Business Information Management Reengineering (BIMR) Broadening our Reach for Greater Gains EMC Proven Professional Knowledge Sharing October, 2007 Eugene Demigillo EMC APJ Partner Support Center Demigillo_eugene@emc.com
Table of Contents Abstract... 3 Introduction... 4 What are the different Information Management Processes?... 5 Example of a Information Management Process... 6 What is Business Process Reengineering?... 8 What is BIMR?... 9 Rewards of executing a successful BIMR exercise... 9 When should BIMR be executed?... 10 Who should execute BIMR?... 10 Considerations in delivering a BIMR... 11 Steps to Deliver BIMR... 12 Conclusion... 13 Author s Biography... 13 Disclaimer: The views, processes or methodologies published in this compilation are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect EMC Corporation s views, processes or methodologies.
Abstract We have delivered various solutions (platforms and software) and services (Consolidation, Continuity, Compliance, Comprehensive BURA, Content Management, and Classification) that benefit our customers businesses based primarily on our ownership of the technologies. However, helping customers to re-engineer their Information Management processes and procedures is another opportunity. Most of our customers have been doing the same things repetitively over time. More often than not, introducing our solutions entails additional work for them. This can, at times, become a deal breaker. It often takes between six to nine months for customers to see how they can align their processes with our solutions. During the time spent on this focus, they tend to delay other purchases or projects unnecessarily elongating the sales cycle. Offering BIMR consulting to customers would benefit both EMC and the customer. This may be a bit outside of our standard practices, a step outside of our comfort zone. As the leading provider of information management and infrastructure solutions, however, it is imperative for us to deliver this service to customers. Topics: - Understanding Business Process Reengineering - Understanding the Value of Information Management/Infrastructure - Why do customers need BIMR? (Who needs a BIMR?) - How do we execute BIMR? (A Methodology) - Rewards of a successful BIMR Exercise
Introduction EMC Corporation is the recognized world leader in storage and information management products, solutions and services. We lead because we focus our business on our customers to maximize the value of their information assets, maximize their information infrastructure and management investments, improve their operational service levels, lower their operational costs, react quickly to change, achieve compliance with regulations, protect their information from loss and unauthorized access, and manage and automate more of their overall infrastructure. We serve customers of varying sizes, from small scale industries to enterprise corporations. As the No. 1 Information Lifecycle Management and Infrastructure company, vendor, and partner to our global customers, it s time for us to expand our offering to deliver a complete Total Customer Experience. Before engaging EMC, most of our customers have been performing the same operational processes for such a long time that they have become standard practices. In fact, these practices have become company traditions passed on from one generation to another - from a skilled professional to a new hire in continuous cycles. Operational processes have, in many cases, become family traditions. Our customers invested in our technology, platforms and solutions because they are confident that we will simplify and improve their processes, address their business concerns, and support future growth. However, many of our solutions implementations add to customers workload and expense. Customers tend to run our solutions in parallel instead of integrating them into existing business operational practices. At the onset, our solutions add new processes to the workload of existing resources. Some customers even add more resources to manage these processes. Working as an EMC Project Manager for about three years prior to my current role, I saw that our customers require about 6 to 9 months establishing new processes that are aligned with the use and functionality of our solutions. Sometimes, it even takes longer. Among the reasons for this initial lack of integration: Customers are afraid to work on our systems and solutions either because they re new and unfamiliar, or they have not been educated prior to implementation. Customers do not completely comprehend how our solutions can be integrated with their current operational practices. Most of our customers resources are dedicated to managing or conducting current processes and practices. They ve grown attached to or comfortable with the standards associated with their existing role. The customers existing workforce fears that our technologies will replace them.
