BPM for Information Technology Transforming IT through Business Process Management

Transcription

1 white paper BPM for Information Technoloy Transformin IT throuh Business Process Manaement This paper is intended for CIOs, IT Executives and Senior IT Manaers interested in understandin more about the benefits of Business Process Manaement (BPM) for IT oranizations. The demand for IT professionals to do more with less is as prevalent as ever. Efficiency in operations, meetin SLA oals and satisfyin business demands remain top priorities in improvin IT operations. IT professionals are discoverin that a focus on BPM methodoloy and technoloy delivers sinificant returns in all of these areas. This paper will explore the importance of process, key process challenes facin today s complex IT oranizations, and the primary benefits IT oranizations can ain throuh implementin a Business Process Manaement (BPM) solution.

2 BPM for Information Technoloy Introduction Information Technoloy (IT) departments have evolved dramatically over the past several decades to become a critical component of every enterprise. IT departments today are tasked with two primary, and sometimes competin, objectives. The first, driven by executive manaement, is to make IT transformative to the business throuh new and innovative services. The second, driven by the realities of complex technoloy infrastructures, is to fiht the daily fires and do the maintenance and uprades required just to keep the lihts on. With fewer and fewer resources available, manaers on the IT front line often strule to meet SLAs for the services already available, let alone develop, deploy and maintain new services. IT departments commonly find themselves in a cycle of reactiveness that prevents enactin proactive processes to improve IT performance. Business Process Manaement (BPM) software is emerin as the common solution to ain control over daily IT operations and enable IT to focus on transformative business solutions. BPM lets IT quickly desin, execute, manae, and optimize standard IT processes and helps solve several IT process issues, includin: Interatin people and existin systems into a clearly defined holistic view of an oranization s processes Empowerin analysts to document processes and IT users to rapidly build and deploy new process-based applications Enforcin best practices and improvin quality throuh automation and collaboration Capturin process performance aainst oals and enablin a culture of continuous process improvement 3.1% 1.2% 1.2% 12.4% 10.6% 34.8% 34.8% 1.9% Don t Know 100% 75% - 99% 60% - 75% 45% - 60% 30% - 45% 15% - 30% 0% - 15% Benchmark Survey Report: Business Process Manaement for IT, October 2008 Process Challenes in IT In a recent Benchmark Survey Report, IT oranizations were asked What percentae of your SLA Goals does your IT department achieve. Nearly 35% of respondents indicated that they lacked effective tools to measure SLA performance and could only answer the question as Don t Know. Additionally, just over 50% of respondents indicated they could not provide accurate SLA information or were meetin less than 60% of their SLA oals. (1)

3 The failure to meet performance oals in IT is commonly a result of poorly documented processes and controls for common IT procedures, and a lack of enforcement of best practices. Investments in process methodoloies like Information Technoloy Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and ISO have helped in definin processes and procedures, but do not come with automated enforcement and measurements aainst performance oals. COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) software solutions have provided some level of automation, but often lack flexibility to adapt to unique processes and can be costly to chane and maintain as the business evolves. Additionally, ineffective process controls can result in a wide rane of issues in IT departments. Common issues faced by IT departments include: Hih rate of IT issues and bus Lon trainin times for new employees before they are effective Dependence on one person for IT systems Inability to chane with the business Low employee moral with hih turn-over Unable to quickly satisfy customer requests Unable to reduce costs while maintainin quality Many IT oranizations are findin that BPM software provides the riht balance for enablin a process centric methodoloy like ITIL or ISO 9000 while additionally providin a flexible platform for rapidly buildin new process based applications. Achievin Process Balance with BPM IT oranizations must operate with the riht balance of process rior, collaboration, and visibility to ensure they can achieve maximum aility while maintainin control. Most IT manaers acknowlede this fact as the recent study indicates. Respondents in the Benchmark Survey Report were asked How does process improvement rate amon corporate oals?, over 80% ranked it as Very Important or Important in achievin the objectives in (1) Achievin this balance can be difficult for IT oranizations. Most successful companies have turned to well established process methodoloies like ITIL. ITIL can create a processminded oranization that is in a constant state of process evaluation and improvement. But enactin an ITIL practice across IT is not a complete solution. In a July 2008 article from CIO Update titled, The 3 Keys to ITIL Success, it is noted that amon those that adopt ITIL for IT processes, 69% of IT projects still fail due to a variety of reasons, includin lack of effective communication, poor resource plannin, unrealistic deadlines, and poorly defined requirements. (2) These ITIL projects fail due to a lack of basic tools to enable communication and collaboration while maintainin process control and visibility. BPM platforms are the ideal environment to enact this type of control and communication in IT oranizations. BPM systems natively unite all constituents in a project throuh a common task and collaboration interface. As key milestones are completed or missed, communication and notifications are automatically sent out raisin awareness of the project state. Furthermore, BPM provides a real-time view into employee workloads and empowers manaers to take control of work items and reallocate work to alternative resources. Finally, BPM enforces all steps in a process to ensure critical actions, such as project plannin and requirements reviews are not overlooked Very Important Important Medium Priority Low Priority Benchmark Survey Report: Busines Process Manaement for IT, October 2008

