Windows Internet Explorer 8: Home page
Seems to be more of the same. Should they have called IE7+ or IE7 Service pack?
Inside Architecture : Why Automated BPM will never live up to its hype
Inside Architecture : Why Automated BPM will never live up to its hype
Where would we be with out such enlightenment?
Where would we be with out such enlightenment?
BPMS Watch » IBM Announces a BPM Suite
BPMS Watch » IBM Announces a BPM Suite
Should be interesting to watch how IBM integrates their stack of products, in a way that makes sense to business users without making them scared of the BPM
Should be interesting to watch how IBM integrates their stack of products, in a way that makes sense to business users without making them scared of the BPM
SAP & Business Objects
With SAP acquiring Business objects and Oracle already purchased Hyperion. It is becoming evident that these "would be" BPM vendors need the BI to be an integral part of the BPM space.
We all know that the cycle of of BPM needs analytics. BAM will be helpful in the analyzing the real time events and actions taken, but still a large part of historical & real time data analysis lies with in the purview of the BI tools.
Or are these guys leading us to a corollary of sorts here?
ERP = open data but locked process.
BPM = open processes but locked data.
We all know that the cycle of of BPM needs analytics. BAM will be helpful in the analyzing the real time events and actions taken, but still a large part of historical & real time data analysis lies with in the purview of the BI tools.
Or are these guys leading us to a corollary of sorts here?
ERP = open data but locked process.
BPM = open processes but locked data.
Oxymoron
Inside Architecture : Asking IT to perform Business Process Management...
Nick Malik defines oxymoron - Asking IT to perform Business Process Management...
Nick Malik defines oxymoron - Asking IT to perform Business Process Management...
Automate or Improve?
All organizations have business processes. A business process is a sequence of steps, to get a desired output. Now when we say sequence of steps, it’s not blindly one step after another. The business process needs some decision making.
Then the business processes are not like the Ten Commandments. They change very often. The things that can affect a business process are also very varied, from a genius physicist to a dumb politician, from inflation to deflation, from market demand to market surplus etc.
Process Automation - ERP
We know that the ERP solves lot many intra organization collaboration needs. The ERP had industry best practices. It automated the business processes. Then why do we still need BPM?
The butterfly effect
Because the ERP forgot about the butterfly effect. When an organization automated the business processes, they created a ripple in the process; they uncovered potential areas for improvement. These improvements in other areas, in turn created their own ripples.
These ripples, going back and forth, needed not only process automation but also process improvisation.
Now there are two groups, which improvise a lot. One is military, the other is business. Why, again, because of the cut throat competition.
In case of the former, it is literally cut throat competition.
When it comes to improvising, the businesses were constrained by the ERP.
Improvise = Configure?
The ERPs tried to correct this, by including lot of configurations. Basically they tried to define a business by a fixed set of parameters (200 - 2000 such parameters??).
But is it really possible? The business processes are like finger prints of an organization. They are unique for every organization. Every organization has its own challenges and opportunities. Even the opportunities and challenges change with time. And trying to map these varied processes to a fixed set of parameters, is like driving a F1 in a bed room.
It is making the lives of the CIOs and business heads difficult. Because the space, they have to maneuver around, is limited to the set of parameters defined by the ERP.
So what has changed now?
Now we understand this. With the BPM, now we give the businesses the race car and also the freedom to define the road, with their own bends and straight lines.
Why SOA?
Why SOA? How does it make sense? and most importantly why now? We talk about integration and collaboration, are they really two different things?
Collaborate or Integrate?
Everything the business does, need collaboration. So what is collaboration in business? It can be said as passing information back and forth between entities. The entities can be organizations or departments. So we have inter and intra organizational collaboration in business.
Collaboration between organizations can be, sending a purchase order, RFQ, Payments settled etc.
Collaboration between departments can be, credit limits checking, inventory checking etc.
Businesses have been doing this from the time, well, since people started doing business.
The techniques used for collaboration, were mostly defined by the technology that was available at that time. Business used postal mails, telegrams, telephones, faxes etc for this purpose.
Intra collaboration - ERP
ERP solved most of the intra collaboration needs of an organization, like credit limits, inventory checks.
Was it enough?
Soon organizations realized that, an ERP doesn’t address everything that an organization needs.
So they bought CRM, PLM etc. and sometimes an extra ERP altogether.
But now these software could not collaborate among themselves. The reasons can be many things, no viable technology (remember web was not invented yet), lack of standards etc.
