Global 360's Chief Strategy Officer Discusses BPM

When Jim Sinur joined Global 360 as its first chief strategy officer in April 2007, industry observers blogged that the company must offer something compelling (and lucrative) to persuade a longtime Gartner analyst to join the product trenches.

The answer is straightforward – he expects to help take his new employer into the realm of the billion-dollar club, one of "three or four really good, independent BPM companies," Sinur said. When he was considering possible employment options, Sinur had a shortlist of companies where he wanted to land, including Global 360. The operation, he said, has a "culture of great teamwork… passionate leadership [and] a vision toward optimization, an area I was redefining myself into at Gartner."Besides, he added, "I’m not going to a $2 million start-up. My wife would kill me..."

"The interesting thing about Global [360] is that they have a lot more than they say they have," Sinur said. "They're much stronger than they state they are and much stronger than they advertise to the analysts and to their clients."

What do those strengths include? On the product side, the company's BPM suite, G360 Enterprise, encompasses technology for business goal management, process modeling and design, process control and analytics, as well as process optimization and reporting. A case management edition addresses document-based processes. A work management version combines document management and report and record management tools with Microsoft Outlook integration. For business optimization, the company offers Insight360, which performs historic, real-time and predictive analysis. Global 360 also sells a Windows-based imaging program to transform paper documents into electronic documents. On the services side, a professional services division provides consulting, support and training. Privately-owned Global 360 was founded in 2000 and declines to state financial results.

Recently, BPMEnterprise.com talked with Sinur to learn what he thinks about Global 360's technology, what tools he believes companies need to have in their process management toolboxes, why more companies aren't doing process management, and how to pick a technology vendor from the 181-plus that his former company identified in the BPM space.

Let's start with process mapping and modeling. What do most people misunderstand about that aspect of process management?

Jim Sinur: Well, I think there are a couple of issues. There's a huge disconnect in the overall BPM audience between physical modeling for execution and logical modeling to figure out whether you have the right process, and then linking the two together.

If you come from architecturally-driven shops, they will spend some time trying to understand their process, whether it's in Visio, Proforma, iGrafx or Telelogic. Those can simulate processes for alternatives and then let you do a certain amount of tuning before they physically help you map. People that to do that kind of modeling think that's the only modeling they need. Then they find out when they get to the physical world it's a little more complex.

Then on the other end are those that start with the physical model and believe in a do-try-fix approach, in which you model a process, execute it, measure it and adjust it. They don't need to see the need to tie to any architectural framework, nor do they see the sense in logical modeling.

So there’s a disconnect in the BPM areas. Those things both need to be done…

Do those two approaches tie to whether you're coming from business or IT?

Not necessarily. There are some business users that have the famous saying, "Make dust or eat it." They don't want to start with physical implementation. They're trying to get some immediate benefits. So they "shake and bake" in a small context and don't want to do it physically.

But the business people generally want to start with a big picture, to really understand, "What am I doing today?" So, the business people do tend to start with the logical model more often than not. But if you talk to an IT architect, they're going to want to do that as well.

What role does software play in that effort?

Well, there are [several] ways of doing it. One is to have everything under one roof where you do a lot of logical modeling and physical modeling under the same umbrella. You'll see that IDS Scheer is starting to get embedded in Oracle and SAP rather than just being a front end to multiple BPM tools. We're starting to see the difference between bridging and OEMing. We're going to see more of that; it's kind of a learning curve. You start out saying either, "I'm going to do a physical model and I'll back up to the logical through a bridge," or "I'll start at logical...I'll put it into the execution engine through the bridge."

The first step is uni-directional bridges, and the next step is bi-directional bridges. The third step is OEMing. And the fourth step is when a query shares the same metadata. What we're seeing is that that is a journey that the industry is making.

To bring it down to earth a little bit, is there any advice you can offer to people to make sure that they stay tuned into the business strategy when they're tackling their process mapping and modeling?

The key is to have business people involved. If you can give it to a business analyst that's directed by a process director or process owner, that's ideal. The other is to keep it real by having it link to corporate goals, so if there's a strategic and tactical goal, they can assure that that process delivers on that…

Let's say you want to model an underwriting process. Obviously, there are transactions that help ensure the company updates their system of records, help people automate portions of the underwriter process – especially with transactional. Let’s use the notion of life underwriting. You want to try to get things done as cheaply as possible, which means that you want to push down decisions for underwriting to the lowest possible level. That's the best way to get the best position at the cheapest cost. But you could have some cost slippage through passing of a policy that you're underwriting from person to person.

So, get business executives and middle management and workers around in what I call a "workout session," where they will work out under what conditions things get passed, and work that helps them model the process.

Once you get to a certain level, then you also have to make sure that the model works, and there are several ways of doing that. One is to take a subset of the underwriting process and once you have that modeled and you're satisfied with that, implement that process. That’s one type. So you might say, "I'm only going to do it for the Chicago ratings, because in order to take that to California and New York, there are a lot more rules." Take this to Illinois, Minnesota or Texas, and then learn as you go.

What methodologies can be applied to process management?

