adopted BPM methodology. BPM Methodologies on their own cannot deliver a full solution to an corporate BPM needs.
Many pure methodology implementations fail to deliver the anticipated benefits due to lack of integration with the fundamental Business process management.

Business Objective (Metrics / KPI-Key Performance Indicators)
For business data analysis to become a useful tool for BPM, an corporate must understand its Business objective and goals – essentially, it must know the desired direction of progress. To help with this analysis for BPM, someone prescribes KPI to assess the present state of the business and to prescribe a course of action.

Metrics or KPI are critical in prioritization what has to be measured.The methodology used helps in determining the metrics to be used by the organization. Managerial folk-wisdom says that one cannot manage what cannot be measured. Identifying the key metrics and determining how they are to be measured helps the organizations to monitor performance across the board without getting deluged by a surfeit of data; a scenario plaguing most companies on Business process management.

More and more businesses have started to make data available more rapidly. In the past, some data only became available after a month or 2, which did not help managers react swiftly enough. Recently, banks have tried to make data available at shorter intervals and have reduced delays. For example, for businesses which have higher operational/credit risk loading (for example, credit cards and “money management”), a large multi-national bank makes KPI-related data available weekly, and sometimes offers a daily analysis of numbers. It also provides real-time dashboards. Data can become available within 24 hours, given automation and the use of IT systems for Business process management.

Most of the time, BPM simply means use of several financial/non-financial metrics/KPI to assess the present state of a business and to prescribe a course of action.

Some of the areas from which top management analysis could gain knowledge by using BPM may include:

customer-related numbers:

New customers acquiredStatus of existing customersAttrition of customers (including breakup by reason for attrition)Turnover generated by segments of the customers - possibly using demographic filtersOutstanding balances held by segments of customers and terms of payment - possibly using demographic filtersCollection of bad debts within customer relationshipsDemographic analysis of individuals (potential customers) applying to become customers, and the levels of Approval, rejections and pending numbersDelinquency analysis of customers behind on paymentsProfitability of customers by demographic segments and segmentation of customers by profitabilityCampaign managementRealtime dashboard on key operational metricsOverall equipment effectivenessEfficiency and productivityclickstream analysis on a websitekey product portfolio trackersmarketing channel analysisSales data analysis by product segmentsCallcenter metrics

The above list more or less describes what a businesses might monitor for their Business process management.

Items of generic importance might include:

consistent and correct KPI-related data providing insights into operational aspects of a companytimely availability of KPI-related data KPIs designed to directly reflect the efficiency and effectiveness of a business information presented in a format which aids decision-making for management and decision-makers ability to discern patterns or trends from organized information via Business process management system.

BPM integrates the Businesses processes with CRM or ERP. Companies should become better able to gauge customer satisfaction, control customer trends and influence shareholder value.

8D Problem Solving

8D Problem Solving

6 Sigma, Uncategorized
8D Problem Solving is a method used to approach and to resolve problems - typically employed by quality engineers or 6 Sigma professionals. Also known as 8D, 8D Problem Solving, G8D or Global 8D Problem Solving.

8D Problem Solving Step

D1: Use a Team: Establish a team of people with product/process knowledge.

D2: Define the Problem: Specify the problem by identifying in quantifiable terms the who, what, where, when, why, how and how many (5W2H)for the problem.

D3: Implement and verify Interim Actions: Define and implement containment actions to isolate the problem from any customer.

D4: Identify and Verify Root Causes: Identify all potential causes that could explain why the problemoccurred.

D5: Choose and verify Permanent Corrective Actions (PCAs): Through pre-production programs quantitatively confirm that the selected corrective actions will resolve the problem for the customer.

D6: Implement and validate PCAs :Define and Implement the best corrective actions.

D7: Prevent recurrence: Modify the management systems, operation systems, practices and procedures toprevent recurrence of this and all similar problems.

D8: Congratulate your Team : Recognize the collective efforts of the team. The team needs to be formallythanked by the organization.

History

The development of a team oriented 8D Problem Solving strategy, based on the use of statistical methods of data analysis, was developed at Ford Motor Company. The executives of the Powertrain Organization (transmissions, chassis, engines) wanted a methodology where teams could work on recurring problems. No existing methodology or government standard filled these requirements. Hence, in the summer of 1986, the assignment was given to develop a manual and a subsequent course that would achieve a new approach to solving tough engineering design and manufacturing problems. The manual for this methodology was documented and defined in “Team Oriented Problem Solving”(TOPS) and was first published in the winter of 1987.

