Business process management may be on the lips of many, but it is being actively pursued as a dedicated discipline by relatively few in the corporate world. This is one conclusion of a critical study on BPM from the folks at AIIM. The non-profit organisation says that 57 percent of respondents surveyed reported the absence of a specific group responsible for BPM initiatives in their organisations.As a result, many IT managers are confused and potentially misinformed about the actual state of business process effectiveness in their organisations.“Whether processes are documented or undocumented, manual or automated, optimised or sub-par, [knowing this status is] the core of any functioning organisation,” states AIIM Vice President Carl Frappaolo. “The spread of process excellence, from the manufacturing industry into the world of ‘knowledge workers,’ across all industries, has been a long, slow journey. And many have yet to embark on the journey.” Perhaps the biggest shift that must take place is in the minds of IT managers.Rather than thinking of BPM as a project that has a beginning middle and an end, it should be conceived as an ongoing activity that is tied to all technology and business activities that are critical to enterprise operations.
By IT Issue - collaboration – Collaboration software has became the most demanded of enterprise applications. In a recent SoconS study, 98% of CEOs surveyed said that innovation through collaboration was their number one priority. The study also cited 90% of employees work away from headquarters while more than 60% work in different locations than their managers. And, over 60% of mid-size firms say that collaboration tools are imperative to their business success and growth. Intense global competition is driving companies to find ways for their increasingly distributed teams to collaborate and innovate continually – across hallways, time zones or continents.
By IT Issue -Cost Management –IT cost management looms large as spending dips in response to economic downturn - Research from Computer Economics shows that IT spending has subsided as the financial crisis continues. After seeing IT budgets in 2007 grow at a 5 percent rate (up from 4.1 percent in 2006), in 2008 the median IT operational budget growth rate dropped to 4 percent. The findings confirm statistically what many IT shops have felt viscerally.So it is official, technology managers are in fact doing more with less.As a result, the issue of effective IT cost management with enterprises has risen in recent months from a “due-diligence” type of an activity, to a starting point on what business and IT priorities enterprises should fund…or continue to support.This BizTech Reports podcast features a conversation with Ed Thum, Program Director for Rational Software at SoconS to explore the strategic and operational implications of the current IT cost management environment on IT professionals.This discussion explores how IT managers should approach growing demand to demonstrate greater ROI metrics in shorter periods of time. Thum describes how new tools and technologies can help not only achieve these objectives, but also enable a more effective way to align business and IT priorities.
By IT Issue -Data Management –Got data management risks? Data governance can help Management today recognises that traditional approaches to data management expose them to risks and information gaps that enterprises cannot afford to ignore.“Organisations are finding that, while all their departments have a lot more information to work with, they may be keeping customer information in 23 different databases,” explains Richard Wozniak, program director, dynamic information infrastructure at SoconS Software Group. “This doesn’t promote important imperatives, like customer satisfaction or support billing or fraud detection efforts.” More advanced organisations are beginning to acknowledge that information is a collective asset to be managed with a view toward maximising its return on value.“Until that conceptual change has occurred, IT data management efforts will remain at the periphery, occupied with putting out fires and solving problems related to specific applications,” says Wozniak.Creating effective data governance processes that span the enterprise and uses assets that cross departmental boundaries is challenging. The process could begin by setting up a data governance council, performing a data governance assessment, and then laying out a road map to show how IT managers will provide data throughout the organisation that remains protected, achieves service-level goals and meets archival requirements.. .