4 BPM for Information Technoloy BPM has been applied to a variety of IT processes to help IT executives and manaers ensure success in all aspects of their operations. Some examples of BPM processes implemented include: Help Desk and Incident Manaement Chane Manaement Infrastructure Manaement Bu and Issue Trackin IT Procurement and Requisitions Project Plannin and Budetin IT audit and compliance Example BPM Scenario IT Incident Manaement Applyin BPM software and methodoloy has provided results across a variety of IT operational processes. Oranizations that have deployed BPM systems for critical IT processes have seen reductions in errors, increases in overall satisfaction with IT operations, and more than a 70% improvement in processin times for routine IT procedures. A typical process that is a ood candidate for BPM software and methodoloies is the IT Incident Manaement process. IT Incident Manaement is a term used to cateorize any unexpected exception across a broad rane of daily IT operations. This miht include a simple client help desk request, an unexpected server failure, or even a bu report and patch request for a software component. Exceptions covered by IT Incident Manaement processes are often stron candidates for process improvement and automation as they result in disruption to other daily processes, drain resources from strateic IT projects, and add unforeseen cost to IT operations. Oranizations that fail to effectively manae these exceptions will continuously strule with other strateic initiatives and routine processes. An effective IT Incident Manaement process built inside a BPM platform provides many beneficial features, includin: Real-time visibility into incident workload across IT staff Automated routin of incidents to resources with appropriate skills to resolve the issue Enforcement of deadlines and SLA s in respondin to each incident A secure collaboration platform for IT staff to work toether in resolvin incidents Storae of historical incident and resolution details in a content manaement system to capture IT knowlede Rules and decision makin for automatic routin and responses for common issues Process and bottleneck analysis to enable optimization of the process Only BPM systems include the necessary components to effectively implement an incident manaement process that enables manaers to remove inefficiencies and reduce operatin costs. Typical implementations of a BPM solution for a process like incident manaement start with an analysis phase where business analysts capture the process and rules in a business user friendly process modelin tool. The reat advantae of BPM systems is evident once the desin is complete, as the process model captured by business analysts can now be immediately executed for automation of the incident manaement process. The model driven desin in BPM eared for less technical business users enables aile development methodoloies and reduces costs without any need for advanced code development.

5 BPM Components and Methodoloy BPM software is a collection of software tools paired with a process centric methodoloy that allow companies to desin, execute, manae, and optimize business processes from beinnin to end by connectin people and applications in seamless and easily controlled process flows. BPM is used by oranizations to automate manual paper processes, address exception handlin and extend the process reach of their existin business systems. Key components of a BPM Suite include: Process Modelin for business and IT users to quickly model and deploy new processes Process Execution Enines includin interation interfaces, ability to incorporate web services and complete audit trackin Process Manaement for task and queue manaement, status reportin and chane manaement Business Activity Monitorin providin detailed trackin and audit-ability of all actions and decision in a process Process Optimization for the identification of bottlenecks and continuous improvement of process performance User Interface Desin for quickly creatin electronic forms and dashboard interfaces Content Manaement for storin and routin critical documents to key process participants Business Rules Manaement enablin the easy definition and execution of key business rules in a process Interation and Connectivity to quickly incorporate existin leacy and ERP systems into new finance processes Manaement and Administration to ensure proper security structures are in place to control access to key processes and work items Throuh use of these software components, customers are empowered to follow and manae process improvement lifecycles dictated by process methodoloies like ITIL and Six Sima. A complete BPMS platform should include key components for each stae in the methodoloy: Desin, Execute, Manae, and Optimize. Desin Phase. BPMS platform provides functions for desinin both the process as well as the user interfaces for the functional process. Execute Phase. BPMS platform provides interation hooks into existin systems and scales to meet the oranization s process demands. Manae Phase. BPMS platform provides manaer interfaces for monitorin and re-routin work items, handlin exceptions, and monitorin real-time performance of processes. Optimize Phase. BPMS platform provides business analysts the ability to areate performance metrics over historical work, analyze performance data, identify bottlenecks and make improvements to the process. Desin Optimize Execute Manae Toether, the BPM software components and methodoloy enable customers to effectively control and improve daily process and realize real value from investments in process improvement.