Several pilots of the course and content where given to a wide range of organizations across Ford Motor company. This approach to problem solving was quickly adopted by all areas within Ford Motor Company and has been the basis for their approach to probems for over 20 years.
8D Problem Solving has become a standard in the Auto, Assembly and other industries that require a thorough structured problem solving process.

The 8D Problem Solving Process is used to identify, correct and eliminate problems. The methodology is useful in product and business process management improvement. It establishes a standard practice, with an emphasis on facts. It focuses on the origin of the problem by determining Root Cause.

Integrated Management System (IMS)

Integrated Management System (IMS)

Business Process Management (BPMS)

Effective design and implementationTo ensure this is done effectively, the steps listed below should be followed:

* Define the Business management Model and Primary Functions* Analyse business processes using flow charts, standards and failure mode analysistechniques* Formulate operational policies which will govern the business processes and their inter-linkages* Develop internal business procedures to control each business process which definewho does what and where, when and how* Implement the new and improved practices, if required* Identify optimum documentation needs by linkage to the control procedures* Document the system

How should business process management systems be integrated?
There are several approaches, which can be taken, depending on an organisation’s current position. However, all systems should eventually share the following processes:
* Management review* Document development and control* Monitoring, analysis and review* Internal audit* Training* Continual improvement (Corrective and Preventive Actions)
What are Integrated Management Systems?

An integrated management system (IMS) is a management system, which integrates all relevant components of a business into one coherent system so as to enable the optimal achievement of its business objectives. The integrated approach requires combining all the internal business management practices into one system. For the different systems to be properly integrated, rather than simply being separate systems joined together, there have to be effective linkages so that the boundaries between processes are seamless. The fundamental components of the system include the organisation, resources and processes. Therefore, people, equipment and business culture are part of the system as well as the documented policies and practices.

What can be integrated?

Any system, which is required by the effective running of a business, can be integrated either totally or partially under a unified business management structure. In essence any system, which has an impact on overall business process management performance should be part of the integrated management system.

Requirements to ensure effective integrated management systemsTo ensure effective systems, the following functions must be performed:

* Risk Assessment- this should address customer perceptions, health & safety risks,environmental concerns & impacts and process failure modes. By having a commonapproach it will be easier to compare risks occurring in different parts of the business.* Norms & Regulations Management - to capture norms and regulations with respect toproduct specifications, environment and health & safety and their impacts on thebusiness.* Continual Improvement Management - this should focus on specific improvementprogrammes related to quality, health & safety and environment.* Stakeholders Awareness - this should address needs of both customers, staff andgeneral public with respect to quality, health & safety and environment.

The best approach to take
Whether an organisation has an existing formal system or not, it is best to adopt the business process approach to management system development. The benefits are that one coherent system can be built which serves business needs and does not tie the organisation to a particular standard. The standards are used to assist identify tasks and processes. This approach starts by looking at the business as a whole and establishing its objectives, mission and core processes which deliver the objectives and achieve this mission.

What types of business process management systems can be integrated?

All systems relevant to the business, whether certifiable or otherwise, can be included. These could include: Quality (ISO 9001); Environment (ISO 14001); Occupational Health & Safety (OHSAS 18001 & BS 8800); Food Safety & Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP); Ethical Trading Practices (SA 8000); Social & Ethical Accounting, Auditing and Reporting (AA 1000); Investor in People (IIP); Law Society Practice Management Standard (LEXCEL), European Directives and CE Markings; Information Security (BS 7799); Quality System Requirements for Automotive Industry Suppliers (ISO/TS 16949 & QS 9000); Quality System Requirements for Telecommunications Industry Suppliers (TL 9000); and Business Excellence Model (BEM).

Why should business management systems be integrated?Integration is designed to:
* Ensure focus on business goals & objectives* Harmonise and optimise practices* Reduce risks to the business and increase profitability* Balance conflicting objectives* Eliminate conflicting responsibilities and relationships* Create consistency* Reduce duplication and therefore costs* Improve communications* Facilitate training and development.

Business Process Management (BPM) System Overview

Business Process Management (BPM) System Overview

Business Process Management (BPMS)

Business process management (BPM) is a field of management focused on aligning organizations with the wants and needs of clients. It is a holistic management approach that promotes business effectiveness and efficiency while striving for innovation, flexibility and integration with technology. Business process management attempts to continuously improve processes. It could therefore be described as a “process optimization process”.