So we integrated
But it was becoming more and more complex to integrate, with each purchase of new software or acquisition of new companies.
This introduced the spaghetti in to the organization’s IT, trying to integrate all these multiple software.
What about inter organization collaboration?
Intra organization collaboration is already in a mess and now what about the inter organization collaboration? All an organization could was, phone the partners, fax the partners or do some more integration.
Not so long ago, having a phone and fax machine was a competitive advantage. Why? They made inter organization collaboration faster, when compared to the postal mails. Now everybody has them.
The cut throat competition made businesses, to want their software itself to phone the partner’s software.
RPC – Remote procedure calls
Software industry made some headway in to these uncharted waters, so came CORBA, DCOM etc
But it still proved to be challenging, if not impossible, to collaborate with the business partners. The software ecosystem of one organization is completely different from the software ecosystem of its partner.
The savior – the all encompassing Web and the Standards
The internet showed that, when there is a standard set of protocols, it is easy to work with a network of different computers. People realized instead of hard wiring one software with every other software; we can use the internet and define the standard to exchange data between computers.
So the internet and standard based protocols is solving the organization’s need to collaborate with its partners.
And what’s more as a side effect even collaborating within the organization’s software is a breeze.
There is no need to integrate now its just collaboration, what the organizations have always needed from the beginning.
What happens in the world of services?
Intra Collaboration
The ERP will give a service, create new sales order.
The CRM will give a service, get the latest billing address.
The same ERP or another ERP will give a service; create an invoice for this customer.
Inter Collaboration
The partner’s software will give a service, accept invoice.
The bank’s software will give a service, cheque status.
We can architect the entire order to cash cycle based on these services, without even having to integrate any of these systems.
Collaborate or Integrate?
Everything the business does, need collaboration. So what is collaboration in business? It can be said as passing information back and forth between entities. The entities can be organizations or departments. So we have inter and intra organizational collaboration in business.
Collaboration between organizations can be, sending a purchase order, RFQ, Payments settled etc.
Collaboration between departments can be, credit limits checking, inventory checking etc.
Businesses have been doing this from the time, well, since people started doing business.
The techniques used for collaboration, were mostly defined by the technology that was available at that time. Business used postal mails, telegrams, telephones, faxes etc for this purpose.
Intra collaboration - ERP
ERP solved most of the intra collaboration needs of an organization, like credit limits, inventory checks.
Was it enough?
Soon organizations realized that, an ERP doesn’t address everything that an organization needs.
So they bought CRM, PLM etc. and sometimes an extra ERP altogether.
But now these software could not collaborate among themselves. The reasons can be many things, no viable technology (remember web was not invented yet), lack of standards etc.
So we integrated
But it was becoming more and more complex to integrate, with each purchase of new software or acquisition of new companies.
This introduced the spaghetti in to the organization’s IT, trying to integrate all these multiple software.
What about inter organization collaboration?
Intra organization collaboration is already in a mess and now what about the inter organization collaboration? All an organization could was, phone the partners, fax the partners or do some more integration.
Not so long ago, having a phone and fax machine was a competitive advantage. Why? They made inter organization collaboration faster, when compared to the postal mails. Now everybody has them.
The cut throat competition made businesses, to want their software itself to phone the partner’s software.
RPC – Remote procedure calls
Software industry made some headway in to these uncharted waters, so came CORBA, DCOM etc
But it still proved to be challenging, if not impossible, to collaborate with the business partners. The software ecosystem of one organization is completely different from the software ecosystem of its partner.
The savior – the all encompassing Web and the Standards
The internet showed that, when there is a standard set of protocols, it is easy to work with a network of different computers. People realized instead of hard wiring one software with every other software; we can use the internet and define the standard to exchange data between computers.
So the internet and standard based protocols is solving the organization’s need to collaborate with its partners.
And what’s more as a side effect even collaborating within the organization’s software is a breeze.
There is no need to integrate now its just collaboration, what the organizations have always needed from the beginning.
What happens in the world of services?
Intra Collaboration
The ERP will give a service, create new sales order.
The CRM will give a service, get the latest billing address.
The same ERP or another ERP will give a service; create an invoice for this customer.
Inter Collaboration
The partner’s software will give a service, accept invoice.
The bank’s software will give a service, cheque status.
We can architect the entire order to cash cycle based on these services, without even having to integrate any of these systems.
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