BPM: The Cross-Industry Solution

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Business process management is benefiting many organizations of all sizes. From manufacturing to services and from logistics to workflow, more and more companies are choosing to implement BPM to become more agile, competitive, profitable and time efficient.

KY Telecom

Consider the case of a company we'll call KY Telecom. An international telecommunications network engaged in providing telephony and broadband services to individual consumers as well as IP providers, KY Telecom turned to BPM when it anticipated approximately two and a half years ago that the broadband boom would bring in a flood of new connection orders.

Realizing it couldn't cope should the workload exceed budgeted increases of its monthly orders three-fold from 10,000 to 30,000 connections, it set about implementing BPM quickly. Choosing a BPM software solution from a vendor it had worked with on a group company implementation, the company completed its customer order process implementation with the help of software consultants within three months. It upgraded its BPM application six months later to accommodate its increased volumes more quickly.

The decision to drive BPM in the organization was a smart one -- as proven during the 2003 holiday season. Contrary to expectation, orders in the pre-Christmas period rose to 90,000 for two months; broadband connections were popular as gifts that season. Without applying BPM, the company couldn't have accommodated the additional spurt in orders. It had neither the staff nor resources -- computers, office furniture or space -- to accommodate the seasonal inflows.

Before it took the BPM route, the company had little visibility into its principle business processes. The myriad mix of individual working styles of the company's 30,000-employee base made this a virtual impossibility. Additionally, it took 16 worker-hours to handle the daily incoming workload of 10,000 orders.

Through BPM, however, the company streamlined and documented its processes and gained deeper insight into its functioning. Post-implementation it cut processing time to a mere two hours for 85% of its orders, with the rest processed manually for a variety of reasons. But even these take a 10th of the time they did earlier due to the more efficient processes in place. And despite the fact that it handles 650,000 new monthly connections, its monthly costs have dropped some $200,000 below June 2003 levels.

KY Telecom also uses its reporting system to maximum effect. In addition to the better levels of service, which have fuelled growth, it can use demographic data from its customer base and merge it with market research to target newer markets. With ROI of under a year, the next phase of implementation will encompass its telephony and data IP users applications.

AB Aerospace

Another company we'll call AB Aerospace, on the other hand, looked to BPM primarily for a standardized system that would generate accurate reports, consolidations and restatements quickly. A global corporation that diversified extensively in the 1990s, the company inherited disparate transactional systems from its 400 mergers and acquisitions. In addition, the group entities used different data structures and reporting formats and systems.

The off-the-shelf BPM solution it chose standardized its processes and reporting across the group, cutting errors and reducing reporting times to a 10th of those previously taken. Integrating the financial systems with tax planning and reporting, the system provided an accurate basis for decision-making and allowed savings from tax-avoidance. Plus, automation meant that the company could save employment expense of over 1,200 people.

BC Loans

A global bad credit lender, BC Loans reduced its costs substantially without cutting back on its workforce. BC Loans specializes in providing unsecured loans in several countries. In the normal course of its operations, the company must report 10,000 weekly loan disclosures and write-offs from 800 disparate source points. The write-offs are handled in one of three ways: by the company or its attorneys or by state agencies.

Prior to BPM implementation, factors like major acquisitions, a lack of a common customer database and transaction history and disparate third-party systems added further complications. Manual processes affected downstream disclosure deadlines; the sorting, dispatching and collation of the postal mail and faxed requests took 11 working days to complete. Additionally, to comply with local laws the company kept final documents at both the originating branches and the central office.

Choosing a leading software developer to design a custom-made solution for its end-to-end disclosure processes, the company's BPM consultants worked with the software developers and senior management to:

• Map existing "as-is" process flow charts.
• Capture key business logic and knowledge.
• Identify strategic and operational objectives.
• Prepare "to be" workflow process models to test the BPM systems and identify bottlenecks.

At its planning stage, the company drew expertise from key business users from the department, as well as from other departments. And during "as-is" mapping of processes, it was able to identify and eliminate 65% of non-value adding process steps.

The phased implementation approach started with automation of the company's core processes and ended with unifying disparate customer data.

Processing time post-implementation fell 18-fold to three hours as a direct result of this initiative. Direct costs went down 71%. Further savings came from the economies of using a Web-based storage system; the transportation, printing and stationery costs plummeted. It expects to recover ROI on the implementation within six months.

Apart from gains in time and cost efficiency, the company can now quickly to respond to change. With a well-documented system and business rules engine in place, internal policy changes and legal amendments are easy to accommodate. And it can generate other critical reports, analyses and forecasts accurately and quickly. With business models, it can test new process changes ahead of implementation and use simulation techniques to manage risk. The company now plans on extending the BPM application into its secured bad credit loans department.

All in all, BC Loans is more efficient, productive, agile and profitable. BPM has additionally enhanced team spirit by giving employees greater visibility into processes and their role in the overall corporate structure.

Do You Have a Success Story in the Making?

BPM success stories abound across industries. From manufacturing companies with better production schedules, cost-efficiencies and increased revenues to non-profit crises centers that reach out more effectively to those that need their help, more organizations are opting for BPM today. By expert accounts, the next 50 years in organizational transformation belong to BPM. With further enhancements in technology, it will become only more efficient and more in demand.

If you have a story to share, let us know by contacting us at http://www.bpmenterprise.com/contact/default.asp?ToDo=contact&o=ec.