These concerns impact our customers, EMC, and our partners. Among the prevalent impacts: Delayed project acceptance, adoption and completion Delayed project closure and booking in EMC Increased customer workload Inability of our sales teams to proactively promote additional solutions to our customers Lower Service Levels resulting in dissatisfied or disappointed customers Lower CSATs and Electronic Services Transaction Surveys It is not enough for us to install our solutions and conclude the relationship upon the customers acceptance. We need to take our partner and customer relationships to the next level, to help our customers to map the integration of our solutions to their processes. We need to better familiarize ourselves with our customers business operations, processes, policies and procedures in order to understand how our solutions can be leveraged to deliver higher returns to their business. Currently, there is no formal practice driving this change in the business relationship. As we expand our portfolio of information management technologies and solutions, our business practices must also change. We must assume more responsibility and project ownership because our solutions cover a larger scope of our customers business. Only when the customer has fully aligned our solutions to their processes or procedures can we say that we have delivered a complete and satisfactory Total Customer Experience (TCE). A formal strategy and service is required to take us to this next level- a strategy that is organized, objective-focused and results-driven. This, to me, is where the need for a Business Information Management Reengineering service (BIMR) arises. What are the different Information Management Processes? There are many customer naming conventions or definitions assigned to information management processes or procedures. Some of these processes are defined as standard practices but some are not because most customers wouldn t know who in the company owns them, or how to qualify and document them. These processes are sometimes performed by more than one section or department within a company; thus no one owns and documents them. EMC employees and partners may be familiar with common naming conventions or terms that customers use. However, we may be unfamiliar with the customer s documentation and the complete detail of each customer process. Here are some examples of different customer information management practices that I have encountered (some of them are standard process names that most of you will be familiar with): Data Backup and Recovery Process Archiving Processes Data Migration/Transfers
Data Security o Securing data based on company policies, national and international regulatory requirements o Human Resource Turnover Information Processing o Data Warehousing o Data Mining o Data Manipulation o Management Reporting o Financial Reporting Information Gathering & Retrieval o Distributed data collection/consolidation Information Distribution / Sharing o Distributing across different remote sites (i.e. Pricelists, Inventory, marketing campaigns, etc) o Remote Management and Reporting o Parallel business operations o Internal and External data availability Detailing the customers step-by-step procedures allows us to: Determine how our solutions can be integrated into their processes Identify how critical these processes are to business operations Identify potential bottlenecks that can adversely affect the business Identify how our other solutions can help to address potential problems Work with the customer to develop ROI analyses Ensure that our solutions are fully leveraged to provide business value Example of a Information Management Process Let s take a look at a typical customer process: Backup. It is one of the most common processes, and best illustrates how much we know about our customer. (Illustration follows on next page)
We can immediately see how much work the customer does to conduct their backup; particularly when we realize that this is just a simple example. Imagine the more complex processes that customers perform. For instance, when a company with multiple branches attempts to gather their daily sales and inventory, more processes and resources would necessarily be involved. I once worked with a customer who wanted to consolidate their information storage. There was one system that we were migrating where the total capacity was over 25TB without much server around it. Data grew at about 40 GB per week. Curiously, I asked the IT manager what the data was for. I was told that the capacity held data consolidated from different systems. They were doing ftp collection of data across their network; they didn t even try to backup this data due to its sheer volume. What does this tell you? Is there a better way for the client to manage this data? Would we have been more effective addressing the process concern rather than the storage? We returned three years later, devoted our time to understanding their process better, and addressed the problem.
What is Business Process Reengineering? Before elaborating on the concept of BIMR, let us review the concept of Business Process Reengineering. It is a long-standing IT process and is my basis for introducing Business Information Management Reengineering. Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is the analysis of workflow and processes within an organization that may cover internal and external dealings that results in coming up with a redesign to deliver improvements and efficiencies in performances with measures. BPR has been defined as a formal strategy to improve business processes since the early 1990s. Prior to joining EMC, I was a Project Manager implementing different Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software for eight years. BPR services have always been part of the vendors deliverables of solutions/applications, and it is normally executed prior to implementations. The customers existing processes are documented and reengineered to integrate the new applications. The customers manager must formally approve the new processes to ensure that they are endorsed and accepted by all affected business units. Apart from ERP, Customer Resource Management, Financial Systems, Business Intelligence Tools, Data Warehousing and Content Management application vendors deliver this service. SAP, JDE, and Oracle Apps are some examples of these application software vendors. My concept of Business Information Management Reengineering involves applying the same principles and strategies to a formal service that we can offer and deliver to customers. The main focus of the service, though, is to document our customers Information Management processes to develop reengineering recommendations showcasing how our solutions can deliver measurable business improvements. Information and information management processes can easily be neglected until a disaster occurs. As more and more information management applications, tools, and infrastructures become available, customers need to review these processes and practices to determine how technologies can be leveraged to support their business. Companies implementing these technologies need a formal process or reengineering to immediately integrate disparate technologies, minimize costs and reap the benefits of their investments. This process cannot be done haphazardly, but requires a deliberate and thorough strategy of process review and analysis to ensure that all details are covered. Thus, the need for Business Information Management Reengineering (BIMR).