A business process is “a collection of related, structured activities that produce a service or product that meet the needs of a client.” These processes are critical to any organization as they generate revenue and often represent a significant proportion of costs. BPM articles and pundits often discuss BPM from one of two viewpoints: people and technology.

Roughly speaking, the idea of Business process is as traditional as concepts of tasks, department, production, outputs. The current management and improvement approach, with formal definitions and technical modeling, has been around since the early 1990s (see business process modeling). However there has been a common confusion in the IT community, as the term ‘business process’ is often used as synonymous of management of middleware processes; or integrating application software tasks. This viewpoint may be overly restrictive. This should be kept in mind when reading software engineering papers which refer to ‘business processes‘ or ‘business process modeling.’Although the initial focus of BPM was on the automation of mechanistic business processes, it has since been extended to integrate human-driven processes in which human interaction takes place in series or parallel with the mechanistic processes. A common form is where individual steps in the business process which require human intuition or judgment to be performed are assigned to the appropriate members of an organization (as with workflow systems).

More advanced forms such as human interaction management are in the complex interaction between human workers in performing a workgroup task. In this case many people and systems interact in structured, ad-hoc, and sometimes completely dynamic ways to complete one to many transactions.

BPM can be used to understand organizations through expanded views that would not otherwise be available to organize and present. These views include the relationships of processes to each other which, when included in the process model, provide for advanced reporting and analysis that would not otherwise be available. BPM is regarded by some as the backbone of enterprise content management.

How to improve BPMS

How to improve Business Performance Through Business Process Management?


Business Process Management (BPMS)
How to Improve Business Performance Through Business Process ManagementBusiness processes constitute a significant portion of an Business Management Process operating costs. And the more bureaucratic an organization is - the greater the potential to reduce business management process operating costs.Business Management silos (hierarchical structure) can be devastating to an business management process performance and cost structure. Walls need to be torn down, and the internal customer/supplier model embraced.


Unfortunately, line and staff departments have become too myopic or insular. Business management Process is imperative in order to manage and improve cross-functional business processes management. And the more business management process centric an organization is - the more performance-driven it will be. If you think you can be customer-centric, without being process-centric - think again. Business Processes management must put the customer first.
Business Process Management Introduction


The stark reality is that processes (especially cross-functional business management processes) are usually not documented, not systematically and continually improved, and not managed. So why improve and manage business processes? Simply, Business management processes are the fundamental building blocks for achieving business performance, and streamlined business processes are critical to building and maintaining a competitive edge. When I ask a customer to give us a snapshot of their business, the discussion usually starts off with their business history, an overview of products and services, core capabilities, and even their customer base. Along the way, an organization chart is typically thrown into the fray. But, perhaps the most revealing snapshot of all is an “organizational map” that shows the interrelationship of company-wide key business management processes.



An organizational map is a top-level blueprint of the fundamental structure for an business management system. This macro-level flowchart shows the interrelationship of business management processes at a twenty-thousand foot elevation. It is the foundation from which to build an agile, competitive organization. Yet, alarmingly few organizations have taken the time to construct this “capstone” document. Business management Process begins the management process of visualizing the organization as a whole - determining how one aspect of the system affects another. Leaders need to extend their vision beyond the project or function - beyond their function - to see the organization through a new set of glasses. They must focus on those key business management processes that affect business management objectives and critical success factors. Leaders must be visionary, and they must see the world anew. Business management Process Focus Areas & Tools


There are three general focus areas. These are:
(1) making business management processes effective - producing the desired performance;(2) making business management processes efficient - minimizing the resources needed; and(3) making business management processes adaptable - being able to adapt to changing stakeholder and customer business needs. An integrated holistic approach is essential to business management process. Business Process mapping and flowcharting (down to the task level) are central to this effort. You can use a combination of several process flowcharting techniques -process maps, block diagrams, standard flowcharts, functional flowcharts, and geographic flowcharts. But remember, the journey starts with an “organization map - a macro-level flowchart.”


Business management Process maps provide a composite overview of the business management process, from an organizational context. Block diagrams provide a quick overview of a business management process. Business management process Flowcharts are used to analyze the detailed interrelationships of a business management process, and geographic flowcharts illustrate the business management process flow among locations.