6 BPM for Information Technoloy Appian BPM in Action Case Study: Concur Concur is the world s leadin provider of on-demand employee spend manaement services. As one of the fastest rowin Software-as-a-Service companies today, Concur s IT operations are a critical component to ensurin customer satisfaction and continued revenue rowth. Concur required a solution that would enable it to scale its IT operations to keep pace with the rowin business, create cross-department visibility and enhance communication in IT, enforce process standards for compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley, SAS-70, and ISO 20000, and reduce operatin costs by improvin process efficiency. Prior to implementin Appian s BPM Suite platform, Concur operated with a few standard processes with no enforcement and no ability to prove compliance with IT procedures. All processes were tracked with spreadsheets and , resultin in employee time spent updatin spreadsheets rather than doin the actual IT work. Concur completed the first deployment in 10 weeks and has now implemented over 65 IT processes includin processes such as Production Handoff and Chane Request Manaement. The implementation allowed the IT oranization to achieve important certifications and row IT capacity while not raisin costs. Results from utilizin the Appian BPM Suite for Concur s critical IT processes include: Appian Enterprise enables Concur to easily increase the efficiency of our processes in response to the demands of our clients, increasin the quality and effectiveness of our services. Appian has delivered an annual cost avoidance of reater than $700, Cristen Rankin Business Process Analyst Concur 58% reduction in time for Production Handoffs 25 days to 10 days ISO certification for Chane Requests with over $50,000 in cost avoidance $700,000 in annual cost avoidance and efficiency improvements across all IT processes Case Study: Telus Corporation Telus is a leadin national telecommunications company based in Canada with over 11.5 million customer connections across products ranin from wireless, wireline, and internet subscriptions. Another major component of Telus s business is in IT Outsourcin leverain their shared infrastructure to support other corporate clients in their IT needs. Telus extensive IT infrastructure requires a dedicated and consistent approach in the installation and manaement of all IT components. The existin environment required a reat amount of manual effort which was subject to inconsistencies, human errors, and duplicate data entry for a variety of IT processes. Telus deployed the Appian BPM Suite taretin first their Initial Event Monitorin Setup (IEMS) process. This process ensured the proper deployment of systems like BMC Run Book Automation (RBA) and other event monitorin tools when a new server was bein added to the infrastructure. Telus averaes 31 new server additions and confiurations in the infrastructure every week with each process requirin updates to a number of IT support systems. After deployment, the Appian solution automated the setup and confiuration of BMC RBA throuh web services interation, and automatically updates the AssetCenter, Remedy, and Aent Confi systems, eliminatin human errors present durin previous manual confiurations of these systems. The resultin deployment of just this one process reduced processin times and costs by 30% for the manaement and setup of new hardware in the Telus infrastructure.

7 Conclusion Why BPM For IT? For IT oranizations process automation throuh BPM delivers: Improved operational efficiencies and increased performance visibility Enforcement of compliance and certification such as SOX, ISO 20000, ITIL, and COBIT Reduced costs in runnin daily IT operations Increased satisfaction by the business in IT performance Oranizations that master IT process manaement at lower costs are free to deliver more strateic value to the oranization. BPM can automate manual processes and aument partially automated processes drivin process standardization and compliance currently impedin many companies from achievin optimal business performance. Why Appian BPM? Appian delivers a comprehensive BPM Suite that provides a complete set of process, analytics, content and collaboration capabilites in a unified packae, enablin oranizations to quickly and efficiently build composite process applications. This unified solution is proven the easiest to deploy, adopt and use and ensures reduced deployment time and lower maintenance costs over other BPM solutions. References (1) Business Process Manaement for IT, Benchmark Survey Report, October, 2008 (2) The 3 Keys to ITIL Success, CIO Update, July 2008

8 About Appian As the market leader in modern BPM software, Appian delivers a Work Platform that unites users with all their data, processes, and collaborations in one environment, on any mobile device, throuh a simple social interface. Appian's Business Process Manaement (BPM) Suite seamlessly interates work automation with native mobile and social capabilities. Appian is available on-premise and in the cloud, with complete portability. More than 3.5 million users, from Fortune 100 companies to the mid-market and small businesses worldwide, trust Appian to power their critical business processes. For more information, visit