What is BIMR? Business Information Management Reengineering (BIMR) is a service that develops documentation of a customer s business information management practices, policies, and procedures including improvement analysis and reengineering recommendations. This would help customers leverage their existing investments in Information Management software, platforms and solutions or identify process improvements through reengineering or new technologies. Business Information Management Reengineering can help customers identify potential risks or bottlenecks in their processes that may adversely impact their business. Without BIMR, customers would not become aware of these impacts until a disaster occurs. This may be a pioneering service that EMC can offer to customers. Rather than enforcing our own methodologies, we collaborate with the client to identify and implement technology adopting policies and procedures. Our customers may be surprised about the availability of this service and may initially be hesitant to participate. One strategy to overcome their hesitation is to present an overview of the exercise prior to a formal engagement so they can be fully aware of its objectives and the expected outcomes and benefits. Rewards of executing a successful BIMR exercise Executing a BIMR hastens the delivery of Total Customer Experience by: Delivering a documented business process change (before and after) that allows customers to easily recognize and visualize improvements Facilitating the immediate adoption and integration of information management solutions to the customers processes, policies and procedures Delivering the immediate appreciation of benefits derived from the implementation of information management solutions Concluding and closing implementation projects faster Other benefits that EMC can expect from the delivery of the BIMR service are: EMC can learn how our platforms and solutions deliver positive impact to our customers businesses and processes Business intelligence that may help us develop recommended process improvements through the use of our information management platforms, software and solutions Customers will more quickly establish ILM strategies EMC can improve and expand our business relationships with our customers We can deliver the information management solution that customers need at the right time, at the right place, and at the right cost. ILM delivery on time and every time. Delivering the BIMR can be executed along with information assessment or classification services (i.e. File System Assessment, Email System Assessment, Data Classification, etc.). This will complete the assessment process and outcome. With BIMR, we become proactive consultants in our customers development of information management and infrastructure strategies.
When should BIMR be executed? There are several situations where BIMR is best executed: 1. When a customer is deploying an Information Management solution (e.g., when implementing Storage Infrastructures) 2. When our customers do not have any documentation of their Information Management Processes 3. When there is a planned Information Management process change or evaluation BIMR should be delivered as an independent service program as it aims to cover all information management processes and procedures in order to develop a thorough assessment and recommendation. These process improvements may or may not be addressed by any of our solutions. Present the service offering to your customer and gain their commitment to ensure full support and disclosure. The customer must formally accept your proposal and agree to work with you openly in order to execute a successful BIMR. Ensure that the customer will provide: Full disclosure of required information Availability of all relevant resources Appropriate time to review program details Who should execute BIMR? As the undisputed technology leader of Information Management and Infrastructure solutions, it is our responsibility to pioneer this service to our customers, along with the help of our partners. After all, who would know information management better? We also understand best how our solutions can be used or leveraged to deliver the desired business benefits. We just need to understand and document the customers existing processes or procedures. Delivering this service as part of our service portfolio will allow us to: 1. Help our customers develop their Information Lifecycle Management and Infrastructure plan 2. Immediately conclude the delivery of TCE during and after the implementation of our solutions 3. Determine how our solutions directly deliver improvements and benefit our customer s business and processes 4. Be more proactive in supporting our customer s business needs and identify how extensively we can help our customers 5. Help develop our resources skills in understanding our customers business needs, processes and strategies.