Business management Process Roadmap
A systematic approach (roadmap) is needed to improve business management performance. There are proven strategies, methods, and tools to create a streamlined organization with a significantly lower cost structure. An integrated business management process approach should link the business organization’s mission, culture, business objectives, and key business management processes. The business management process system methodology consists of ten BPM integrated tools and/or steps:Bureaucracy elimination - remove unnecessary administrative tasks, approvals, and paperwork.Duplication elimination - remove identical activities that are performed at different parts of the business management process.Value-added assessment - evaluate every activity in the business management process to determine its contribution to meeting stakeholder/customer requirements.Task elimination/simplification - reduce the overall complexity of the business management process.Business management Process cycle time reduction - determine ways to compress cycle time to meet or exceed stakeholder/customer expectations, with fewer resources.Error proofing - make it difficult to do the activity incorrectly, while standardizing the activity at the same time.Problem definition/solving - utilize a problem solving methodology (roadmap) that focuses on identifying and eliminating root causes.Technology/automation considerations - apply technology platforms and enterprise/legacy applications in innovative ways.Business management process reengineering - use a radical approach to change the business management process, when the previous streamlining methods have not provided the desired results.Business management Performance measurement - identify appropriate business management performance measures that will paint a composite picture of the business management process performance.
Business Management Process Absolutes
There are a dozen business management process absolutes that must be considered when you embark on a business management process journey. You might also view these as “best practices.” Either way, these are

critical to success:
Ensure management commitment upfront Create an environment where departments are partners, not competitors Reward cross-functional collaboration
Take a disciplined, integrated approach to business management process improvementAllocate resources based on business management process needs
Link business management process improvement initiatives to your strategic plan
Identify critical business management issues to drive business process improvementEnsure that product and service processes are customer-drivenPut comprehensive and reliable business management process metrics in placeDefine and implement strategies to keep each business management process measure in controlMeasure levels of internal/external customer satisfaction for each business management processReward individuals for their contributions to business management process improvement

Reaching Your Goals With Effective Business Intelligence CRM

Reaching Your Goals With Effective Business Intelligence CRM

Business Intelligence CRM

Reaching Your Goals With Effective Business Intelligence CRMHow to measure the success of your Business Intelligence CRM strategy?Effective Business intelligence CRM is a topic that I’ve only gotten involved with in the past few years. Before that, the middle market companies I’ve worked with couldn’t afford the entry price. Expensive software with hefty consulting engagements for building data warehouses and business management System metrics simply made it impossible.

Tactical Business Process Management Metrics

I just made that term up. I throw anything that supports measurements to things like the sales Business process management tactical. Just because someone names a methodology Strategic Selling doesn’t make it strategic. Keep in mind that the sales organization derives it’s initiatives from a corporate vision. Let’s hope it’s customer centric!

I find some of the “dashboards” out there to be useless and extremely confusing. They either look like a vintage sports car, or there are so many low level “MBO” or “KPI’s” on them that there no better than raw data. Let’s be serious. Solutions for effectively monitoring business intelligence CRM should provide information, not raw data. Why would you want to think about what you’re looking at? Wouldn’t it be better to know either everything’s OK, or something is wrong with out having to process data in your head?

Strategic Business Management Metrics

I like making up headlines like that. Since I consider Business Intelligence CRM to be a strategic, customer-centric way of doing business, you should have decided up front what was going to improve and how you were going to measure it. To do this you’ll need a means of presenting the results. You might be trying to…

1. Incrementally increase revenue - your customer focused realignment could lead to the attraction of new customers at an increased rate. Referrals are great that way. If this is part of your plan, then plan to measure this increase relative to the implementation of your Business Intelligence CRM strategy.

2. Cost Reduction - Reducing the friction in your business by re-working your Business Process Management to be customer-centric will allow you to reduce your staff and increase your yield. Your plan should identify where this will occur and how you will gain from them. You cannot justify the investment if you can’t measure them.

3. Improve profitability - whether by becoming more efficient, identifying a more profitable product and service mix, or by extending the average customer lifecycle, you should know what to expect in advance and measure it against your goals. Effective business intelligence CRM tools are a great help, but a spreadsheet could do it too.

4. Retrieve lost opportunity costs - what have you been doing all these years? Losing customers you should have kept. Losing high quality employees that refused to put up with “that’s the way we’ve always done it”. Turnover costs you money because it’s always more expensive to acquire than it is to keep.

Effective business intelligence CRM isn’t about the glitzy tool. It’s about your plan and the measures you’ve set for determining your success. Don’t accept what comes out of the box. Be prepared to challenge them with your requirements.After all, they don’t know your business management strategy, so they can’t possibly have predicted the best set of measures for your business.