Six Sigma is one way of dealing with BPM. What we have found at the shops that are more experienced is the toolbox approach. So, if we take a look at Six Sigma, it is really good at honing processes, in making them better. If you're at 95 percent statistically satisfactory rate, and you're trying to go from 95 percent to 99, that's where Six Sigma comes in. That's what is really good at fine tuning… It can be used for other things. You'll see quite often where companies have Black Belts, Green Belts. They understand things about process but they’re really taught to apply the statistical side rather than the modeling side to the process. They can be taught to model.

Lean is another set of nuggets that you can use in your toolbox, and that's about respecting everybody, having a culture that tries to eliminate waste, allowing stopping points during the process where people recognize things that are wrong, having the ability to collaborate on exception.

There are also SDLC – standard development lifecycle – methods around prototyping. Particularly if you move to rules from humans. Let's look at that underwriting example. You have underwriters [who] are applying judgment. You might be able to observe over time the things that are repetitive. You’re looking at how [humans] judge things and do things – looking at it in retrospect, using process intelligence to find out what’s happening. Then you can take and move some of those rules from human into service oriented architecture [SOA] – or transactions, in the old way of thinking. Or you slide the rules from humans to some kind of rules engine. Portions of the system development cycle make sense for the things that will be highly automated. There are some methods around managing rules and events also in that toolbox.

Then there are certain ways of adapting your methods to your individual culture. If you are in a maniacal measurement environment and that's the way you work, you're going to lean in a certain direction. You're going to tip in a certain direction, and maniacal measurement [organizations] that have pretty decent processes to begin are probably going to tip towards Six Sigma.

Manufacturing is quite typically well tuned over time. In order to invest in physical aspects to build tractors, they had to be good at processes. It’s a fact of life, before you pour concrete and throw large expensive machines on the shop floor, you'd better know what you're doing – you better know how the process works. They're better at it.

You take a white collar world – they're not necessarily good at processes...

Most BPM tools are really, really expensive. They require professional services to get those first few projects up and running. So, where do you advise a company to jump in when it comes to the tools?

I think when you do mega-processes, that’s when you’re going to need professional services. I think in the BPM world, the service dollar to the software dollar is like two to one. It's not [like it was] in the integration days, when it was five to one, five dollars spent on services vs. one dollar spent on software. It's becoming more commoditized, and it's going down. We suspect that large scope processes are going to run in the five to one ratio. If you're doing something that's extremely important to the company, such as underwriting, you can spend some dollars – absolutely – unless you have a bevy of talent on board.

Now, that's not the tool; it’s how to do process that most matters. The tool pieces are really quite small in terms of process that are quite adaptable, making sure that you have a common vocabulary, making sure you understand which is a part that has to be done. As we move from functional excellence to process excellence, there's a shift in what’s important. So if I was manager A over function A, I have a certain set of goals I want to get, and manager B, who is over function B, has certain goals he wants to get. The process is how you're going to change that wherein you're working together. That's not easy to do. That's organizational change.

How do you establish which vendor to work with? I mean, 181...

Out of the 181 [identified by Gartner] there are about 25 that are not the specialists. For instance, [one company] decided that they were big on compliance. [Another is] concentrating on process document management. [A third] is quite good at accounting type things. That kind of narrows it down. There are the power platform vendors that are somewhat lagging in terms of functionality and bigger players that are in the $100 million range [where Global 360 resides] and others in the $30 million to $35 million range. Then there’s little specialty vendors. Now, the important things is to say, "Look, what's my process? Oh, it's underwriting. What kind of underwriting? Oh, it's life underwriting. So, we can use one of the general process platforms or we could find a specialist." Then you have a list of maybe of your favorite platform player, some independent BPM players and some specialists.

What are the areas where you see Global 360 as especially strong domain-wise?

We have some really nice strength in the insurance area. We have a nice strength in state government, moving heavily into federal government. We have even some supply chain expertise. We've got some healthcare [expertise].

Last question: Where's the BPM industry in the Gartner hype cycle right now?

I think that BPM pure plays are square in the trough of disillusionment.

Here’s why: Because there's too many of them. I think the other thing that is missing is that there are not a lot of published best practices in methodology, not a common methodology, I think, it's a slimming down of the vendors which has already happened and is happening, that puts it in the trough. The other thing that puts it in the trough is, we are scaling up processing. But so far, have you heard of any BPM malfunction for the last years?

Not really.

I haven't heard of any and where I was sitting [at Gartner], I was apt to hear them. As we take on bigger processes, larger scopes, you may hear about some meltdowns. So there may be a trough of disillusionment trigger. For instance, when I get a new car, I think I can handle it and at 30 or 40 miles an hour. But as soon as I step on the gas and I start doing 70, 80, 90, I realize that the steering is much more sensitive than I thought and I can't really handle it that well. I think we've got that same phenomena that's going to going to happen for some shops. So, in other words, if, in fact, we have one big vaporous meltdown on a very public process project, that could put some pressure on things

I just haven't sensed anybody that's struggling so bad that it took a company out. What we have found is that companies that are careful about dealing with it are more successful so far. But it could drop that into the trough of disillusionment. Business process management suites and optimization are approaching their peaks. Optimization is at [its] early peak and BPM suites are at the top right now. Pure plays are in the trough. You just can't have that many little players, unless there are so many process problems that I've underestimated it.

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