Considerations in delivering a BIMR There are three things that should be considered in executing a meaningful BIMR: the customer s business plans, their IT plans, and their ILM strategies. 1. Business Plan As information management processes sometimes involves more than just one business unit so you must look at the macro level of the business. The customer s business plan defines the overall business goals and strategies. Having this information will ensure that your recommendations are aligned and timed according to their planned business strategies. The business plan is normally reviewed and firmed on a yearly basis. To garner this information, you ll need to speak with the customer s management executives, get an audience with the owners and the top Cs (CEO, CIO, CFO), and the different executives who own applications used in their business. Though this plan is normally made public, it is best that you have a management champion who ll keep you aware of any business developments that may affect existing strategies. 2. Information System (IS) Plan What most customers call Information System Plan or IS plan defines the IT investment plans or strategies to invest and deploy IT applications and infrastructure to support the business. The IS plan will tell you the priority investments of the IT group. Referencing this plan ensures that you align your recommendations where the business can immediately benefit. You can also help customers draft those plans or validate any existing plan with your discovery. You would then be able to refer appropriate and necessary information management solutions that will support it. The IS Plan always supports the Business Plan, but the execution timetable is more immediate, normally within the year. In order to know the customer s IS plan, you have to talk to the CIO and IT Managers as they develop and maintain the IS Plan. 3. Information Lifecycle Management Strategies Realistically, I have not encountered a company who has documented their Information Lifecycle Management plans and strategies. Nor have I encountered any templates that will help guide customers in building one. Such a template should contain customer information management plans, strategies and processes. Be sure to ask if the customer has documentation of any information management processes and procedures that they may have done to comply with ISO certification. These can be a rich source of information.
Steps to Deliver BIMR Here is how I recommend we deliver a BIMR service: Step 1 Solicit your customer s agreement for a review of their Business Information Management Process. It is crucial that we get the customer s formal agreement to go through the process, to share information, and to allocate time and resources. All associated resources should be made available, from the Application users, owners, and administrators to the IT personnel providing the infrastructure and support. Define appropriate timelines and schedule them properly. Step 2 - Conduct an Assessment of your customer s Information Management processes. Identify all the different information management processes. Use some of the examples stated earlier as a starting point. You can also use the EMC information management strategies of Consolidate, Backup & Recover, Archive and Protect. Step 4 Detail the process. Be guided by the 4 W and H method of questioning: What? Where? When?, Who?, and How? What are the different steps or phases of each process? What are the applications, systems and tools used in the process? What is the duration of each step? Where is the process executed? Where (in which step) can the business be directly affected? Who owns or is responsible for each process or step? How are they executed? Step 5 Determine the Business Value of those processes. How does the process affect the business and/or each department within the company? If the process encounters problems, what is the impact to the business? Step 6 Define and present process reengineering recommendations. Draft the recommendation by either leveraging a recently implemented information management solution or Introduce a solution that will help improve the process. All of these steps should be documented properly and delivered as a formal recommendation to the customer. Take the opportunity to present your discovery and recommendation as well.
Conclusion As our portfolio of platforms and solutions continues to expand, we should also expand our services portfolio. We ve covered most standard information management processes directly associate with our solutions. Encompassing everything in a formal service beyond our solutions elevates our relationship with customers to the next level. This allows us to better understand their business, processes, people and resources, eventually allowing us to offer and position our solutions and services for the right reasons, at the right time and for the right cost. Business Information Management Reengineering (BIMR) may not be the name of the service. By whatever name, this service is surely the next step on our journey to ensure the Total Customer Experience. Author s Biography Mr. Demigillo has over 17 years experience in Information Technology and Telecommunication. His work experiences cover Sales and Marketing, Technical/Application Consultancy to Project Management. Currently, he is a Senior Partner Enablement Consultant for APJ looking after Partner Enablement Program development and delivery. Prior to joining EMC, he was a country manager for an ERP solutions provider in the Philippines managing a team of 15 people delivering sales and implementation services. Prior to that role, he was an IT Manager for a large manufacturing firm handling a team of 30 persons.